CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Cinema patrons brushed by me, talking and laughing, apologizing when they bumped into my knees. Disembodied voices announced that seating would begin in five minutes for theatres 14, 17, and 25. The lights seemed to pulse and recede, pulse and recede, far more slowly than in their earlier strobe effect. I thought I might faint. I placed my hands on either side of my body on the cushioned seat and closed my eyes.

Your door code used Thursday night. Cops looking for you.

This was the nightmare sprung to life. What could I do? Where could I go? If they were checking my phone records, they would quickly come across Domenic’s name; it wouldn’t be long before they searched for me at his apartment. And if they did find me there, cowering behind his black leather couch, wouldn’t that make me look just as guilty as my DNA traces and my door code and all the other circumstantial evidence piling up against me? Maybe, but once I had a lawyer to help me, I could deal reasonably with the police. Now was not the to surrender to the cops. Now was the time to flee.

I opened my eyes. Everything flickered, which upped my panic quotient until I realized the effect was caused by the frenetic lobby lights. Probably the whole world would look better once I got out of this place.

I stood, then remembered to check for the second message. This one had not been encoded. “TAYLOR ANSWER ME ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?” I dictated a brief reply: “Got both messages. I’m trying to decide what to do.” Then I pushed through the early-evening date-night crowd, all fresh young teenagers and well-groomed professionals, and stepped out onto the Chicago streets.

It was a little after seven, still light enough to see, but late enough so that all the streetlights and building lights and neon signs had come on. Pedestrians crowded past me, eager and oblivious; cars moved by more slowly, caught in traffic, horns sounding, voices calling, noise and irritation and excitement seeming to rise up organically from the streets and sidewalks. The whole world was ablaze and in motion, and I was heading back to Domenic’s to hide in darkness and silence.

The corner where Michigan crossed Chicago Avenue was such a popular spot that it featured three teleport booths right in a row, though at the moment there were about fifteen people waiting to use them. I fell numbly behind the last couple in line, two young Hispanic men nuzzling each other with great affection. Until I could figure out where else to go, Domenic’s place still seemed like my best option, but what would I do once I got there? Scan the headlines to see how reporters were currently handicapping the Great Duncan Phillips Suspect Race? Was I still considered the most likely killer, or had someone pulled ahead of me while I wandered the city? Which would be worse, learning that I was still the leading candidate—or discovering that that horrific honor had passed to someone I cared about?

My turn to step into the portal, and by rote I punched in the transfer numbers. I had exited onto the sidewalk at the other end before I realized I had automatically keyed in the most familiar code—the one for my own neighborhood. I took two steps away from the booth, stopped dead, and half-pivoted back toward the terminal before I consciously registered what I was seeing before me.

A silver Mustang, parked at the curb. Two men leaning against it, watching me.

Terror stabbed me in the throat.

“Taylor!” Bram shouted, but Siracusano didn’t waste time with greetings. He lunged toward me, flinging his big body across the ten yards that separated us. I whirled and dashed back into the booth, slamming the door shut just as his hand scratched across the glass. No time to think of Domenic’s code. I jammed my thumb against the NEXT button and felt myself flung across the city between two heartbeats.

I caught my footing and peered out. Where was I? I couldn’t even see a street sign.

Five people waited impatiently to use my booth. Over their shoulders, I could see some tumbledown brick apartments, rusted cars lining the rubbled street. Close enough to the Hot Zone to be dangerous. Not someplace I wanted to linger. NEXT.

I found myself back in downtown Chicago, in the middle booth of a row of teleport stations. Just as I thought it might be a good idea to lose myself in the crowded city streets, the door on the neighboring portal opened, and a large man dashed out. I shrieked and slammed the NEXT button again.

Rematerialized somewhere else, getting another straitened view of an indeterminate high-rise neighborhood. I took a moment to breathe. Had that been Siracusano? Had he hit the FOLO button and caught up with me on my second stop? Had he seen me? Would he shove his way past the waiting commuters, jump in the booth I had used, follow me again?

Dear God, dear God . . .

I punched NEXT, felt myself dissolve and reassemble, then paused a split second to get my bearings. Rogers Park, I thought; I was pretty sure I recognized the metal spine of the southbound L tracks. A long line of night revelers waited for their turn in the booth.

I hit NEXT and moved on.

A discreetly lit station on a green, quiet street. I guessed I was somewhere in the northern suburbs, Winnetka or Highland Park. No one waiting to leave this neighborhood. Why would they? No terrors here. But this was a big enough station that it boasted three booths. Just in case the man I’d seen had been Siracusano, just in case he was still trailing me, I scurried out of this gate, slammed the door on the adjoining one, and pushed NEXT again.

Oak Street Beach. The lake was already dark, forsaken this early by the scarlet kiss of the westering sun. A few students played volleyball, black silhouettes dancing against the sinister gray of the water.

NEXT.

O’Hare, crowded and noisy. Tempting. No. But I took the opportunity to change booths.

NEXT.

Downtown again, cars and pedestrians and somewhere a frantic shouting.

NEXT.

A warehouse district. Spooky and silent. One or two stark lights giving the great buildings a hulking, ominous presence.

NEXT.

A flash of red brick; could have been anywhere in the city.

NEXT.

Rush Street. The smell of booze, even through the closed glass door. Laughter. Insouciance. Untroubled youth.

NEXT.

The lobby of some giant glass-fronted corporate office building. Empty. Big enough to change teleport booths.

NEXT.

Another well-maintained, verdant neighborhood street. No one was waiting to use the teleport booth, so I took the chance of stepping outside to catch my breath and try to figure out where I was. I thought I could glimpse the curve of the lake through a scrim of trees, so I might be back in one of the northern suburbs, maybe Lake Forest or Kenilworth.

I found it hard to believe that Siracusano could have tracked me through all my random jumps, but I felt too exposed and vulnerable to stand here long, trying to put my thoughts in order. I could feel myself shaking with stress or the systemic shock of disintegrating and reintegrating a dozen times in as many minutes. Had they ever done studies on how often a body could survive teleport within a short period of time without completely refusing to cohere again? Had I exceeded that limit?

I needed a place to rest and think. I wondered how close I was to the grounds of the Bahá?í temple in Wilmette. The gorgeous building, with its white stone walls and swooping arches, was set in the middle of lush, manicured lawns. Maybe I could crawl beneath one of its dozens of ornamental bushes and just lie quietly for an hour.

Although . . . Wilmette wasn’t that far from Evanston. And maybe, just maybe, I had access to a haven there.

My memory played back Caroline’s voice from yesterday’s conversation. I have to go to Houston tomorrow evening and I probably won’t come back till the middle of next week. I remembered exactly where her condo was—and I remembered her door code, too. It was my mother’s birthday; how could I forget?

Surely Caroline wouldn’t mind if I made my way to her condo and turned her place into a small, brief refuge. As long as I wasn’t really the murderer, of course.

I didn’t care if she minded. I had no other options.

I forced myself back into the booth to make one more brief jump to Caroline’s quiet neighborhood. Trying not to appear too furtive, I exited the portal and headed quickly up the street, wishing my footsteps didn’t sound so loud. I couldn’t help glancing nervously over my shoulder as I checked for approaching cars. But those that passed by were filled with passengers who showed no interest in me. And none were cop cars. And none were silver Mustangs.

I resisted the urge to run as I covered the last block to Caroline’s red-brick condo. With as much nonchalance as I could muster, I typed 1-1-2-4 into the outer keypad, and the door unlocked. Thank God she had had no reason to change her code since the day I had been here last.

The day I had picked up the information about applying for a job with Duncan Phillips. Oh, what a long time ago that seemed like now.

The same combination opened the door to her condo, and I quickly slipped inside. I shut the door and sagged against it, taking several deep breaths. Be calm, be calm, now is not the time to panic. Even if the cops were staking out Domenic’s place—and my mother’s and Jason’s and Marika’s—surely they couldn’t keep track of every acquaintance I might have in the world? Surely it would occur to no one that I might come here?

I took another deep breath and then lifted my head, looking around. Caroline’s place was exactly as I remembered it. Big open rooms, just now shuttered against the night. A low-wattage desk lamp had been left on, and it faintly illuminated the glass and metal furnishings, the cool neutrals of the sofa and carpet, the almost antiseptically clean spaces that in my place were filled with boxes and newspapers and junk. Caroline’s condo looked just like Caroline.

“Thank you,” I whispered to the ambient air. “You’ve saved my life.”

When I was certain the world would not suddenly explode with gunfire—or dissolve around me as my body began to reflexively teleport—I took a few steps deeper into the room.

Better send Jason a message, tell him where I was. I pulled out a sleek silver dining room chair, which turned out to more comfortable than it looked, and perched on the very edge. I didn’t want to mess anything up. Hardly a way to show gratitude.

Since I had to encrypt the message, I first spent a few minutes flipping through my sociology book and writing out numerical sequences that I could dictate into the WristWatcher. I was too exhausted to go into much detail, so I just said I was at a friend’s and gave him the address, spelling out the street name letter by letter. Let him decode for a change and see how much fun it was.

After I’d sent the message, I started to relax. To tell the truth, I was starting to feel hungry. All the expenditure of adrenaline on terror, I supposed. I’d had popcorn and soda at the theater, but it wasn’t exactly what you’d call a meal. I was sure it wasn’t safe for me to order a food delivery, but I absolutely could not add to my iniquities by raiding Caroline’s refrigerator.

To distract myself, I stood up and began moving around the rooms, examining items one by one. In one corner of the dining area was an open display unit holding four levels of colored glass curios in remarkable shapes. One appeared to be an aquarium tenanted by exotic fish. Others were floral arrangements of lush blossoms, vases in cascading colors, Mardi Gras masks, great feathered birds. All fragile, all beautiful, all devoid of any practical use. Just the sorts of things Caroline would collect, I thought.

In the living room, I checked the bookcases, floor-to-ceiling ebony shelves inset with mother-of-pearl motifs. I was afraid to pull out any volumes to get a closer look because they all looked like first editions in stiff, crumbling binding with faint gold lettering on the spines. Her specialty was the 19th century, so I was not surprised to see a full set of Dickens, a selection of Wilde, all of Thackeray—and, by God, a complete edition of the original O.E.D., volume by volume. I wondered what fortune she had spent on that.

Everything else within view was similarly exquisite, rare, and fabulously expensive. How had Caroline afforded such treasures? She was a few rungs higher than I was on the academic ladder, but her salary simply could not have been great enough to cover all of these bounties. Maybe she was independently wealthy and only taught for the joy of it, or maybe she had a rich relative with excellent taste who liked to shower her with gifts.

Or maybe she stole things. I fantasized about that for a moment, the icy and polished Caroline plotting to spirit copies of Jude the Obscure from antique bookstores, perhaps wearing big puffy caftans under which to conceal her purloined treasures . . .

I shook my head. Now I was turning giddy, a second and even less desirable reaction to stress and reprieve. I would have to chance a quick trip out to pick up food and essentials, or my mind would skitter into lunacy.

Maybe I should find a way to conceal my features before I left the condo. Would police have issued warrants for my arrest already? My face was all over the news sites. Any zealous citizen on the street might recognize me and alert the cops to my presence. I had to make some effort at disguise.

Although I felt squeamish about it, I sorted through Caroline’s hall closet, but didn’t find any hats or shawls. I headed back to the dining room, where a marble-topped sideboard stood on spindly bronze legs. Maybe Caroline had a nice lacy table runner that I could use as a headscarf if I tied it creatively enough. I rifled through the top two drawers, finding only old-fashioned fountain pens, pressed handmade paper, a wooden box containing a set of tableware made from real silver, and a few embroidered doilies that would not serve my purpose.

Well, hell. I closed the drawers and stood frowning down at the marble surface, wondering what to do next. The arrangement of items laid out there made me smile. I remembered noticing them the last time I was here and thinking they were very unlike Caroline. The cross-stitched piece had probably been done by a niece or goddaughter, the wooden horse might have come from the same source, and the small glass globe on the tripod—who knows, a friend with a sense of humor might have thought Caroline needed a crystal ball.

A car prowled by outside, its headlights glancing through the room and igniting a blaze inside the glass globe. Actually, it was more occluded than ordinary glass, denser, with dozens of slanting interior planes that formed galaxies of buried color.

I could not resist picking it up to examine it more closely. Even in the low light, it retained its brilliant sparkle. I made a wizard’s gesture with it, holding it before me as if expecting it to flare with visions, then bringing it back coquettishly against my cheek.

My eyes narrowed with a flash of d é j à vu ; where I had seen that gesture before? I extended my hand again with the globe in my palm, then brought it back to cradle against my face.

I had seen somebody make that exact same motion recently, offering and reclaiming a bright opal treasure—

Opal.

I nearly dropped the globe in my sudden haste to put it back, and it rocked unsteadily a moment in its golden base. I backed up a few paces, my hands across my mouth. Opal, yes, it could be an opal. I had seen jewels just about that size and shape on display in Duncan Phillips’ hologallery. He gave them as parting gifts to all his ex-mistresses, after he sculpted them in light—

Caroline had set up my job interview with Duncan Phillips. She had said the offer came through the dean, but perhaps it had been mentioned to her directly, in an intimate setting, one night over dinner or in the bedroom—

And I had seen her sobbing in her office, begging me to tell her how to endure the loss of love. Didn’t you want to get even with him? Didn’t you want to hurt him back? she had asked.

She must have spent some time in the mansion during their affair, must have known at least some of its rhythms and routines. She would have known where to find Duncan Phillips late at night and where the loaded guns were arrayed on the wall. But how had she cut off the monitoring system and blocked the cameras?

And how had she snuck in, using a private door code, since surely her own (if she’d ever had one) had been discontinued after the breakup?

I use the same door code for everything , I heard my voice say. Charlotte Bront?’s birthday.

Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.

I backed up a few more paces from the glittering jewel, now taking on, in the erratic light, a baleful, malevolent glow. Had she sent me there, introduced me to the household, simply to have a way in when the need for murder arose? Surely not. Surely she had been happily enough in love with him when she directed me his way, for it had been weeks later that I found her weeping and hysterical. What had occurred to push her over the edge, what had made her suddenly and violently decide the world could not support his presence for another hour?

The new fiancée. Whether or not the news sites had the story right, Caroline had heard the announcement about the young blonde actress. She’d seen photos of them together, laughing and happy, and all her hot anger had cooled into an icy spike of hatred.

And as for how she’d thwarted the camera—well, Dennis knew how to short out the system, and he’d taught Quentin, and no doubt any number of enterprising young felons could be found to teach an apt student a trick that appeared relatively simple.

So she’d guessed the gate code, and she’d developed the motive, and she’d obtained the means when she slipped into the house late Thursday night, pulled a gun off the wall, and shot Duncan Phillips.

Suddenly her condo did not seem like such a safe place after all.

I had just reached that conclusion and spun toward the exit when there was a small beeping as the key code was punched in. The door opened, and Caroline walked in.

The light from the hallway caught me in a perfect beam, leaving her a startled shadow just six feet away. She gasped when she saw me but, being Caroline, did not scream. Being Caroline, she assessed the situation coolly and came instantly to the obvious conclusion.

“Taylor! You must be hiding from the police. I saw a video monitor at O’Hare, and your face was all over the screen.”

She doesn’t know what you suspect; she doesn’t realize she has anything to hide. Good, good. Play your part now. Be the wrongly accused fugitive.

“I’m so sorry to have showed up here like this,” I said, my voice shaking and raw. “The police were waiting at my apartment—and I didn’t think, I just ran. I didn’t know where to go. I remembered that you’d said you’d be out of town and I remembered where you lived—I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have just walked in like this—”

“No, don’t apologize, of course you can come to me,” she said. She stepped inside and closed the door, locking it. Only then did she flick on the overhead chandelier, quickly dialing it down to a low level to prevent anyone on the street from seeing in. “I can’t imagine how dreadful your situation must be.”

“Caroline, I didn’t kill him,” I said desperately. “I know it looks bad, but I didn’t do it.”

“No, I’m sure you didn’t. I would never believe that of you.”

“But the police think I did.”

She came closer, dropping her purse and briefcase on the glass table and frowning at me, as if trying to read the explanation in my face. “But why? I didn’t hear all the details.” She made a sudden irritated sound and held her hands up as if warding off a big sloppy dog. “I spent two hours at O’Hare trying to get to Bezos, but all the long-distance teleport gates were down so I just came back. But the whole time I was at the terminal, I kept catching glimpses of you on the television monitors. What in the world is going on?”

“I swear it’s all just circumstantial evidence. Duncan Phillips was killed with one of his own guns late Thursday night. I was in Atlanta then—but I spent a little time at Olympic Terminal, and they can prove that. And my DNA traces were on the gun. And apparently my gate code was used at the mansion that night. All that adds up to the fact that I could have been at the mansion right when he was killed.”

Her frown deepened; she looked as though she was reconsidering her earlier quick profession of faith in my innocence. She was a better actress than I was. “Taylor. That’s pretty bad.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Did you go to his house that night?”

“No. But I’m not sure how I can prove it.”

“Well, then—did someone else have your gate code?”

You did, you cold bitch . “I don’t think so?” I said, because I was certainly not about to betray Bordeaux to Caroline. “But I know people hack passwords all the time. Maybe someone stole my code?”

She shook her head. “Taylor, this doesn’t sound good. But I’m sure the Chicago police department will figure it out.”

“I hope so.”

“Now,” she said a little more briskly, “Do you want some tea? Why don’t you take a seat and I’ll put on the kettle?”

“Thanks, Caroline,” I said gratefully, sinking into one of the silver chairs. “I don’t know—I realize I shouldn’t have come here—I didn’t know what to do—”

“Please. Stop apologizing. I’ll be back in a moment.”

She disappeared into the kitchen and I sat at the table, wondering wildly what I should do. Run for it? Bolt out the door and race for the teleport booth, screaming for help as she chased after me? Would she chase after me? What would she do? Did she believe me? I mean, obviously she knew I hadn’t killed Duncan Phillips, but did she believe that I had innocently stumbled into her condo, having no clue that she was the murderer? That seemed too farfetched, or it would to me if I’d had a guilty conscience.

Maybe, even now, she was in the kitchen poisoning my tea.

What was I going to do?

She came back into the dining room, carrying an old-fashioned silver tray laden with delicate rose-patterned teacups on matching saucers. “Sugar? Milk?” she asked, setting the tray on the table. “And are you hungry? I’ve got fresh bagels in the kitchen.”

“Starving,” I admitted. “No milk or sugar.”

“Cream cheese on your bagel?”

“That would be divine.”

“Let me just get some placemats out,” she said, turning to the marble-topped sideboard.

I was looking at the door, calculating the distance from my chair, so I did not at first notice the quality of her silence. But suddenly, realizing she had frozen in place, I glanced over at her still figure. She was standing with her back to me, gazing down at the sideboard, examining all of her treasures, seeming to know by some phosphorescent residue of my hands that I had touched her glittering globe—

I had left a lace doily on the marble countertop.

My heart contracted as I saw the frilly little circle of netting neatly spread over the cold stone. Stupid, careless, how could I have been so dumb? She seemed to be working it out as she stood there, eyes fixed on the still-life arrangement—doily, dragonfly, horse, opal—guessing what I knew about Duncan Phillips’ women, about her, what I had found in her condo and what I had pieced together.

I did not even breathe until she spoke again.

Which she did without even turning around to face me. “Charlotte Bront?’s birthday,” she said in an uninflected voice. “Your door code to the Phillips house.”

“Yes.”

“You use the same password for everything.”

“Yes.”

“When did you know?”

“When I saw the opal. About five minutes before you walked through the door.”

She nodded, still not looking at me, and stood silently for another few moments.

And then spun to the nearby display case, grabbed one of her art-glass vases and smashed it against the marble sideboard as she dove past. I screamed, scrambling to my feet, too late, too late. I felt the wicked edge slice across my left shoulder, felt the flesh part as smoothly as two eyelids opening. I screamed again and dashed for the door, holding my skin together, feeling the blood leak through my fingers. I could not solve the lock and I rolled away from the door as she leapt for me again, as graceful as a fencer with a foil. The glass edge tinkled against the wood but only splinters fell away. She whirled and stalked after me, weapon upraised.

“Caroline!” I cried, backing away from her, bleeding all over her carpet, searching for weapons. “Caroline, stop! Stop!”

In the living room now—couch pillows in my hands—flinging them in her face, aiming at her eyes. She dodged, pivoted to follow my progress. I reached blindly to a table behind me—a lamp—a book—a paperweight. I threw them all amid great crashes of glass and metal. The base of the lamp hit her hard across the chin and she shouted something at me, primal, wordless—

Then she lunged for me again, knocking me to the floor, slashing at my face while I tried to slap her hands away. She cut my cheek, she sliced at my throat, and both of my hands were bleeding. I was screaming, she was screaming, the teakettle in the kitchen raised a frantic shrieking, and the pounding at the door grew first louder and louder and then fainter and fainter as the world blurred and whirled away.