Deadly Beloved(110)

“We’re going to go visit Julianne Corbett,” Gregor said. “That’s all we can do. She’s the only link left.”

“Maybe we ought to do something about putting guards around her,” John Jackman said. “We don’t want somebody blowing her to kingdom come and doing God only knows what to the image of law enforcement in the city of Philadelphia.”

“Well, we at least ought to go see her. Although I think she’s told us all she really can, under the circumstances. It’s worth one last try.”

“And if it doesn’t work? Then what?”

Karla’s body shifted on the bed. Carmencita was instantly alert. She hurried to Karla’s side and peered down into her face. Then she got out her tiny flashlight and started poking at Karla’s eyes. Evan thought he was going to faint.

“That’s interesting,” Carmencita said.

“What?”

It was Gregor Demarkian who said “what,” but Jackman got to the bedside before him. Evan backed away a little and winced. Karla wasn’t perfectly still anymore. Something odd seemed to be happening to her chest. It was hitching and heaving at uncertain intervals, and the rest of her body seemed to shudder.

Carmencita leaned forward and hit the emergency light. “Get out of the way,” she told Jackman and Demarkian. “This may be a seizure. I need room to work.”

Seizure? Evan felt suddenly sick. It was his fault. Of course it was. He should never have gotten her those French fries.

At just that moment Karla’s eyes flew open and she sat straight up in bed. She looked wild—and she definitely looked green—but she didn’t look as if she was having a seizure.

“Oh, shit,” she said in a perfectly clear voice.

Then she threw up all over Carmencita Gonzalez’s bright white uniform.





FIVE


1.


BY THE TIME GREGOR Demarkian and John Jackman got downtown to Julianne Corbett’s constituent office, the clouds were pasted across the sky as far as anybody could see, and they were dead black. The rain was thick and hot and heavy in the air. The lightning was random and sharp and the thunder was loud and deep and much too close. Gregor could remember only one other storm in his life that was anything like this, and that had been a full-scale hurricane, lashing at an island he hadn’t wanted to be on in the first place. Somehow, in spite of the fact that there was nothing for the wind to blow against here but solid brick, this was worse. The taller buildings all looked blank and uninhabited, like the buildings on the eastern side of the old Berlin Wall. The few places where there were lights looked just plain wrong. This was a relatively old section of the city, although not as old as the one around Independence Hall. The buildings here had metal fire escapes fastened into the backs of them and windows that opened so that people could get some air or jump. The cars parked against the curbs were either old or oddly tentative, as if they wished they were someplace else. Gregor saw at least six of those metal steering-wheel clamps, the suburbanites’ vehicular protection against the big city. Gregor had no idea if it worked.

John Jackman got a couple of umbrellas out of the trunk of his car and handed one to Gregor. By the time he had gone through all the motions, he was already soaking wet.

“God only knows what these are going to do,” he said. “The office is only over there.”

Gregor looked “over there.” The big plate-glass revolving doors were still and dark. On the floors above the street, almost all the windows were lit up. People were working.

“Does she know we’re coming?” he asked.

“I called her up and told her this morning, just the way you told me to. Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“Of course I know what I’m doing,” Gregor said.

The street was empty of traffic and very wet. Gregor strode across it, jaywalking and not caring if he did, and went in through the revolving doors. John Jackman followed him and went to stand by the elevators. Gregor stood next to the small newsstand and looked at the magazines. Whoever was supposed to man the newsstand was missing. He and Jackman were the only people in the lobby. The magazines looked damp and wilted in spite of the fact that they had been safely out of the rain. The one Bride’s magazine looked positively grim.

“It must be something psychological,” Gregor said. “Every picture of every bride I see lately looks grim.”

“Let’s go,” John Jackman said. “Here’s the elevator.”

Gregor made himself stop wondering what was going wrong with this poor bride’s marriage—she wasn’t even a real bride, for God’s sake, she was just a model—and went to join John in the elevator. John pushed the button for Julianne Corbett’s floor and looked up at the ceiling.