5
Jack had left Levy at the diner and spent what was left of the afternoon and the early evening searching for Dawn—but circumspectly. He couldn't ask too many questions, couldn't put word out on the street. Not with the agency looking too. If they heard someone else was asking about the same girl, they'd want to know who that someone might be.
Whatever. The search had been fruitless. Dark had fallen with not a sign of her Jeep. For all he knew she'd left the state. But that seemed unlikely. She had no family. Where could she go except home or to a friend? No sign of her at home, and Christy had said she didn't have many friends, but that didn't mean she wasn't crashing somewhere.
Jack had a feeling she wasn't far from home. So he kept searching. Sooner or later he'd spot that Jeep.
But not in the dark.
The Queensboro Bridge loomed ahead. And beyond that, the blaze of Manhattan. Gia would be waiting, but he couldn't face her now. She'd know immediately that something was wrong and quiz him till he told her. He had to get used to this oDNA thing.
Used to it… odd way to think. He'd carried it all his life but now he had to get used to it. No, he had to get used to knowing about it.
He called her and told her he'd be spending the night at his own place.
"How come?" she said.
"This thing I'm working on. I might get called during the night and I don't want to disturb the whole house."
He didn't mind lying to other people, but he hated lying to Gia. Some-times the nature of his business made it necessary. Tonight the reasons were personal.
"Don't worry about that."
"It's better this way."
A pause, then, "What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"Something's wrong, I can tell. You're in danger, aren't you, and you're afraid to bring it here."
"No, it's nothing like that, I swear."
They went round and round on that for a while until Jack semicon-vinced her that he wasn't in danger and that everything was cool. He ended with a promise to see her tomorrow—if not for breakfast, definitely for lunch.
He hung up and approached the on-ramp to the bridge feeling like he'd swallowed fishhooks.