3
Jamie waited in the rear of the cab until she spotted Henry through the glass doors of The Light's front entrance. There he was, sitting behind his kiosk, just where he was supposed to be. Time to move. Heart pounding, she hopped from the cab and raced across the sidewalk.
As she jammed the ringer button, her head snapped left and right—would have rotated full circle had her neck allowed—looking for Demente-dist goons. She knew Jack was somewhere nearby, hiding in the shadows. Still, if a couple of TPs suddenly jumped out and pulled her into a van, was he close enough to help?
She heard a noise and jumped. About a hundred feet to her left two men in raincoats were gliding from a parked sedan.
Oh, God!
She started hammering on the glass and at just that moment the door swung open. She leaped inside and elbowed Henry out of the way to pull it closed behind her. As it latched she peered through the glass and saw the two men standing on the sidewalk, halfway to the door, staring at her. She resisted the urge to give them the finger.
Henry laughed. "What's the hurry, Ms. Grant?"
Jamie figured if she told him that people were after her because of a story she was about to write, he'd call the cops.
She turned and smiled. "Got a big story to write, Henry."
"Must be a whopper to bring you in at this hour. I mean, this is early even for you." He leaned closer and looked at her. "Or is it late?"
She glanced up. The lobby clock showed ten after two.
"Late, Henry," she said as she started for the elevators. "Very late."
She hadn't slept well Wednesday, finally giving up on the possibility around four A.M. Thursday. She'd hauled herself out of bed and headed for the office. Here it was, Friday morning, which meant she'd been going full speed for over twenty-two hours. Yet she didn't feel the slightest hint of fatigue. She was jazzed. Adrenaline strummed heavy-metal power chords along her axons.
Good thing too, otherwise the horrors of the night—cutting through Coop's skin… his body blowing to pieces—would have reduced her to a trembling basket case by now.
But she couldn't dwell on that.
On the third floor she turned on all the overhead lights and wound through the deserted cubicle farm to her office. She paused on the threshold and looked at the comforting confusion of strewn-about books, newspapers, printouts, and scribbled-up yellow notepads.
Bless this mess, she thought. I'm home.
She dropped into her desk chair, lit a ciggie, and turned on her terminal. She'd rewound the tape during the trip back, so all she had to do now was pull the recorder from her shoulder bag and hit PLAY.
She had a bad moment when she first heard the murdered man's voice begin to speak to her from the tiny speaker…
'"You mean why Vm not in suspended animation, and how I came to be a shell of my former self? Know what? If you hold me up to your ear you can hear the ocean roar."
… but she held herself together and began to transcribe.