Him, the voice said, and Jake felt his heart stutter in his chest.

Jake slid by his father to get closer to the painting, to take in the details. As he moved forward, the thick metallic smell of blood grew fiercer. It was something he had experienced on the job in degrees much worse—many, many times before—but he had never been bothered by it. In fact, if pressed, he would admit to having rarely noticed it—it was something he automatically blocked out. But now, staring into the black faceless portrait scribbled onto the wall, the smell brought him back to the night his mother had been taken apart.

Jake’s arm came up, his fingers splayed, like a man about to push on a glass door. His hand contacted the sheetrock wall, fingers and palm pressed to the portrait, and he felt heat coming off of it. A thick, humid wave that moistened his palm. He pulled his hand away and it left no marks at all and it was only then, when he examined his skin and saw the pale white crosshatch that made up his own flesh, that he was brought back to the now.

Dr. Sobel stood frozen in the doorway.

“Close that fucking door,” Jake barked.

Sobel stepped in, closed the door, and bolted it.

With the sound of the lock being driven home, Jacob looked up and the distant animal fear in his eyes softened.

“He needs help.” Jake picked up the phone and held it out. “Call people. Help him. Now.”

Sobel punched in an extension and barked orders. “Get Dr. Sloviak to 312, immediately! Operating room, now. Page Dr. Ramirez and tell him it’s urgent.”

And for no reason other than he thought that was what a son should do, Jake put a hand on his father’s shoulder. His father rocked back and forth, his mouth bent into a low sad howl. Blood and spit and bandages splattered his face, chest, and neck. Blood from his hands dripped onto the floor. He was looking up, his face pointed at the wall. But his eyes no longer saw the portrait he had scraped with his splintered damaged bones or the room he was in. What he was staring at was beyond the wall, beyond the blood and the faceless image, beyond everything that was around him. He was staring at an image flickering madly against his gray matter, pulsing and beating and shrieking and pounding at his skull, trying to get out.

“He’s coming,” Jacob’s voice echoed up from a metal room a thousand feet into the earth. “And I can’t even barricade the door.” Then he closed his eyes, buried his face into his son’s chest, and for the first time Jake could remember, wept.

21

The weather had reached a neutral stasis that would be the last stretch of calm before Mother Nature let loose with her big German opera. The surf lapped calmly at the shore and the clear sky had not yet scudded over with clouds. Even off to the east, out at the edge of the horizon that framed the Atlantic, there was no cover to be seen. But the air felt different, as if it were charged by electrical particles, and Jake could feel the low voltage on his teeth. He drove with the windows open, the heavy salt air and the faint buzz of the atmosphere adding background color to the white noise fluttering through his head.

He pulled into the drive and saw a cello case tucked into the bushes beside the garage, the black fiberglass covered with Fragile stickers and airport luggage tags. Beside it was an old suit bag, Kay’s case, and a little yellow plastic suitcase, molded into the shape of a school bus. He hadn’t expected her this early and wished he had left a key. Then he thought about the mess inside and decided that it was better he hadn’t. He headed around the house to find them.

Kay’s motorcycle boots were on the top of the old staircase that led to the beach, its ancient rail the same color as a fossilized dinosaur bone. Beside them, like a novelty you hung from a car mirror, were Jeremy’s shoes, little sneakers with wide Velcro tongues. He spotted them a hundred yards west, Jeremy holding Kay’s hand and bouncing along with his little white bucket hat—the one they had bought for him in Florida last winter.

Kay was in tight jeans and a King Khan and the Shrines T-shirt, sleeves rolled up, bright slashes of tattoos tearing down each slender arm. As she moved, she swung her shoulders loosely, her body in that constant flow of music that came out in every little thing she did. Her purse was clamped diagonally across her chest—anti-purse-snatching style—bisecting her breasts. She was small and moved with the same compact energy as Jeremy, her hair swinging in the wind, and Jake was already imagining what she’d smell like when he buried his face in her. She looked up, saw him, and squatted to their son. She said something and his head swiveled up and down the beach, like a bird looking for food. He finally located Jake when she pointed and he took off at a run.

“Daddy!” Jeremy yelled, the high tinkle of his voice rising above the sound of the surf.

In that instant all the rust fell out of his life. Suddenly his father, Madame X and her child, Hauser and Dr. Sobel, the blond horsehairs in the evidence bag, and Dr. Reagan’s subterranean office all melted away. He ran to his son, scooped the boy up, and hugged him a little too tight for a little too long. Jeremy began to squirm and Jake put him down “Hey, Moriarty,” he said, plastering a kiss on his son’s cheek. “How we doing?”

Jeremy laughed, threw back his head. “I found a shell! Mommy has it! We were on the bus.”

“Daddy’s happy you’re here.”

“We got MoonPies! Big MoonPies!” Jeremy sang with an enthusiasm that said that MoonPies were better than money.

“Is that so?”

Kay was almost blushing, her freckled cheeks lifting with that gentle smile she had. “Want a MoonPie?” she asked, and threw herself into him.

“Is that what you youngsters are calling it these days?”

Kay was a few months away from her thirtieth birthday—a date she was dreading and Jake found himself secretly looking forward to. Jake hoped that the fifteen-year age spread between them would feel less cavernous if her birth year was only one digit off of his. Besides, Kay looked young for her age and Jake wanted her to be in a new decade so he wouldn’t feel so old. All he thought about now was how she smelled.

“I missed you,” he said into her hair, greedily gulping in her scent. It was clean and laced with a hint of papaya.

“I missed you more.”

He felt her arms tighten and the meaty presence of her breasts push into him. “You feel good.”

“You always say that.”

“Because you always feel good.” He squeezed her a little tighter before they unclenched and headed back to the house, fingers loosely intertwined, Jeremy running circles around them like a whippet, high on MoonPies, the bus ride, and at seeing Daddy.

“I brought you some clothes. Things a little more—” she scoured her vocabulary—“corporate.”

He kissed the tip of her nose, then her lips, and said, “You’re not staying.”

Kay stopped, looked up into his eyes. “I just schlepped my cello on a Greyhound that smelled like piss while managing to keep Jeremy entertained for the three-hour ride and you say I can’t stay. You must be real tired of having sex with me, mister.” She sounded only half serious.

Jake managed a small smile. He leaned over as they walked, kissed the top of her head, breathing in more papaya. “Dylan is rolling in tomorrow night. I have my hands full with Dad.” He paused, hesitated. “And I have a case here that’s going to take—”

“Whoa. Whoa. Back up, Mr. Not-getting-laid. Did you say you have a case?” She stopped and her grip tightened on his hand. He also stopped or he would have pulled her over.