Blood Trust Read Free Page B

direction. “She doesn’t give a good goddamn whether you’re here or not. If she ever did.” This unnatural head, with its great eyes and turnip nose, sat atop sloping shoulders seemingly without the benefit of a neck. He had the overlarge, rough, slabbed hands of a hod carrier, and his face was deeply scored by wind, sun, and backbreaking work. Though he was now an owner, he made it an ironclad rule never to sit behind a desk. He was vocal in his contempt for those who, as he put it, were that disgusting modern mythological beast, half man, half chair. As a consequence, he never sat when he could stand, never walked when he could run. And he never spoke when he could order or accuse.
    Now he looked around. “Why isn’t my niece here?” Dark clouds gathered along his brow. “Has she been informed?”
    “We tried.” Paull’s voice was mild and even. “It seems that Fearington is in lockdown.”
    The clouds were fulminating. “At this ungodly hour?”
    “Rehearsal lockdowns are designed to come at inconvenient times,” Jack said. “As in real life.”
    “Indeed.” Which was what Henry Holt Carson said when he didn’t know how to respond and didn’t want to lose momentum. He abhorred silence the way nature abhors a vacuum. “This is unacceptable. The girl needs to know the altered state of her mother.”
    “Is that what you call it?” Jack said.
    “Listen, you”—Carson’s stubby forefinger stabbed the air like a dagger—“you’ve already done enough to that girl. As far as this family is concerned, you’re a fucking menace.”
    “Oh, I see. This isn’t about Alli at all, is it?”
    Carson took a step toward him. “The fuck it isn’t.”
    Paull put his hands up. “Rancor isn’t appropriate, especially at this moment.”
    The two men ignored him, glaring fixedly at each other.
    “The. Fuck. It. Isn’t,” Carson repeated, emphasizing each word with a degree of menace. “And then you go and let my brother get killed.”
    “Now it comes out. No one could have—”
    “ You should have.” Carson squared his shoulders like a linebacker ready to make an open field tackle. “I mean, that’s what Eddie was always saying about you—Jack can do this, Jack can do that. According to him you were a fucking wizard.”
    “He had a squad of Secret Service agents whose job it was—”
    “They weren’t you, McClure.” He was up on the balls of his feet now, his hands curled into fists. “They. Weren’t. You.”
    At that moment, Paull’s phone burred. Something about the moment, the phone ringing in the dead of night, or the portentousness of the sound, stopped the escalating argument in its tracks.
    The two men stared at Paull as he drew out the phone, checked the number on the readout, then took the call. For what seemed the longest time he said not a word. But his gray eyes slid across the room and met Jack’s. His expression was not encouraging.
    “All right,” he said at length. “Make certain nothing gets out of control.” He sighed. “Yes, I know it’s already out of control. I meant—for God’s sake use your head, man!—don’t let it go any further. I’ll be right there.”
    He closed the phone and stood staring into space for some time.
    “Well,” Jack prompted, “what is it?”
    Paull, seeking to pull himself together, turned to Jack. He rubbed a hand across his forehead and said, “That was Naomi Wilde.”
    Jack’s adrenaline started to flow. “The Secret Service agent?”
    Paull nodded. “She’s at Fearington. The lockdown isn’t a drill, Jack.”
    *   *   *
    F EARINGTON ’ S GROUNDS were as dark as an abandoned coal mine. Not a light shone, not a figure could be seen in the blackness where trees, training courses, and firing ranges loomed. It was as if she and her detail were the only ones on the academy campus as they crunched through a thin layer of frost. Her breath appeared before her like an apparition. Then, from behind her, lights popped on in the