Well, Ilkovic, damn you, you’re the one being judged now.
The priest gave a eulogy in which he alluded to Milton’s Paradise Lost and how one of the hardest acts of faith was to justify God’s ways to human beings. “When something this incomprehensible occurs, we find ourselves powerless and adrift. What kind of God would permit such savagery? What kind of universe presents the conditions in which something this horrid can happen? We are tested to our utmost limits. Tested,” the priest emphasized. “If we are to persevere, we must not turn our backs on God. We must not turn our backs on the world. What we must hate and turn our backs on is the evil that we were put on earth to overcome.”
Turn our backs? Coltrane thought. I don’t think so. Daniel, I got even for you.
After the service, Coltrane accompanied Jennifer from the church. “Can you wait here a minute?” He went over to Daniel’s ex-wife, embraced her, and explained how sorry he was. Perhaps on medication, she didn’t seem to hear. Nolan, who evidently had been in the back of the church, watched from the side of the steps. After exchanging glances with him, Coltrane made his way back through the mourners, most of whom he recognized from various times when he had visited Daniel at the hospital.
“Are you okay?” he asked Jennifer.
“No.”
“I’m sorry,” Coltrane said.
“For what? You didn’t kill Daniel.”
“For what you had to go through.”
“What I’m sorry about,” Jennifer said, “is that you didn’t tell me what you were planning to do. You shut me out.”
“I didn’t want to put you in danger.”
“You still shut me out. You didn’t trust me enough to tell me what you were doing. You treated me like a stranger. But you’re a stranger. I would never have believed you were capable of…”
Coltrane glanced away, self-conscious.
“I’m a stranger to myself,” Jennifer said.
“What do you mean?”
“That argument we had about guns. Now that Ilkovic is dead, I feel like a coward.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I wish I’d had the chance to blow the bastard’s head off.”
Coltrane was shocked.
“I’ve never been this confused,” Jennifer said.
Coltrane touched her arm. “After we go to the grave site, do you want to get some lunch and talk about it?”
“No.”
“You want a little time alone?”
“Yes. These past few days, we’ve been together a lot. Sometimes it’s possible to have too much of a good thing. Different, huh? Me wanting to be alone?”
Coltrane spread his hands in a gesture of futility. Abruptly he was distracted by a commotion at the edge of the crowd. Evidently someone had identified him to the news teams, because they were swarming in his direction.
Pursued by cameramen, he barely reached the parking lot ahead of them.
6
FIFTEEN MINUTES FROM THE CEMETERY, Coltrane swerved into yet another narrow alley, checking his rearview mirror, satisfying himself that the TV news trucks no longer followed him.
He drove to where he had waited throughout the morning until it was time to go to Daniel’s funeral, to where he felt confident that the news teams wouldn’t be able to find him – because Ilkovic hadn’t been able to find him there. In the maze of streets in the Hollywood Hills, cresting a tree-lined slope, he peered down at his sanctuary. After everything he had been through, the house’s castlelike appearance made him feel secure. The green-tinted copper on the garage door reminded him even more of a fortress, as did the two upper levels, each with a parapet.
Because the garage door’s remote control was in the disabled rental car that he had abandoned the night before, he parked at the curb. It was an odd sensation to feel free to leave his vehicle in the open and not be afraid that someone would try to kill him. Exhausted, he secured the front door behind him, peered up the stairs toward the sun-bright living room, then moved in the opposite direction, down toward the vault.
It was where he had gone when he had arrived earlier, where he had spent the morning waiting to go to Daniel’s funeral. After what he had been through, the vault no longer seemed repellent. Indeed, he wondered why it had ever seemed that way to begin with. Needing something to occupy him, he knew without doubt what that something would be. Determined to shut out his nightmares, he unlocked the vault and passed the gray metal shelves, reaching the far left corner. The glaring overhead lights no longer seemed harsh. The fifty-five-degree air no longer made him shiver. The concrete walls no longer seemed to close in on him. He reached toward the back of the shelving, freed the catches on each side, and pulled out the wall.
Again, the incredibly beautiful face gazed out at him. The vault’s light spilled into the hidden chamber, casting a glow over the picture, making the woman seem alive. He stepped closer, admiring the perfect geometry of her face, the elegant chin, curved lips, high cheeks, and almond-shaped eyes. Her lush black hair framed her features alluringly. Her brilliant white shawl made her dark eyes magical.
His mouth dry, Coltrane picked up one of the boxes and carried it out to the shelves. After removing the lid, he carefully took out one eight-by-ten photograph after another, studying them, setting them along the shelves, picking up new ones. He lingered over a close-up in which her eyes gazed so directly into his that she gave the allusion of being in the present. He couldn’t tell what filled him with greater awe: Packard’s genius or his subject. He had never seen any woman so entrancing.
“Mitch?”
The voice came from beyond the vault.
Coltrane flinched.
“Mitch, it’s Duncan Reynolds.”
In a rush, Coltrane crossed toward the open door.
“Mitch?”
He heard Duncan coming down the steps, and he left the vault, closing the door a moment before Duncan could have peered in. That was when Coltrane realized he had no intention of telling Duncan about the photographs.
7
“I SAW YOUR CAR OUTSIDE.” Duncan put away his key. “I’m surprised I caught up to you. I brought this for you, but I expected I’d have to leave it here, rather than be able to give it to you in person.”
Wondering about the box he was handed, Coltrane tried not to look uneasy about his departure from the vault. He didn’t want Duncan to suspect that he was hiding something. “A telephone with a built-in answering machine?”
“The service is still hooked up. Now I won’t have so hard a time getting in touch with you about the details of buying this house.”
“Well, I’ve been a little busy,” Coltrane said.
“So I found out when I turned on the television this morning. You certainly did a good job of hiding your nerves when I met you here on Sunday. Are you hurt?”
“Cuts and bruises.”
“The television news made it seem like a nightmare, and you seemed like a hero.”
“More like a damned fool. I almost got myself killed. I don’t want to think about it.”