Greg Iles - 24 Hours

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24 Hours

Greg Iles

A SIGNET BOOK

Published by New American Library, a division of

Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane,

London W8 5TZ, England

Penguin Books Australia Ltd,

Ringwood, Victoria, Australia

Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue,

Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

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Auckland 10, New Zealand

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

Published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,

a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.

This is an authorized reprint of a hardcover edition

published by G.P. Putnam's Sons. For information address G.P. Putnam's

Sons, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York,

NY 10014.

First Signet Printing, July 2001

10 987654321

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA RECISTRADA

Printed in the United States of America

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this

publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval

system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission

of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are

the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any

resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, business

establishments, or locales is entirely coincidental.

BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE AT QUANTITY DISCOUNTS WHEN USED TO PROMOTE PRODUCTS

OR SERVICES. FOR INFORMATION PLEASE WRITE TO PREMIUM MARKETING DIVISION,

PENGUIN PUTNAM INC., 375 HUDSON STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10014.

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this

book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the

publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment

for this "stripped book."

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Aaron Priest, the Man.

Phyllis Grann, for paving the way.

David Highfill, for bearing with the writer's obsessiveness.

Louise Burke, for her hard work and support.

medical advice: Jerry Iles, M.D., William Daggett, M.D., Noah Archer, M.D., and Michael Bourland,

M.D.

aviation: Mike Thompson, Justin Cardneaux, and Stephen Guido.

miscellaneous: Lisa Erbach-Vance, Glen Ballard, Jon Wood at Hodder, Michael Maclnnis, Rush and

Leslie Mosby, Ken and Beth Perry, Susan Chambliss, Simmons Iles, Robert Royal, Brent Bourland,

Caroline Trefler, Carrie, Madeline, and Mark.

readers: Ed Stackler, Betty Iles, Michael Henry, and Courtney Aldridge.

To those I have omitted through oversight, my sincere apologies. As always, all mistakes are mine.

For Geoff Iles, who's been there for me from the beginning (almost)

He that hath a wife and children

Hath given hostages to fortune.

—FRANCIS BACON

ONE

"The kid always makes it. I told you that."

Margaret McDill had not seen the man in her life until yesterday, but he had dominated every second of

her existence since their meeting. He had told her to call him Joe, and he claimed it was his real name, but

she assumed it was an alias. He was a dark-haired, pale-skinned man of about fifty, with deep-set eyes and

a coarse five-o'clock shadow. Margaret could not look into his eyes for long. They were dark, furious pools

that sucked the life out of her, drained her will. And now they carried knowledge about her that she could

not bear.

"I don't believe you," she said quietly.

Something rippled deep in the dark eyes, like the flick of a fish tail.

"Have I lied to you about anything else?"

"No. But you ... you let me see your face all night.

You won't let me go after that."

"I told you, the kid always makes it."

"You're going to kill me and let my son go."

"You think I'm going to shoot you in broad day-light in front of a freakin' McDonald's?"

"You have a knife in your pocket."

He looked at her with scorn. "Jesus Christ."

Margaret looked down at her hands. She didn't want to look at Joe, and she didn't want to chance seeing

herself in one of the mirrors. The one at home had been bad enough. She looked like someone who had just

come out of surgery, still groggy with anesthesia. An unhealthy glaze filmed her eyes, and even heavy

makeup had failed to hide the bruise along her jaw. Four of her painstakingly maintained nails had broken

during the night, and there was a long scratch on

her inner forearm from the initial scuffle. She tried to remember exactly when that had happened but

couldn't. Her sense of time had abandoned her. She was having trouble keeping her thoughts in order. Even

the simplest ones seemed to fall out of sequence by themselves.

She tried to regain control by focusing on her immediate environment. They were sitting in her BMW, in

the parking lot of a strip mall, about fifty yards from a McDonald's restaurant. She had often shopped at the

mall, at the Barnes & Noble superstore, and also at the pet store, for rare tropical fish. Her husband had

recently bought a big-screen television at Circuit City, for patient education at his clinic. He was a

cardiovascular surgeon. But all that seemed part of someone else's life now. As remote as the bright side of

the moon to someone marooned on the dark half.

And her son, Peter. . .God alone knew where he was. God and the man beside her.

"I don't care what you do with me," she said with conviction. "Just let Peter live. Kill me if you have to,

just let my son go. He's only ten years old."

"If you don't shut up, I might take you up on that," Joe said wearily.

He started the BMW's engine and switched the air conditioner to high, then lit a Camel cigarette. The

cold air blasted smoke all over the interior of the car. Margaret's eyes stung from hours of crying. She

turned her head to avoid the smoke, but it was useless.

"Where's Peter now?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

Joe took a drag off the Camel and said nothing.

"I said—"

"Didn't I tell you to stop talking?"

Margaret glanced at the pistol lying on the console between the seats. It belonged to her husband. Joe

had taken it from her yesterday, but not before she had learned how useless a gun was to her. At least

while they had Peter. Some primitive part of her brain still urged her to grab it, but she doubted she could

reach the pistol before he did. He was probably waiting for her to try just that. Joe was thin but amazingly

strong, another thing she'd learned last night. And his

hard-lined face held no mercy.

"He's dead, isn't he," Margaret heard herself say. "You're just playing games with me. He's dead and

you're going to kill me, too—"

"Jesus Christ," Joe said through clenched teeth. He turned over his forearm and glanced at his watch.

He wore it on the inside of his wrist so that Margaret couldn't see the time.

"I think I'm going to be sick," she said.

"Again?" He punched a number into the BMW's cell phone. As he waited for an answer, he muttered, "I

do believe this has been the worst twenty-four hours of my life to date. And that includes our little party."

She flinched.

"Hey," he said into the phone. "You in your spot? . . .Okay. Wait about a minute, then do it."

Margaret jerked erect, her eyes wide, searching the nearby cars. "Oh my God. Peter! Peter!"

Joe picked up the gun and jammed the barrel into her neck. "You've come this far, Maggie. Don't blow it

now. You remember what we talked about?"

She closed her eyes and nodded.

"I didn't hear you."

Tears rolled down her cheeks. "I remember."

A hundred yards from Margaret McDill's BMW, Peter McDill sat in an old green pickup truck, his eyes

shut tight. The truck smelled funny. Good and bad at the same time, like just-cut grass and old motor oil, and

really old fast food.

"You can open your eyes now."

Peter opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was a McDonald's restaurant. It reassured him after his night of isolation. The

McDonald's stood in the middle of a suburban strip mall parking lot. As Peter panned his eyes around the

mall, he recognized the stores: Office Depot, Barnes & Noble, the Gateway 2000 store. He'd spent hours in

that store. It was only a few miles from his house. He

looked down at his wrists, which were bound with duct tape.

"Can you take this off now?"

He asked without looking up. The man behind the wheel of the truck was hard for him to look at. Peter

had never seen or heard of Huey before yesterday, but for the last twenty-four hours, he had seen no one

else. Huey was six inches taller than his father, and weighed at least three hundred pounds. He wore dirty

mechanic's coveralls and heavy plastic glasses of a type Peter had seen in old movies, with thick lenses that

distorted his eyes. He reminded Peter of a character in a movie he'd seen on the satellite one night, when

he sneaked into the home theater room. A movie his parents wouldn't let him watch. The character's name

was Carl, and the boy who was Carl's

friend in the movie said he sounded like a motorboat. Carl was nice, but he killed people, too. Peter thought

Huey was probably like that.

"When I was a little boy," Huey said, peering thoughtfully through the windshield of the pickup, "those

golden arches went all the way over the top of the restaurant. The whole place looked like a spaceship." He

looked back at Peter, his too-big eyes apologetic behind the thick glasses. "I'm sorry I had to tape you up.

But you shouldn't've run. I told you not to run."

Peter's eyes welled with tears. "Where's my mom? You said she was going to be here."

"She's gonna be here. She's probably here already."

Through the heat shimmering off the asphalt, Peter scanned the sea of parked cars, his eyes darting

everywhere, searching for his mother's BMW. "I don't see her car."

Huey dug down into his front coverall pocket.

Peter instinctively slid against the door of the pickup truck.

"Look, boy," Huey said in his deep but childlike voice. "I made you something."

The giant hand emerged from the pocket and opened to reveal a carved locomotive. Peter had

watched Huey whittling for much of the previous afternoon, but he hadn't been able to tell what Huey was

working on. The little train in the massive palm looked like a toy from an expensive store. Huey put the

carving into Peter's bound hands.

"I finished it while you was sleeping," he said. "I like trains. I rode one once. When I was little. From St.

Louis, after Mamaw died. Joey rode up by hisself on the train and got me. We rode back together. I got to

sit in front with the rich people. We wasn't supposed to, but Joey figured a way. Joey's smart. He said it

was only fair. He says I'm good as anybody. Ain't nobody

no better than nobody else. That's a good thing to remember."

Peter stared at the little locomotive. There was even a tiny engineer inside.

"Whittlin's a good thing, too," Huey went on. "Keeps me from being nervous."

Peter closed his eyes. "Where's my mom?"

"I liked talking to you. Before you ran, anyway. I thought you was my friend."

Peter covered his face with his hands, but he kept an eye on Huey through a crack between his left

cheek and palm. Now that he knew where he was, he thought about jumping out. But Huey was faster than

he looked.

Huey dug into his coveralls again and brought out his pocketknife. When he opened the big blade, Peter

pressed himself into the passenger door.

"What are you doing?"

Huey grabbed Peter's bound wrists and jerked them away from his body. With a quick jab he thrust the

knife between Peter's forearms and sawed through the duct tape. Then he reached over and unlocked the

passenger door of the truck.

"Your mama's waiting for you. In the playground. At the McDonald's."

Peter looked up at the giant's face, afraid to believe.

"Go see her, boy."

Peter pushed open the truck's door, jumped to the pavement, and started running toward the

McDonald's.

Joe reached across Margaret McDill's lap and opened the passenger door of the BMW. His smoky black

hair brushed against her neck as he did, and she shuddered. She had seen his gray roots during the night.

"Your kid's waiting in the McDonald's Playland," he said.

Margaret's heart lurched. She looked at the open door, then back at Joe, who was caressing the BMW's

leather-covered steering wheel.

"Sure wish I could keep this ride," he said with genuine regret. "Got used to this. Yes, sir."

"Take it."

"That's not part of the plan. And I always stick to the plan. That's why I'm still around."

As she stared, he opened the driver's door, got out, dropped the keys on the seat, and started walking

away.

Margaret sat for a moment without breathing, mistrustful as an injured animal being released into the

wild. Then she bolted from the car. With a spastic gait born from panic and exhaustion, she ran toward the

McDonald's, gasping a desperate mantra: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. . .The Lord is my

shepherd, I shall not want... The Lord is my shepherd. . ."

Huey stopped his green pickup beside his cousin Joe with a screech of eroded brake pads. Two men

standing under the roofed entrance of the Barnes & Noble looked over at the sound. They looked like bums

hoping to pass themselves off as customers and spend the morning reading the papers on the sofas inside

the bookstore. Joe Hickey silently wished them good luck.

He'd been that far down before.

When he climbed into the cab, Huey looked at him with the relief of a two-year-old at its returning

mother.

"Hey, Joey," Huey said, his head bobbing with relief and excitement.

"Twenty-three hours, ten minutes," Hickey said, tapping his watch. "Cheryl's got the money, nobody got

hurt, and no FBI in sight. I'm a goddamn genius, son. Master of the universe."

"I'm just glad it's over," said Huey. "I was scared this time."

Hickey laughed and tousled the hair on Huey's great unkempt head. "Home free for another year,

Buckethead."

A smile slowly appeared on the giant's rubbery face. "Yeah." He put the truck into gear, eased forward,

and joined the flow of traffic leaving the mall.

Peter McDill stood in the McDonald's Playland like a statue in a hurricane. Toddlers and teenagers tore

around him with abandon, leaping on and off the foam-padded playground equipment in their sock feet. The

screeches and laughter were deafening. Peter searched among them for his mother, his eyes wet. In his

right hand he clutched the carved locomotive Huey had given him, utterly unaware that he was

holding it.

The glass door of the restaurant opened, and a woman with frosted hair and wild eyes appeared in it.

She looked like his mother, but not exactly. This woman was different somehow. She looked too old, and

her clothes were torn. She pushed two children out of the doorway, which his mother would never do, and

began looking frantically around the playground. Her gaze jumped from child to child, lighted on Peter,

swept on, then returned.

"Mom?" he said uncertainly.

The woman's face seemed to collapse inward upon itself. She rushed to Peter and crushed him against

her, then lifted him into her arms. His mother hadn't done that in a long, long time. A terrible wail burst from

her throat, freezing the storm of children into a still life.

"Oh, dear Jesus," Margaret keened. "My baby, my baby, my sweet baby. . ."

Peter felt hot tears rolling down his cheeks. As his mother squeezed him, the little wooden train

dropped from his hand onto the pebbled concrete. A toddler wandered over, picked it up, smiled, and

walked away with it.

TWO

ONE YEAR LATER

Will Jennings swung his Ford Expedition around a dawdling tanker truck and swerved back into the right

lane of the airport road. The field was less than a mile away, and he couldn't keep from watching the planes

lifting over the trees as they took off. It had been nearly a month since he'd been up, and he was anxious to

fly.

"Keep your eyes on the road," said his wife from the seat beside him.

Karen Jennings was thirty-nine, a year younger than her husband, but much older in some ways.

"Daddy's watching the airplanes!" Abby chimed from her safety seat in the back. Though only five and a

half years old, their daughter never hesitated to interject her comments into any conversation. Will looked at

his rearview mirror and smiled at Abby. Facially, she was a miniature version of Karen, with

strawberry-blond curls, piercing green eyes, and a light dusting of freckles across her nose. As he watched,

she pointed at the back of her mother's head.

Will laid his right hand on Karen's knee. "I sure wish my girls would come along with old Dad." With

Abby present, he often referred to himself as "Dad" and Karen as "Mom," the way his father had done.

"Just jump in the plane and forget about everything for three days."

"Can we, Mom?" cried Abby. "Can we?"

"And what do we wear for clothes?" Karen asked in a taut voice.

"I'll buy you both new wardrobes on the coast."

"Yaaayy!" Abby cheered. "Look, there's the airport!"

The white control tower of the terminal had come into sight.

"We don't have any insulin," Karen pointed out.

"Daddy can write me a subscription!"

"Prescription, honey," Will corrected.

"She knows the right word."

"I want to go to the beach!"

"I can't believe you started this again," Karen said under her breath. "Daddy won't be spending any time

at the beach, honey. He'll be nervous as a cat until he gives his lecture to all those other doctors. Then

they'll spend hours talking about their days in medical school. And then he'll tear up his joints trying to play

golf for three days straight."

"If you come," Will said, "we can beat the bushes around Ocean Springs for some undiscovered Walter

Anderson stuff."

"Noooo," Abby said in a plaintive voice. She hated their art-buying explorations, which usually entailed

hours of searching small-town backstreets, and sometimes waiting in the car. "You won't be playing golf,

Mom. You can take me to the beach."

"Yeah, Mom," Will echoed.

Karen cut her eyes at him. Full of repressed anger, they flashed like green warning beacons. "I agreed to

chair this flower show two years ago. It's the sixtieth anniversary of the Junior League, and I don't know

whose brilliant idea it was to have a flower show, but it's officially my problem. I've put off everything until

the last minute, and there are over four hundred exhibitors."

"You got everything nailed down day before yesterday," Will told her. There wasn't much use in pressing

the issue, but he felt he should try. Things had been tense for the past six months, and this would be the first

trip he had made without Karen in a long time. It seemed symbolic, somehow. "You're just going to agonize

until the whole circus starts on Monday. Four nights of hell. Why not blow it off until then?"

"I can't do it," she said with a note of finality. "Drop it."

Will sighed and watched a 727 lift over the tree line to his left.

Karen leaned forward and switched on the CD player, which began to thump out the teen dance

groove of Britney Spears. Abby immediately began to sing along. "Hit me baby one more time. . ."

"Now, if you want to take Abby by yourself," Karen said, "you can certainly do that."

"What did you say, Mom?"

"You know I can't," Will said with exasperation.

"You mean you can't do that and play golf with your med school buddies. Right?"

Will felt the old weight tighten across his chest.

"This is once a year, Karen. I'm giving the keynote speech, and the whole thing is very political. You

know that. With the new drug venture, I'll have to spend hours with the Klein-Adams people—"

"You don't have to explain," she said with satisfaction. "Just don't try to make me blow off my obligations

when you won't do the same."

Will swung the Expedition into the general aviation area. Lines of single- and twin-engine planes waited

on the concrete apron, tethered to rings set in the cement, their wheels chocked against the wind. Just

seeing them lightened his heart.

"You're the one who encouraged me to be more social," Karen said in the strained voice she'd used

earlier.

"I'm not joining the Junior League when I grow up," Abby said from the backseat. "I'm going to be a

pilot."

"I thought you were going to be a doctor," said Will.

"A flying doctor, silly!"

"Flying doctor sure beats housewife," Karen said sotto voce.

Will took his wife's hand as he braked beside his Beechcraft Baron 58. "She's only five, babe. One day

she'll understand what you sacrificed."

"She's almost six. And sometimes I don't understand it myself."

He squeezed Karen's hand and gave her an understanding look. Then he got out, unstrapped Abby from

her child seat, and set her on the apron.

The Baron was ten years old, but she was as fine a piece of machinery as you could ask for, and Will

owned her outright. From the twin Continental engines to the state-of-the-art avionics package, he had

spared neither time nor expense to make her as safe and airworthy as any billionaire's Gulfstream IV. She

was white with blue stripes, and her tail read N-2 WJ.

The "WJ" was a touch of vanity, but Abby loved hearing the controllers call out

November-Two-Whiskey-Juliet over the radio. When they were flying together, she sometimes made him

call her Alpha Juliet.

As Abby ran toward the Baron, Will took a suit bag and a large leather sample case from the back of the

Expedition and set them on the concrete. He had driven out during his lunch hour and checked the plane

from nose to tail, and also loaded his golf clubs. When he reached back into the SUV for his laptop

computer case, Karen picked up the sample case and suit bag and carried them to the plane. The Baron

seated four passengers aft of the cockpit, so there was plenty of

room. As they loaded the luggage, Karen said:

"You're having pain today, aren't you?"

"No," he lied, closing the cabin door as though the fire in his hands did not exist. Under normal

circumstances he would have canceled his flight and taken a car, but it was far too late now to reach the

Gulf Coast except by air.

Karen looked into his eyes, started to say something, then decided against it. She walked the length of

the wing and helped Abby untether it while Will did his preflight walkaround. As he checked the air-craft,

he glanced over and watched Abby work. She was her mother's daughter from the neck up, but she had

Will's lean musculature and length of bone. She loved helping with the plane, being part of things.

"What's the flight time to the coast?" Karen asked, joining him behind the wing. "Fifty minutes?"

"Thirty-five minutes to the airport, if I push it."

Will was due to give his lecture at the Beau Rivage Casino Hotel in Biloxi at 7:00 p.m., which would

open the annual meeting of the Mississippi Medical Association. "I'm cutting it a little close," he conceded.

"That aneurysm ran way over. I'll call you after my presentation." He pointed to the beeper on his belt. "If

you want me during the flight, use the SkyTel. It's new.

Digital. Hardly any dead spots."

"Mr. High-Tech," Karen said, making clear that she wasn't impressed with what she considered boy

toys.

"I just type in the message at home and send it like e-mail?"

"Right. There's a special Web page for it. But if you don't want to fool with that, just call the answering

service. They'll get the message to me."

Abby tugged at his hand. "Will you wiggle the wings after you take off?"

"You mean waggle the wings. Sure I will. Just for you. Now. . .who gets the first kiss?"

"Me! Me!" Abby cried.

As Will bent down, she turned aside his kiss and whispered in his ear. He nodded, rose, and walked to

Karen. "She said Mommy needs the first kiss today."

"I wish Daddy were as perceptive."

He gently took her by the waist. "Thanks for giving me time last night to finish up the video segment. I'd

have been laughed out of the conference."

"You've never been laughed at in your life." Her face softened. "How are your hands? I mean it, Will."

"Stiff," he admitted. "But not too bad."

"You taking anything?"

"Just the methotrexate." Methotrexate was a chemotherapeutic agent developed for use against

cancer, but, in much smaller doses, was used against Will's form of arthritis. Even small doses could

damage the liver.

"Come on," she pressed.

"Okay, four Advil. But that's it. I'm fine. Good to go." He slipped an arm around Karen's shoulder.

"Don't forget to turn on the alarm system when you get home."

She shook her head in a way that conveyed several emotions at once: concern, irritation, and somewhere

in there, love. "I never forget. Say good-bye, Abby. Daddy's late."

Abby hugged his waist until at last he bent and picked her up. His sacroiliac joints protested, but he

forced a smile.

"I'll be back Sunday night," he said, and kissed her on the forehead. "You take care of Mom. And don't

give her any trouble about your shots."

"But it doesn't hurt as much when you do it."

"That's a fib. Mom's given a lot more shots than I have."

He set her down with a muffled groan and gently pushed her toward her mother. Abby walked

backward, her eyes locked on Will until Karen scooped her up.

"Oh!" Karen said. "I forgot to tell you. Microsoft is going to split again. It was up twelve points when I

left the house."

He smiled. "Forget Microsoft. Tonight starts the ball rolling on Restorase." Restorase was the trade

name of a new drug Will had helped develop, and the subject of his presentation tonight. "In thirty days,

Abby will be set for Harvard, and you can start wearing haute couture."

"I'm thinking Brown," Karen said with a grudging laugh.

It was an old joke between them, started in the days when they had so little money that a trip to Wendy's

Hamburgers was a treat. Now they could actually afford those schools, but the joke took them back to

what in some ways had been a happier time.

"I'll see you both Sunday," Will said. He climbed into the Baron, started the twin engines, and checked

the wind conditions with ATIS on the radio. After contacting ground control, he waved through the

Plexiglas, and began his taxi toward the runway.

Outside, Karen backed toward the Expedition with Abby in her arms. "Come on, honey. It's hot. We can

watch him take off from inside the truck."

"But I want him to see me!"

Karen sighed. "All right."

Inside the Baron, Will acknowledged final clearance from the tower, then released his brakes and roared

up the sunny runway. The Baron lifted into the sky like a tethered hawk granted freedom. Instead of simply

banking to his left to head south, he executed a teardrop turn, which brought him right over the black

Expedition on the ground. He could see Karen and Abby standing beside it. As he passed over at six

hundred feet, he waggled his wings like a fighter pilot

signaling to friendly ground troops.

On the concrete below, Abby whooped with glee.

"He did it, Mom! He did it!"

"I'm sorry we couldn't go this time, honey," Karen said, squeezing her shoulders.

"That's okay." Abby reached up and took her mother's hands. "You know what?"

"What?"

"I like arranging flowers, too."

Karen smiled and lifted Abby into her seat, then hugged her neck. "I think we can win the three-color

ribbon if we give it half a try."

"I know we can!" Abby agreed.

Karen climbed into the driver's seat, started the Expedition, and drove along the line of airplanes toward

the gate.

Fifteen miles north of the airport, a battered green pickup truck with a lawn tractor and two Weed Eaters in

back rattled along a curving lane known for over a hundred years as Crooked Mile Road. The truck slowed,

then stopped beside a wrought-iron mailbox at the foot of a high wooded hill. An ornamental World War I

biplane perched atop the mailbox, and below the biplane, gold letters read: Jennings, #100. The pickup

turned left and chugged slowly up the steep driveway.

At the top, set far back on the hill, stood a breath-taking Victorian house. Wedgwood blue with white

gingerbread trim and stained-glass windows on the second floor, it seemed to watch over the expansive

lawns around it with proprietary interest.

When the pickup truck reached the crest of the drive, it did not stop, but continued fifty yards across the

St. Augustine grass until it reached an ornate playhouse. An exact replica of the main house, the playhouse

stood in the shadow of the pine and oak trees that bordered the lawn. The pickup stopped beside it. When

the engine died, there was silence but for birdcalls and the ticking of the motor.

The driver's door banged open, and Huey Cotton climbed out. Clad in his customary brown coveralls and

heavy black eyeglasses, he stared at the playhouse with wonder in his eyes. Its roof peaked just above the

crown of his head.

"See anybody?" called a voice from the passenger window of the truck.

Huey didn't take his eyes from the enchanting playhouse. "It's like Disneyland, Joey."

"Christ, look at the real house, would you?"

Huey walked around the playhouse and looked across a glittering blue swimming pool to the rear

elevation of the main house. Peeking from two of the four garage bays were a silver Toyota Avalon and

the white nose of a powerboat.

"There's a pretty boat in the garage," he said distractedly. He turned back to the playhouse, bent, and

examined it more closely. "I wonder if there's a boat in this garage?"

As Huey studied the little house, Joe Hickey climbed out of the truck. He wore a new Ralph Lauren

Polo shirt and Tommy Hilfiger khakis, but he didn't look natural or even comfortable in the costume. The

lower half of a crude eagle tattoo showed on his biceps below the band of the Polo's left sleeve.

"Look at the real house, Buckethead. See the third downstairs window from the end? That's it."

Huey straightened and glanced over at the main house. "I see it." He laid one of his huge hands on the

playhouse's porch roof. "I sure wish I could fit in this house. I bet the whole world looks different from in

there."

"You'll never know how different." Hickey reached into the truck bed and took out a rusted toolbox.

"Let's take care of the alarm system."

He led Huey toward the open garage.

Twenty minutes later they emerged from the back door of the house and stood on the fieldstone patio.

"Put the toolbox back in the truck," Hickey said.

"Then wait behind the playhouse. As soon as they go inside, you run up to the window. Got it?"

"Just like last time."

"There wasn't any freakin' Disneyland playhouse last time. And that was a year ago. I don't want you

fooling around back there. The second you hear the garage door close, get your big ass up to that window.

If some nosy neighbor drives up in the meantime and asks you a question, you're with the lawn service. Act

like a retard. It shouldn't be much of a stretch for you."

Huey stiffened. "Don't say that, Joey."

"If you're waiting at the window when you're supposed to be, I'll apologize."

Huey smiled crookedly, exposing yellowed teeth. "I hope this one's nice. I hope she don't get scared

easy. That makes me nervous."

"You're a regular John Dillinger, aren't you? Christ. Get behind the playhouse."

Huey shrugged and shambled across the patio toward the tree line. When he reached the playhouse, he

looked around blankly at Hickey, then folded his giant frame into a squat.

Hickey shook his head, turned, and walked into the house through the back door.

Karen and Abby sang at the top of their voices as they rolled north on Interstate 55, the tune one from The

Sound of Music, Abby's favorite musical. The Jenningses lived just west of Annandale in Madison County,

Mississippi. Annandale was the state's premier golf course, but it wasn't golf that had drawn them to the

area. Fear of crime and the race problems of the capital city had driven many young professionals to the

gated enclaves of Madison County, but Karen and Will had moved for a different reason. If you wanted

land, you had to move north. The Jennings house sat on twenty acres of pine and hardwood, twelve miles

north of Jackson proper, and in evening traffic it took twenty-five minutes to get there.

"That will bring us back to doe, oh, oh, oh. . ."

Abby clapped her hands and burst into laughter.

Breathing hard from the singing, Karen reached down and punched a number into her cell phone. She

felt guilty about the way she'd spoken to Will at the airport.

"Anesthesiology Associates," said a woman, her voice tinny in the cell phone speaker.

"Is this the answering service?" asked Karen.

"Yes ma'am. A-l Answer-all. The clinic's closed."

"I'd like to leave a message for Dr. Jennings. This is his wife."

"Go ahead."

"We already miss you. Break a leg tonight. Love, Karen and Abby."

"With sugar and kisses on top!" Abby shouted from the backseat.

"Did you get that last part?" asked Karen.

"With sugar and kisses on top," repeated the bored voice.

"Thank you."

Karen hit end and looked at her rearview mirror, which was adjusted so that she could see Abby's face.

"Daddy loves getting messages from us," Abby said, smiling.

"He sure does, honey."

Fifty miles south of Jackson, Will settled the Baron in at eight thousand feet. Below him lay a puffy white

carpet of cumulus clouds, before him a sky as blue as an Arctic lake. Visibility was unlimited. As he bent

his wrist to check his primary GPS unit, a burning current of pain shot up the radial nerve in his right arm. It

was worse than he'd admitted to Karen, and she'd known it. She didn't miss anything. The truth was, she

didn't want him flying anymore. A month ago, she'd threatened to tell the FAA that he was "cheating" to

pass his flight physicals. He didn't think she

would, but he couldn't be sure. If she thought Will's arthritis put him—and thus the family—at risk while

flying, she wouldn't hesitate to do whatever she had to do to stop him.

If she did, Will wasn't sure he could handle it. Even the thought of being grounded put him in a black

mood. Flying was more than recreation for him. It was a physical expression of how far he had come in

life, a symbol of all he had attained, and of the lifestyle he had created for his family. His father could never

have dreamed of owning a three-hundred-thousand-dollar airplane. Tom Jennings had never even ridden in

an airplane. His son had paid cash for one.

But for Will the money was not the important thing. It was what the money could buy. Security. He had

learned that lesson a thousand times growing up: money was an insulator, like armor. It protected people

who had it from the everyday problems that besieged and even destroyed others. And yet, it did not make

you invulnerable. His arthritis had taught him

that. Other lessons followed.

In 1986, he graduated from LSU medical school and began an obstetrics residency at the University of

Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. It was there that he met a surgical nurse with stunning green eyes,

strawberry-blond hair, and a reputation for refusing dates with physicians or medical students. After three

months of patience and charm, Will persuaded Karen

to meet him for lunch, far from the hospital. There he discovered that the cause of her dating policy was

simple: she'd seen too many nurses put medical students through school only to be cast aside later, and

others caught in messy triangles with married doctors and their wives. In spite of her policy, she dated Will

for the next two years—first secretly, then openly—and after a yearlong engagement, they married. Will

entered private practice with a Jackson OB/GYN group the day after his honeymoon, and their adult life

together began like a storybook.

But during the second year of his practice, he began experiencing pain in his hands, feet, and lower back.

He tried to ignore it, but soon the pain was interfering with his work, and he went to see a friend in the

rheumatology department. A week later he was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis, a severe, often crippling

disease. Continuing as an obstetrician was impossible, so he began to investigate less physically rigorous

fields like dermatology and radiology. His old college roommate suggested anesthesiology—his own

specialty—a three-year program if the university would credit Will's OB experience and let him skip the

internship year. It did, and in 1993, he began his anesthesiology residency at UMC in Jackson.

The same month, Karen quit her nursing job and enrolled at nearby Millsaps College for twenty-two

hours of basic sciences in the premed program. Karen had always felt she aimed too low with

nursing—and Will agreed—but her decision stunned him. It meant they would have to put off having

children for several more years, and it would also force them to take on more debt than Will felt

comfortable with. But he wanted Karen to be happy. While he trained for his new speciality and learned to

deal with the pain of his disease, she racked up four semesters of perfect

grades and scored in the ninety-sixth percentile on the Medical College Admissions Test. Will was as proud

as he was surprised, and Karen was luminous with happiness. It almost seemed as though Will's disease

had been a gift.

Then, during Karen's freshman year of medical school—the third year of Will's residency—she got

pregnant. She had never been able to take the pill, and the less certain methods of birth control had finally

failed. Will was surprised but happy; Karen was devastated. She believed that keeping the baby would

mean the death of her dream of being a doctor. Will was forced to concede that she was probably right.

For three agonizing weeks, she considered an abortion. The fact that she was thirty-three finally convinced

her to keep the baby. She managed to complete

her freshman year of med school, but after Abby was born, there was no question of continuing. She

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ScannedandproofedbyCozette24HoursGregIlesASIGNETBOOKPublishedbyNewAmericanLibrary,adivisionofPenguinPutnamInc.,375HudsonStreet,NewYork,NewYork10014,U.S.A.PenguinBooksLtd,27WrightsLane,LondonW85TZ,EnglandPenguinBooksAustraliaLtd,Ringwood,Victoria,AustraliaPenguinBooksCanadaLtd,10AlcornAvenue,Toronto,...

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