When they disconnected, David entered the phone number that Maddison had given him. He was sent directly to voice mail and left a message. “I’m confused. I don’t understand. Call me.”
In the kitchen once more, he read the note she had left, read it a third time. He wasn’t concerned about her warning of danger to him. What obsessed him was the implication that she must be under the thumb of some cruel master, Corley or others whom Corley served, being used in one way or another.
I must persuade them, negotiate.
His heart felt compressed by his breastbone, as though the sense of inadequacy that settled on him had real, crushing weight.
He phoned her again and was sent to voice mail. “Confused was the wrong word, Maddison. I’m bereft, I feel lost, and I’m afraid for you. I love you. Whatever your situation is, I know I can help. Give me a chance to help. Please, please, call me.”
For more than an hour, he restlessly toured the house, as though he would come across something else she’d left behind, other than the note, some cryptic clue that, with sufficient study, would reveal more about the truth of her than he had yet uncovered. He stood at one window after another, gazing out at the day, but the day offered him nothing, not even the comfort of familiarity. The street and the neighboring residences and the courtyard between his house and garage appeared shot through with a subtle but disturbing strangeness. One by one, he took books from the shelves in his study and focused intently on a page of this, a paragraph of that, and put them back without remembering a word of what he’d read.
Eventually, when Maddison did not respond to his phone calls, indignation rose in him, a sense of righteous offense, which became resentment, which grew into anger. He stalked into the bedroom and stared at the bed they had shared. She’d hidden the truth of herself from him, and she’d walked out on him. He couldn’t abide sleeping with the sheets in which were enfolded even the faintest scent of her. He tore the bedclothes off the bed and carried them to the laundry room and put them in the washing machine.
But the indignation and resentment and anger were not real, only fabricated feelings with which to mask from himself his hurt and fear. He could not sustain the faux outrage.
He started to phone her again, but stopped before he pressed Call. She had asked for his patience and faith. He owed her nothing less than what she requested.
He printed the proofs of his forthcoming novel, which Connie had sent earlier. But he could not concentrate on the text.
At 3:20, although he rarely drank before dinner, he opened a bottle of cabernet sauvignon and poured a generous portion and took solace in the smoothness of the grape.
He decided that in the morning, if he had not heard from her, he would drive to the house on Rock Point Lane. If his life really was at risk, the danger would likely be greater there than anywhere else, but he was in a mood to walk ledges and high wires.
When he was in New York, the management company that cared for this house also collected his mail at the street and sent it to him once a week. But it was now his to collect, which he hadn’t done for the past few days. Among the envelopes that he brought in from the mailbox, he found one from Ronny Lee Jessup, posted from Folsom State Prison, stamped with a warning that the contents were from a prisoner of a maximum-security facility.
According to the postmark, the letter had been mailed at 5:00 p.m. Friday, the afternoon of the day that David had visited Ronny. He sat at the kitchen table to read it.
Dear Mr. Thorne,
Since you left a few hours ago, a thing has happened that changes my mind. If you come to see old Ronny, we can maybe work something out so I can tell you what you want so bad to know. I hope you are well and happy and all. I am good, but not as happy as usual.
Your friend,
Ronny Lee
David phoned his contact at Folsom and was able to arrange a visit for ten o’clock Thursday morning. Then he booked a commuter flight to Sacramento for Wednesday afternoon—the next day.
The Rock Point Lane house would have to wait. He had spent years trying to get Ronny Jessup to reveal where he had stashed the missing fourteen women whom he had killed and whose bodies he preserved by some arcane form of mummification. He needed to seize this opportunity before the killer changed his mind.
| 59 |
The vase of roses Maddison had bought remained on the table with the three candles in cut-crystal holders.
David microwaved leftover tortellini alla panna, carrots with tarragon, and cauliflower Sicilian style, which Maddison had cooked the previous evening. Everything tasted good, but even if it had not held its quality from a day earlier, he would have taken pleasure in the food because she had prepared it with her own hands, which made him feel close to her even in her absence.