“Okay, so I have the gene. You really think this will work?”
“Yes, but I want to see some frosting on the cake, before we go to trial.”
“Meaning what?”
“Before your trial, you’re naturally worried, stressed.”
“Yeah…”
“So I want you to take a trip, to take your mind off things. I want you to travel around the country, and I want you to take risks wherever you go.”
Johnson laid it out: Speeding tickets, amusement parks, getting into fights, roller coasters, climbing expeditions in national parks—always making sure to get into an argument, a dispute about safety, a claim that equipment was faulty. Anything that would get his name recorded in a document that could later be used in trial.
“That’s it,” Johnson said. “Get going. I’ll see you in a few weeks.” He gave him a sheet of paper.
“What’s this?”
“A list of the biggest roller coasters in the U.S. Make sure you visit the top three.”
“Christ. Ohio…Indiana…Texas…”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Johnson said. “You’re facing twenty years in prison, my friend, with some big guy with tattoos who’s going to be giving you lots worse than anal warts. So do as I tell you. And leave town today.”
Back in hisapartment, in Sherman Oaks, he packed a bag. The thought of a big guy with tattoos preoccupied him for a moment. He wondered if he should take his pistol. Going cross-country, to crazy places like Ohio—who knew what he might come across. He put a box of ammo in his bag, and his pistol with the leg holster.
Heading for his car, Brad found that he felt better about everything. It was a sunny day, his Porsche was sparkling clean, and he had a plan.
Road trip!
CH055
Lynn Kendallran into the La Jolla school, arriving out of breath at the principal’s office. “I got here as soon as I could,” she said. “What’s the problem?”
“It’s David,” the principal said. She was a woman of forty. “The child you are home-schooling. Your son Jamie brought him to school for the day.”
“Yes, to see how he did…”
“And I am afraid he did not do well. On the playground, he bit another child.”
“Oh dear.”
“He very nearly drew blood.”
“That’s terrible.”
“We see this in home-schooled children, Mrs. Kendall. They severely lack socialization skills and inner controls. There is no substitute for daily school environment with peers.”
“I’m sorry this has happened…”
“You need to speak to him,” the principal said. “He is in detention, in the next room.”
Lynn went into a small room. It was filled with green metal filing cabinets, stacked high. Dave was on a wooden chair, looking very small and brown curled up in the seat.
“Dave. What happened?”
“He hurted Jamie,” Dave said.
“Who did?”
“I don’t know his name. He bees in six grade.”
Lynn thought, sixth grade? Then it would have been a much bigger child.
“And what happened, Dave?”
“He push-ed Jamie on the ground. Hurted him.”
“And what did you do?”
“I jump-ed on his back.”
“Because you wanted to protect Jamie?”
Dave nodded.
“But you shouldn’t bite, Dave.”
“He bited me first.”
“Did he? Where did he bite you?”
“Here.” Dave held up a stubby, muscular finger. The skin was pale and thick. There might be bite marks, but she couldn’t be sure.
“Did you tell the principal?”
“She’s not with my mother.” That, Lynn knew, was Dave’s way of saying the principal didn’t like him. Young chimps inhabited a matriarchal society where the allegiances of females were very important and constantly tracked.
“Did you show her the finger?”
Dave shook his head. No.
“I’ll speak to her,” Lynn said.
“That’s his story,is it?” the principal said. “Well, I’m not surprised. He jumped on the child’s back. What did he expect would happen?”
“Then the other child did bite first?”
“Biting is not allowed, Mrs. Kendall.”
“Did the other child bite him?”
“He says no.”
“Is the child in sixth grade?”
“Yes. In Miss Fromkin’s class.”
“I’d like to speak to him,” Lynn said.
“We can’t permit that,” the principal said. “He’s not your child.”
“But he’s accused Dave. And the situation is very serious. If I am going to deal correctly with Dave, I need to know what happened between them.”
“I’ve told you what happened.”
“You saw it happen?”
“No, but it was reported by Mr. Arthur, the playground supervisor. He is very accurate in the matter of disputes, I can assure you. The point is, we don’t allow biting, Mrs. Kendall.”
Lynn was feeling an invisible hand pressing on her. The conversation had a distinct uphill quality. “Perhaps I should talk with my son Jamie,” Lynn said.
“Jamie’s story will agree with David’s, I’m sure. The point is, Mr. Arthur says that it didn’t happen that way.”
“The bigger boy didn’t attack Jamie first?”
The principal stiffened. “Mrs. Kendall,” she said, “in cases of disciplinary disputes, we can refer to a security camera on the playground. We can go to that if we need to—now or later. But I would encourage you to stay with the issue of the biting. Which is David. However uncomfortable that may be.”
“I see,” Lynn said. The situation was clear. “All right, I will deal with Dave, when he comes home from school.”
“I think you should take him with you.”
“I would prefer he finish the day,” she said, “and walk home with Jamie.”
“I don’t think—”
“Dave has a problem integrating in the classroom, as you explained,” Lynn said. “I don’t think we help his integration if we pull him out of class now. I will deal with him when he comes home.”
The principal nodded reluctantly. “Well…”
“I will speak to him now,” Lynn said, “and tell him he’ll stay here for the rest of the day.”
CH056
Alex Burnetjumped out of the cab and ran toward the school. When she saw the ambulance, her heart began to pound.
A few minutes before, she had been with a client—who was sobbing—when the receptionist buzzed to say that Jamie’s teacher had called. Something about a doctor’s visit for her son. The story was garbled, but Alex didn’t wait. She handed the client a box of Kleenex and ran. She’d jumped in a cab downstairs and told the guy to run stoplights.
The ambulance was at the curb, doors open, a white-coated doctor waiting in the back—she wanted to scream. She had never felt like this before. The world was greenish-white; she was sick with fear. She ran past the ambulance and into the school courtyard. The mother at the front desk said, “Can I help—” but Alex knew where Jamie’s classroom was, on the ground floor, at the rear courtyard. She headed straight toward it.
Her cell phone rang. It was Jamie’s teacher, Miss Holloway. “That woman is waiting outside the class,” she whispered. “She gave me a letter with your phone number on it, but I didn’t trust that. I used the number we had on your school file and called that…”
“Good work,” Alex said. “I’m almost there.”
“She’s outside.”
Alex came around the corner and saw a woman in a blue suit, standing outside the classroom. Alex went right up to her. “And who the hell are you?”
The woman smiled calmly, held out her hand. “Hi, Ms. Burnet. Casey Rogers, I’m sorry you had to come all this way.”
She was so easy, so relaxed, Alex was disarmed. She put her hands
on her hips, breathing deeply, catching her breath. “What seems to be the problem, Casey?”
“There isn’t any problem, Ms. Burnet.”
“You work in my office?”
“Gosh no. I work in Dr. Hughes’s office. Dr. Hughes wanted me to pick up Jamie and bring him in for his tetanus shot. It’s not an emergency, but it does need to be done. He cut his ankle a week ago, isn’t that right?”
“No…”
“No? Well, I can’t imagine…Do you suppose I was sent for the wrong child? Let me call Dr. Hughes…” She took out her cell phone.
“Yes, do that.”
Inside the classroom, the kids were looking at them through the glass. She waved to Jamie, who smiled back.
“Perhaps we should move away,” Casey Rogers said. “Not disrupt them.” Then into the phone: “Dr. Hughes, please. Yes. It’s Casey.”
Together, they walked back toward the school entrance. Through the entry arch, Alex saw the ambulance. Alex said, “Did you bring an ambulance?”
“Gosh, no. I have no idea why it’s here.” She pointed to the windshield. “Looks like the driver is eating lunch.”
Through the windshield, Alex saw a burly man with a black goatee munching on a submarine sandwich. Had he stopped by the school just to eat lunch? Something about that didn’t seem right. She couldn’t put her finger on it.
“Dr. Hughes? It’s Casey. Yes, I’m with Ms. Burnet right now, and she says her son Jamie did not cut his foot.”
“He did not,” Alex repeated. They walked through the arch and outside, moving closer to the ambulance. The driver put his sandwich on the dashboard and opened the door on the driver’s side. He was getting out.
“Yes, Dr. Hughes,” Casey said, “we’re leaving the school right now.” She held the phone out to Alex. “Would you like to speak to Dr. Hughes?”
“Yes,” Alex said. As she put the phone to her ear, she heard a piercing electronic shriek—it disoriented her—she dropped the phone as Casey Rogers grabbed her elbows and yanked her arms back. The driver was coming around the front of the ambulance toward her.
“We don’t need the kid,” the driver said. “She’ll do fine.”
It took a moment before she put it together: they were kidnapping her. What happened next was instinct. She slammed her head straight back, hitting Casey in the nose. Casey screamed and let go. Blood gushed down from her nose. Alex grabbed Casey’s arm and swung her forward, throwing her at the big man. He sidestepped gracefully as Casey hit the concrete and rolled, howling in pain.
Alex fumbled in her pocket. “Get back,” she warned him.
“We’re not going to hurt you, Ms. Burnet,” the man said. He was a good head and a half taller than she, and big, muscular. Just as he reached for her, she got her finger on the button and sprayed pepper in his face.
“Shit! Goddamn it!” He threw his arm up to protect his eyes, and half turned away from her. She knew that was her one chance—she kicked up, fast and hard, hitting him in the throat with her high heel. He yelled in agony, and she fell backward on the sidewalk, unable to keep her balance. She scrambled back to her feet immediately. The woman was getting to her feet, her blood pouring onto the sidewalk. She ignored Alex and went to comfort the big man, who was leaning against the ambulance, bent over, clutching his throat, moaning in pain.
Alex heard distant sirens—someone had called the police—and now the woman was helping the big man into the ambulance, putting him in the passenger seat. It was happening fast. Alex started to worry that these two would get away before the cops showed up. But there wasn’t much she could do. As the woman climbed into the ambulance she screamed at Alex, “We’ll arrest you yet!”
“You’ll what?” Alex said. The unreality of this whole incident was starting to hit her.“You’ll what?”
“We’ll be back, bitch!” the woman screamed, starting the engine. “You won’t get away!” The red flasher came on with the siren. She put the ambulance in gear.
“For what?” Alex yelled again. All she could think was that this entire business had been some dreadful mistake. But Vern Hugheswas her doctor. They had used her correct name. They had come for Jamie…
No. It was not a mistake.
“We’ll arrest you yet!”
What could that mean? She turned, and hurried back into the school. Her one thought now was Jamie.
It was snack time.The kids were all sitting at their tables, eating pieces of cut fruit. Some had yogurt. They were quite noisy. Miss Holloway gave her the paper the woman had brought. It appeared to be a Xerox of stationery from Alex’s law firm, signed by her. It wasn’t a note from the doctor’s office.
That meant that the woman in the blue suit was a cool operator. When caught, she instantly changed her story. Smiling, shaking hands with Alex. Smoothly finding an excuse for the two of them to walk back outside…Offering her the phone so that when she took it…
We don’t need the kid, she’ll do fine.
They had come to kidnap Jamie. But they were ready to kidnap her, instead. Why? Ransom? She had no money to speak of. Was it some lawsuit she was involved in? She’d had dangerous lawsuits in the past, but there wasn’t anything pending at the moment.
She’ll do fine.
Either her son or her.
Miss Holloway said, “Is there anything I should know? Or the school should know?”
“No,” Alex said. “But I’m going to take Jamie home.”
“They’ve almost finished their snack.”
Alex nodded to Jamie, waved for him to come over. He came reluctantly.
“What is it, Mom?” he said.
“We need to go.”
“I want to stay here.”
Alex sighed. Contrary as ever. “Jamie…” she began.
“I missed a lot ’cause I was sick. Ask Miss Holloway. And I didn’t get to see my friends. I want to stay. And we have hot dogs for lunch.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Go to your cubby and get your stuff. We have to leave.”
In front ofthe school, two police cars and four police officers were examining the pavement. One of them said, “Are you Ms. Burnet?”
“Yes, I am.”
“We have a report from a woman in the principal’s office who saw the whole thing,” the policeman said, pointing to a nearby window. “But there’s a lot of blood here, Ms. Burnet.”
“Yes, the woman hurt her nose when she fell.”
“Are you divorced, Ms. Burnet?”
“Yes, I am.”
“For how long?”
“Five years.”
“So it is not recent.”
“Not at all.”
“Your relations with your ex…”
“Very cordial.”
She talked to the police for a few minutes more, while Jamie waited impatiently. The police seemed to Alex to be oddly reluctant to become involved; they were detached, and seemed to feel they had come upon a private matter, like a domestic dispute.
“Are you filing a complaint?”
“I would,” Alex said, “but I have to take my son home now.”
“We can give you the paperwork to take home.”
“That will be fine,” she said.
One of the cops gave her a business card and said to call if there was anything further she needed. She said she would. Then she and Jamie started home.
Out on the street,the world around her suddenly seemed entirely different. Nothing could be more cheerfully bland than the sunlight of Beverly Hills. But now, Alex saw only menace.
She didn’t know where that menace was coming from, or why. She held Jamie’s hand. “Are wewalking home?” he said, sighing.
“Yes, we’re walking.” But even as he asked, she started to wonder. They lived only a few blocks from the school. But was it safe to go home? Would those people with the ambulance be waiting? Or would they hide themselves better the next time?
“It’s too far to walk.” Jamie trudged along. “And too hot.”
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“We’re walking. And that’s all there is to it.” As they walked, she flipped open her cell and dialed the office. Her assistant, Amy, answered.