his head.
“Spit it out!” he said, and he thrust his hand from under the blanket.
“What?” she said. “Spit what out?”
“Do it, Vicki. Hand it over.”
“The jelly? You’re mad because of the jelly? They were in the kitchen; I thought they were for everyone!”
“Get out, get out, GET OUT!” he said, and he used his wingspan—helped by the blanket—to corral her out the door, which he then barricaded with the desk. And the chair. And a five-gallon bottle of water he had to roll across the room on its side. Two five-gallon bottles. Three.
He was exhausted. But his labors were rewarded because neither Vicki nor Charlotte, nor both together, could force the door. He heard fists on the wood and a few body slams and then Vicki say, “This is some bullshit,” and Charlotte say, “I left home for this?” though what was noticeable in their remarks was not an upswell of disillusion but the torpor with which it was expressed.
The blanket had fallen to the floor. In lieu of parquet, they had dusted the concrete with wood shavings, which cleaved to the wool. Never mind. Thurlow just wanted to sit and regroup. He took note of the hostages, who had watched the foregoing play out in silence.
These people had names. Their lives were sui generis.
Outside, it had started to snow, maybe to hail. The feds had just cut electricity to the house. It took a minute for the generator to kick on, and in this minute, Thurlow heard ice pelt the roof. Also a voice, one of the hostages, saying, “Mr. Dan? We’re sorry to bother you, but is there any chance we can talk this over?”
He buzzed for Norman, and when he got Norman’s voicemail—where was everyone?—he told him to reinstate the hoods and find a few dishrags, bandannas, whatever, because apparently the hostages had things they wanted to say. Also, he was afraid to leave the commissary without escort. Then again, he hated to be there with them. How bad was it when your only companionship was the four people you’d kidnapped? Bride of Frankenstein came to mind.
He left the commissary through a back door. Slipped through a walk-in closet and into a guest room with a trundle bed and tinted glass doors that overlooked a lawn tombed in snow. Dust congested in the monocle of a surveillance lens overhead. He swiped it with a Kleenex. Cleared his throat. Sat on the carpet, looked at the camera, and emptied his face of anything that was not love.
“Hi, little one,” he said. “My little Ida. I guess it’s time I should be addressing myself to no one else but you. So here is what I expect: Mistakes will be made. In the ferreting out of Helix staff, the wrong people will get hurt. Whoever is out there will scan the house for heat signatures and kill one another in the process. There will be hearings in D.C. and a passing of the buck, and I won’t make it, and you’ll never know.”
It was probably five degrees outside. But with his dreams hanging off him like dead leaves and the winter of his unhappiness so cold it inured the body to minor pain but did nothing for the big stuff, he opened a window. And let the freeze rush in.
THE SUN HAD BEEN UP FOR TWENTY MINUTES; the phone had been ringing nonstop. Esme was in the greenhouse: Jim Bach was calling. This early, he might be calling as her lover, DoD liaison, or both. She considered answering, considered not.
It had been many hours since her team last checked in from the Helix House. Too many for anyone to think all was well. She had their dossiers open on the table.
“What?” she said and yawned into the line.
“Crap,” he said. “I gotta take this call. Hold on. Don’t hang up.”
Her daughter’s voice through the intercom—“Mohhhhhhhhm!”—shrill and urgent, stout with need. Where are you, Mom? Are you here for me, Mom? What about tomorrow and the day after that? Ida was asking for the peanut butter. The kitchen staff had offered up a smooth and creamy variety that irked her preference for texture, and she was wondering why Esme had not come through for her in the execution of this simple task, the acquisition of a peanut spread to her liking, though what she was really asking was, Why didn’t her mom know her? Esme addressed the intercom—“Check the cupboard above the fridge”—because, while it was true she didn’t know what