Backfire

Savich said, “I’m sure you agree she was smart to pay more attention to Xu. She didn’t think the police could protect her son from him.”

“All right, so she was smart to believe him. I mean, he shot Judge Hunt, murdered Mickey O’Rourke and poor Milo, the greedy idiot. Wait—” Sudden panic bloomed in Cindy’s eyes. “Clive. Where’s Clive?”

Savich hadn’t wanted to go there, not yet, but Cindy’s face was flushed, her eyes focused on him. He didn’t have a choice now. He said, “Xu hired a prisoner to stab him in the shower, just as he had Lin Mei stab you. Clive didn’t make it. I’m sorry, Cindy.”

Cindy’s face went perfectly blank. She tried to shake her head at them but couldn’t seem to make her head move. She closed her eyes and didn’t make a sound, except for her labored breathing. Tears seeped from beneath her eyelids and streamed down her white cheeks.

Eve thought, So Cindy hadn’t been simply using Clive after all.

Savich said, “You can’t help Clive now, but you can help yourself. I’ve got that offer from the U.S. attorney for you, Cindy. Are you ready to tell us what you know about Xu?”

Cindy whispered, her eyes still closed, “Is it fifteen years, like I wanted?”

“Yes, since Xu’s now a serial killer, fifteen years is on the table if what you tell us helps us find him.”

“You got that in writing?”

“There hasn’t been time, Cindy, and we don’t have much of it now. He could be leaving the country as we speak.”

“Can I trust you, Agent Savich?”

Savich leaned down close to her face. “You can trust me.”

Cindy opened her eyes and studied his face. She whispered, “Xu’s first name is Xian, X-i-a-n, but he’d always been called Xu, said it was easier than Xian. He’s a lot younger than Clive, but he didn’t tell me his age. I teased him enough for him to tell me he was from Indiana, got out of there when he was eighteen. He said he changed his name to Joe Keats, but when he was working, he was Xu. I don’t know if he’s using Joe Keats now, since I never saw his passport. I think he’s got lots of aliases.”

“Does this look like him, Cindy?” Savich showed her the sketch of Xu on the cell phone.

“That’s not too bad. He’s handsomer, though, really pretty green eyes. He did tell me he got his eyelashes from his mom, Ann.”

“Do you know where he’s staying?”

“No, he never told us that. He showed up when he wanted to. I think he moved around.”

“What was Xu after from Mark Lindy’s computer?”

“He never told us that, either. He said the less we knew about it, the better for everyone. Lindy did tell me he was an expert on computer worms and viruses, stuff like that. He bragged to me once when he was lying on top of me after sex that he was one of the major designers of the worm that shut down Iran’s bomb plans.”

An alarm went off on one of the electronic monitors Cindy was connected to, and a nurse and resident rushed into the cubicle. “Please leave now,” the doctor said. “She needs some help.”

The four of them were hurried out of Cindy Cahill’s cubicle. They stood motionless outside the cubicle. “Is she going to die?”

No one had an answer for that.

Savich punched the elevator button. They said nothing more, waited until they were inside. Savich said, “Since there’s nothing we can do about Cindy, I need to sit down somewhere, run the information she gave us on Xu through MAX.”

As they walked to the cafeteria, Eve said, “I want her to make it, I really do. I’ll admit I was surprised she was so upset about Clive. I always thought she was using him, like he was some sort of father figure to her. It’s all just so—useless.”

Savich shook his head. “I’d say they had a mutual dependence, strange as it was.”

Eve nodded. “I also think she had a bit of contempt for him, since she knew very well Clive was weaker than she was—but yeah, she depended on him, he was always there for her. I wonder what will happen to her now.”

San Francisco General Hospital

Cafeteria

Sherlock set down her coffee cup as she looked over Dillon’s shoulder. Xu had been born and raised in Lampo, Indiana. He was the son of a Caucasian mother, Ann Xu, a history teacher at Lampo High School, and a Chinese father who had first immigrated to the Gulf-side town of Paxico, Florida, before moving to Indiana and buying a gas station.

At eighteen, Xu and his parents had left Lampo for a long summer vacation at Bronson Lake, fifty miles from Lampo, Mrs. Xu had told neighbors.