She cuffed him on the shoulder. “You know what I mean.”
“I just don’t like to get caught up in other people’s lives like that.”
“But getting caught up in other people’s lives is a really big part of most people’s lives, Decker.”
“Not mine.”
She sighed. “The meeting tonight puts things in a whole new perspective. I mean, if an attack on this country is planned, we need to solve this thing really soon.”
Decker closed his eyes.
She stared at him in disbelief. “Are you going to zone out on me? If so, I’ll just go to my room and go to sleep.”
“Okay. Good night.”
She pushed his legs out of the way, sat down next to him, and said, “Damn it, Decker, will you please talk to me?”
He looked at her, clearly annoyed. “What do you want me to say, Alex?
“Our country is going to be attacked. What are we going to do to stop it?”
“I’m thinking about it. I am working on it. But I’m not a magician.”
“But everyone thinks you are, me included. The things you can do. It’s amazing. You never fail.”
“I actually fail lots of times. And I’m not a damn machine. So if you’re worried about the sky falling, don’t look to me to fix it.”
He abruptly stood, grabbed his jacket, and headed out.
“Decker, wait, I didn’t—”
But he had already slammed the door behind him.
He trotted down the stairs and out into the coolness of the night. And he started walking, each exhaled breath releasing tiny clouds into the sky.
He was angry and he didn’t want to be. He knew that Jamison was actually complimenting him, voicing her complete confidence in his abilities. But he was feeling the pressure of preventing an attack. Even in his altered state where he didn’t “get” normal social cues, he clearly understood what was at stake.
This was a long way from being a PI in a rust belt town back in Ohio, hustling for clients in all the wrong places.
Not that long ago I was living in a cardboard box. And now I’m supposed to be the savior of the country? How effed up is that?
He shoved his hands into his pockets, pointed his head down, and kept walking.
He reached the river and stood and looked out over the expanse of water.
It mirrored his thoughts: dark, murky, deep.
He had to get traction on this case. Something to hang on to. There were so many moving parts, and just when he thought he had something, it fell apart, or was overtaken by a new development.
Was that intentional? Are they trying to keep us reactive?
He shut his eyes and let the frames roll through. It occurred to Decker that this process was like how the old-time animators would do their job, drawing slightly different versions of a character on multiple pieces of paper that you would then flip through to show motion.
Well, he was hoping for some motion of the forward variety.
He decided to begin at the beginning.
One more time.
And something had just occurred to him.
It had to do with real estate.
He made the phone call, and on the third ring Faye Thompson, Walter Dabney’s partner, picked up.
“What is it?” she said when Decker identified himself.
“I was just wondering about something.”
“Look, I’m up to my ass in lawyers and federal investigators. I don’t have time—”
“If you cooperate it will look better for you,” interjected Decker.
He heard her sigh and then she said, “What do you want to know?”
“When you joined the firm it was doing well?”
“Yes. Very well.”
“How about when Dabney first started out? Was he in the same office space you’re in now?”
“Of course not. It was only him way back when. So he didn’t need that much space. And he couldn’t have afforded it anyway.”
“Because he was building up his business.”
“Yes. It takes a lot of work and hard times to build something like Walter did. He started out on a shoestring and slowly built from there. He maxed out his credit cards more than once, I heard. But he was hugely successful in the end.”
“So money was tight?”
“Well, if you have plenty of cash why would you max out your credit cards?” she said snidely.
“Right. I understand that he had a yellow Porsche when he still worked at NSA?”
Jules nodded and pointed. “My dad’s mom and dad. They’re dead now. They were from Princeton, New Jersey. We used to go and visit them. He was a professor of political science there.”
“Impressive. They look like they were pretty well-off.”
“No. They lived in a house provided by the university. I know my dad helped them out financially when they got older.”
He pointed to another photo. “And these folks.”
“My mom’s parents. They lived in Oregon.”