The Door to December

life out of her brain before finally releasing her. Only Boothe and Uhlander stood between the girl and death. And even now, either the publisher or the author — or both — might be in the merciless grip of their invisible but powerful adversary.
     Dan turned away from Seames, jerked open the door, and plunged out into the parking lot, where a cold wind and a stinging rain and an early fog were industriously putting the lie to the standard postcard image of Southern California. He sloshed through several puddles, getting water in his shoes.
     He heard Seames shouting at him, but he didn't pause or reply. When he got in the car, dripping and shivering, he looked back and saw Seames standing in the open door of the precinct house. From this distance the agent's face seemed to have aged in the past few minutes; now it was more in harmony with his gray hair.
     Driving out of the lot, into the street, Dan was surprised that Seames let him go. After all, a great deal was at stake, perhaps even grave national-defense issues; eight people were dead, and the FBI had officially stepped into the case. Seames would have been justified in detaining him; in fact, it was a dereliction of duty not to have done so.
     Dan was relieved to be free, of course, because it was more important than ever that he talk to Boothe soon, damned soon. If Melanie's life had been hanging by a string, it was now hanging by a thread, and time like a razor was relentlessly sawing through that fragile filament.
     Delmar, Carrie, Cindy Lakey ...
     No.
     Not this time.
     He would save this woman, this child. He would not fail again.
     He drove through Westwood, reached Wilshire, swung left, heading toward Westwood Boulevard, which would take him to Sunset and to the entrance to Bel Air. He would be arriving at the Boothe house ahead of schedule, but maybe Boothe would be early too.
     Dan went three blocks before it dawned on him that Michael Seames had probably had his car bugged while he was in the precinct house preparing his statement against Wexlersh and Manuello. That was why he hadn't been detained for questioning or arrested for obstructing a federal officer. Seames had realised that the quickest method of finding Laura and Melanie McCaffrey was to allow Dan to lead the way.
     As a traffic light turned red ahead of him, Dan braked and glanced repeatedly in the rearview mirror. Traffic was heavy. Spotting a tail would be difficult and time-consuming when there was precious little time to consume. Besides, those tracking him were not necessarily within sight of his car; if they had bugged his car, if they were running an electronic tail, they could be several blocks away, watching his progress on a lighted scope overlaid with a computer-generated map of the streets.
     He had to lose them.
     He wasn't going to the McCaffrey's yet, but he didn't want to be followed to Boothe's place, either. A tag-along band of FBI agents would not particularly encourage Boothe to open up. Furthermore, if Boothe did spill everything he knew, Dan didn't want anyone to hear what the publisher had to say, for if Melanie did — by some miracle — survive, that information would be used against her. Then she would have no chance whatsoever of finding her way back from autism, no hope of leading a normal life.
     Already, there was little hope for her, though there was at least a spark. Right now, it was Dan's job to preserve that spark of hope and try to nurture it into a flame.
     The traffic light changed to green.
     He hesitated, not sure which way to go, what action to take in order to rid himself of his tail.
     He looked at his watch.
     His heart was pounding.
     The soft ticking of his watch, the thump-tick of his heartbeat, and the ticking of the rain on the car all blended together in one metronomic sound, and it seemed as though the entire world were a time bomb about to explode.
    36
    Melanie's eyes followed the action on the screen. She didn't make a sound, and she didn't shift an inch in her seat, but her eyes moved, and that seemed to be a good sign. It was one of the few times in the past two days that Laura had seen the girl actually looking at something in this world. For almost an hour, the movement of her eyes had indicated that she was involved with the movie, which was certainly the first that she had