She was sitting there on a warm fall day, just eighteen years old, staring at the edifice, imagining what it must have been like in Ancient Greece, when a voice said, “It doesn’t work, does it?”
She turned. Mike had his hands in his pocket. He looked so damned handsome. “Excuse me?”
He took a step closer, a half smile on his lips, moving with a confidence that drew her. Mike gestured with his head toward the enormous structure. “It’s an exact replica, right? You look at it, and this is what they saw, great philosophers like Plato and Socrates, and all I can think is”—he stopped, shrugged—“is that all there is?”
She smiled at him. She saw his eyes widen and knew that the smile had landed hard. “It leaves nothing to the imagination,” she said.
Mike tilted his head. “What do you mean?”
“You see the ruins of the real Parthenon and you try to imagine what it would have looked like. But the reality, which this is, can never live up to what your mind conjures up.”
Mike nodded slowly, considering.
“You don’t agree?” she asked.
“I had another theory,” Mike said.
“I’d like to hear it.”
He moved closer and bent down on his haunches. “There are no ghosts.”
Now she did the head tilt.
“You need the history. You need the people in their sandals walking through it. You need the years, the blood, the deaths, the sweat from, what, four hundred years B.C. Socrates never prayed in there. Plato didn’t argue by its door. Replicas never have the ghosts. They’re bodies without souls.”
The young Charlaine smiled again. “You use this line on all the girls?”
“It’s new, actually. I’m trying it out. Any good?”
She lifted her hand, palm down, and turned it back and forth. “Eh.”
Charlaine had been with no other man since that day. For years they returned to the fake Parthenon on their anniversary. This had been the first year they hadn’t gone back.
“There he is,” Mike said.
The Ford Windstar was traveling west on Hollywood Avenue toward Route 17. Charlaine was back on the phone with a 911 operator. The operator was finally taking her seriously.
“We lost radio contact with our officer at the scene,” she said.
“He’s heading onto Route 17 south at the Hollywood Avenue entrance,” Charlaine said. “He’s driving a Ford Windstar.”
“License plate?”
“I can’t see it.”
“We have officers responding to both scenes. You can drop your pursuit now.”
She lowered the phone. “Mike?”
“It’s okay,” he said.
She sat back and thought about her own house, about ghosts, about bodies without souls.
• • •
Eric Wu was not easily surprised.
Seeing the woman from the house and this man he assumed was her husband following him—that definitely registered as something he would not have predicted. He wondered how to handle it.
The woman.
She had set him up. She was following him. She had called the police. They had sent an officer. He knew then that she would call again.
What Wu had counted on, however, was putting enough distance between himself and the Sykes household before the police responded to her call. When it comes to tracking down vehicles the police are far from omnipotent. Think about the Washington sniper a few years back. They had hundreds of officers. They had roadblocks. For an embarrassingly long time they couldn’t locate two amateurs.
If Wu could get enough miles ahead, he would be safe.
But now there was a problem.
That woman again.
That woman and her husband were following him. They would be able to tell the police where he was going, what road he was on, what direction he was heading. He would not be able to put the distance between him and the authorities.
Conclusion: Wu had to stop them.
He spotted the sign for the Paramus Park Mall and took the jug-handle back over the highway. The woman and her husband followed. It was late at night. The stores were closed. The lot was empty. Wu pulled into it. The woman and her husband kept their distance.
That was okay.
Because it was time to call their bluff.
Wu had a gun, a Walther PPK. He didn’t like using it. Not that he was squeamish. Wu simply preferred his hands. He was decent with a gun; he was expert with his hands. He had perfect control with them. They were a part of him. With a gun you are forced to trust the mechanics, an outside source. Wu did not like that.
But he understood the need.
He stopped the car. He made sure the gun was loaded. His car door was unlocked. He pulled the handle, stepped out of the vehicle, and aimed his weapon.
• • •
Mike said, “What the hell is he doing?”
Charlaine watched the Ford Windstar enter the mall lot. There were no other cars. The lot was well lit, bathed in a shopping-center fluorescent glow. She could see Sears up ahead, the Office Depot, Sports Authority.
The Ford Windstar drifted to a stop.
“Keep back,” she said.
“We’re in a locked car,” Mike said. “What can he do?”
The Asian man moved with fluidity and grace, and yet there was also deliberation, as if each movement had been carefully planned in advanced. It was a strange combination, the way he moved, almost inhuman. But right now the man stood next to his car, his entire body still. His arm swept forward, only the arm, the rest of him so undisturbed by the motion that you might think it was an optical illusion.
And then their windshield exploded.
The noise was sudden and deafening. Charlaine screamed. Something splashed on her face, something wet and syrupy. There was a coppery smell in the air now. Instinctively Charlaine ducked. The glass from the windshield rained down on her head. Something slumped against her, pushing her down.
It was Mike.
She screamed again. The scream mixed with the sound of another bullet being fired. She had to move, had to get out, had to get them out of here. Mike was not moving. She shoved him off her and risked raising her head.
Another shot whistled past her.
She had no idea where it landed. Her head was back down. There was a screaming in her ears. A few seconds passed. Charlaine finally risked a glance.
The man was walking toward her.
What now?
Escape. Flee. That was the only thought that came through.
How?
She shifted the car into reverse. Mike’s foot was still on the brake. She dropped low. Her hand stretched out and took hold of his slack ankle. She slid his foot off the brake. Still wedged into the foot area Charlaine managed to jam her palm on the accelerator. She pushed down with everything she had. The car jerked back. She could not move. She had no idea where she was going.