The Death Factory by Greg Iles Page B

in a cold sweat, certain that Sarah was dead. I leaned down over her face, the way you do with an infant sometimes, and I heard nothing. But when I touched her face, she stirred, then gasped.
    “‘Everything’s okay,’ I told her. ‘Are you there? Are you with me?’
    “She nodded uncertainly. ‘Is Annie all right?’
    “‘Yes, she’s sleeping. What about you? Are you all right?’
    “Somehow, through the thick fog in her eyes, I saw the girl I’d married. ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘I see you.’
    “She stared back at me for a long time. Then she said, ‘This isn’t fair.’
    “This was literally the first time she’d said anything like that.
    “‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘It fucking sucks.’
    “‘Did I do something to deserve this?’ she asked, looking as though she really believed she might have.
    “‘Absolutely not,’ I told her. ‘What you deserve is to live to be ninety-five and have ten grandchildren.’
    “What she did next almost killed me. Her eyes were as clear as they’d been in weeks. She clenched my hand weakly and whispered, ‘Penn, I’m scared.’
    “I pretty much lost it then. I wanted Dad to knock her out. I was like her father, in a way. I could stand seeing her in pain, but I couldn’t stand seeing her afraid .”
    Jack touches my arm and says, “I’ve been there, brother. Believe me.”
    His understanding gives me a feeling of comfort I don’t quite understand—the luxury of not having to explain, I suppose. “Not long after that, Mitch Gaines called me back. He said he’d heard I was talking to cops about the Avila case, and he was doing me the favor of saving my ass by warning me off it. He actually told me that if I persisted, I might be charged with obstruction of justice. As you might imagine, I was in no mood to be threatened. I told him he was the one whose ass was hanging in the wind, and he’d better stay out of my fucking way. Then I hung up. I was raging mad, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave Sarah’s bedside.
    “About ten that morning, her pain worsened significantly. She was moaning and crying, and Annie got freaked out. Dad could no longer keep the pain at bay without drugging Sarah senseless, which would have been a blessing. At this point, Mrs. Spencer was worn down to a shadow of herself. Only Mom and Dad were holding it together. It really looked like Sarah was going to die that day, but somehow she held on. About three P.M. , she lapsed into what looked like a coma. But her vitals were still reasonably strong.”
    While Jack stares at me, waiting, I let my eyes track a quarter-mile-long string of barges moving downstream far below us. The burnt-orange containers are riding low in the water, and the rumble of the massive engines of the tugboat pushing them is but a hum from this height. Yet that steady hum enters into me like a tranquilizer, and I feel my mind coming unmoored from the present again.
    “Penn . . . ?” Jack prompts.
    “Sorry. I was going crazy just waiting, so I took that chance to call Joe Cantor. I’ll give Joe credit: he didn’t try to avoid me. We met in a quiet restaurant near my house, one we used to use during murder trials. The owner gave us a private table in the back. Joe told me it was good to see me, and he meant it. We’d tried some major cases together and put some very bad guys behind bars. It was sort of like two old soldiers meeting years after a war. He asked about Sarah, and I soft-pedaled that. I didn’t want to get into it.”
    “What kind of guy is Cantor?”
    “Unique. He’s half Jewish, but nonpracticing and fully assimilated. About the only thing Jewish about Joe Cantor is his Old Testament sense of justice. He’s not a big guy, but he’s a Texan down to his boots and bones. He looks like Rod Serling. Black hair, iron jaw, and as steely a pair of eyes as you ever saw. He never had much accent, either, which was surprising. His paternal grandfather was a Texas Ranger, and the other was a