Along Came A Spider

CHAPTER 18

ZZIE FLANAGAN didn't get home until early Christmas morning. Her head was spinning, bursting with many ideas about the kidnapping.

She had to stop the obsessive images for a while. She had to shut down her engines, or the plant would explode. She had to stop being a cop. The difference between her and some other cops, she knew, was that she could stop.

Jezzie was living in Arlington with her mother. They shared a small, cramped condo apartment near the Crystal City Underground. Jezzie thought of it as the “Suicide flat.” The living arrangement was supposed to be temporary, except that she had been there close to a year now, ever since her divorce from Dennis Kelleher.

Dennis the Menace was up in northern Jersey these days, still trying to make it to the New York Times. He was never going to accomplish that feat, Jezzie knew in her heart. The only thing Dennis had ever been good at was trying to make Jezzie doubt herself. Dennis had

98 been a real standout in that department. But in the end, she wouldn't let him beat her down.

She had been working too hard at the Service to find time to move out of her mother's condo. At least that was what she kept telling herself. There'd been no time to have a life. She was saving up-for something big, some kind of significant life change. She'd been calculating her net worth at least a couple of times a week, every week. She had all of twenty-four thousand dollars. That was everything. She was thirty-two now. She knew she was good-looking, almost beautiful-the way Dennis Kelleher was almost a good writer.

Jezzie could have been a contender, she often thought to herself. She almost had it made. All she needed was one decent break, and she'd finally realized she had to make that break for herself. She was committed to it. She drank a Smithwich, really fine ale from the Old Sod. Smitty's had been her father's favorite brand of poison in the world. She nibbled a slice of fresh cheddar. Then she had a second ale in the shower, down dreary Hallway Number One at her mother's. Michael Goldberg's little face flashed at her again.

She wouldn't allow any more flash images of the Goldberg boy to come. She wouldn't feel any guilt, even if she was bursting at the seams with it....

The two children had been abducted during her watch. That was how everything had started... Stop the images! Stop everything for now. Irene Flanagan was coughing in her sleep. Her mother had worked thirty-nine years for C&P Telephone. She owned the condo in Crystal City. She was a killer bridge player. That was it for Irene.

Jezzie's father had been a cop in D.C. for twenty years. The end game came for Terry Flanagan, on his beloved ob-a heart attack in crowded Union Station-with hundreds of complete strangers watching him die, nobody really caring. Anyway, that was the

I way Jezzie always told the story I Jezzie decided, again, for the thousandth time, that she had to move out of her mother's place. No matter I what. No more larne excuses. Move it or lose it, girl. Move on, move on, move on with your life. She had completely lost track of how long she'd been drowning in the shower, holding the empty beer bottle at her side, rubbing the cool glass against her thigh ' 4 6 Despair junkie,“ she muttered to herself. ” That's really pitiful." She'd been in the shower long enough to finish the Smithwich, anyway, and get thirsty for another one. Thirsty for something. She'd successfully avoided thinking about the Goldberg boy for a while. But not really. How could she? Little Michael Goldberg. Jezzie Flanagan had gotten good at forgetting over the past few years, though-avoiding pain at all costs. It was dumb to be in pain, if you could avoid it. Of course, that also meant avoiding close relationships, avoiding even the proximity of love, avoiding most of the natural range of human emotions. Fair enough. It might be an acceptable trade-off. She'd found that she could survive without love in her life. It sounded terrible, but it was the truth. Yes, for the moment, especially the present moment, the trade-off was well worth it, Jezzie thought. It helped get her through each day and night of the crisis. It got her through until the cocktail hour, anyway.

She coped okay. She had all the right tools for survival. If she could make it as a woman cop, she could make it at anything. The other agents in the Service said she had cojones. It was their idea of a compliment, so Jezzie took it as one. Besides, they were spot on-she did have brass cojones. And the times that she didn't, she was smart enough to fake it.

At one o'clock in the morning, Jezzie Flanagan had to take the BMW bike for a ride; she had to get out of the suffocating, tiny apartment in Arlington.

Had to,'had to, had to.

Her mother must have heard the door opening out to the hallway. She called to Jezzie from her bedroom, maybe right out of her sleep.

“Jezzie, where are you going so late? Jezzie? Jezzie, is that you?” “Just out, Mother. ” Christmas shopping at the mall, a cynical line bounced against the walls of her head. As usual, she kept it inside. She wished Christmas would go away. She dreaded the next day.

Then she was gone into the night on the BMW K-1 -either escaping from, or chasing after, her personal nightmares, her devils.

It was Christmas. Had Michael Goldberg died for our sins? Was that what this was about? she thought.

She refused to let herself feel all the guilt. It was Christmas, and Christ had already died for.everyone's sins. Even Jezzie Flanagan's sins. She was feeling a little crazy. No, she was feeling a lot crazy, but she could take control. Always take control. That's what she would do now.

She sang “Winter Wonderland”-at a hundred and ten miles an hour on the open highway heading out of Washington. She wasn't afraid of very much, but this time she was afraid.