Remember Summer by Elizabeth Lowell

Author:Elizabeth Lowell [Lowell, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
ISBN: 9780062208903
Publisher: HarperCollins US
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

The hard-edged smile Cord gave Raine was no more comforting than his eyes. “I’m Cord Elliot, remember?”

“That’s not what I meant,” she said quickly, words tumbling out of her as she tried to explain, to banish the deadly stranger who was looking at her through Cord Elliot’s eyes. “Are you local police or federal or military or . . . something else?”

His eyes closed for an instant. When they opened, the stranger was gone. “I’m on your side, Raine. Isn’t that enough?”

He turned away before she could answer.

There was a finality to his movement that told her more clearly than words that the subject of Cord Elliot was closed. With hands that wanted to tremble, she picked up the mystery and began the second chapter for the fifth time.

This time she was more successful, if success could be measured by the number of pages turning beneath her determined fingers as the darkness outside deepened toward midnight. But the words she read were meaningless, the silence and the static cries of the scanner oddly hypnotic.

Cord was right. This equipment, this room, she herself didn’t exist. Nothing did but darkness and ghostly voices and the man with pale eyes who sat at the center of everything, listening, waiting.

“—Ontario. Two-eleven in progress. All cars in vicinity respond code three. Repeat. Two-eleven in progress on corner of—”

Static and silence and the hollow clicking of a computer keyboard. She held her breath unconsciously while the scanner searched unknown frequencies.

“—Subject turning right on Sunset. Are you on him, Jake? Can you—”

Silence and clicking, scanner searching.

“—And they’re at it again. Flip you for it, Martinez. Last time I got between her and her pimp she damn near cut off my—”

Static and silence, the faint hiss of voices coming over frequencies layered like cards in a deck, waiting for a dealer to pick them out and give them meaning.

“—repeat. Anyone monitoring this frequency speak Chinese? At least, I think it’s Chinese, but I—”

Cord snapped on the hold and waited, listening.

“—can’t be sure because I’m no linguist. She looks about six years old, and scared to death in the bargain. This is Kate on Nine. Over.”

He waited, but no one answered. He picked up the radio, adjusted the frequency, and spoke.

“Kate on Nine,” he said, leaving out his own identification. “Is the girl able to hear me? Over.”

“Yes. Over.”

Raine listened in fascination as sliding, singsong syllables poured out of Cord. When he ended with, “Does she understand? Over,” the English words were almost jarring.

“Thank God. Yes, she understands you. Over.” The woman’s relief was evident even through the static.

He talked for a while longer, his voice soothing even in the odd tones and minor-key phrasing of the language he used. A girl’s voice came back to him, high and thin and strangely musical. The exchange continued for a few minutes before Cord addressed the woman called Kate.

“The girl’s name is Mei. She’s Vietnamese, ten years old, and has been here only a few weeks. Do you live near Anaheim Stadium? Over.

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