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They had burgers and shakes and apple pie, and it was half past seven when
they went back out onto the street, all three of them beaming and replete.
In the car, Kate paused with her hand on the key. "Wanda said you wanted to
talk to me."
"Maybe you'd like to drop me somewhere first," Lee immediately offered.
"No, that's okay," Dio said. "I didn't really want to talk."
Kate wondered if she'd imagined the very slight stress on the final word.
"What did you have in mind?"
"I thought& " He took a deep breath. "I thought I'd show you something."
"Good," Kate said approvingly. "Showing me things is good. While you're
thinking, though, you might also think about where the name Kimbal came from."
"It's Jules's name."
"Her name is Cameron," Kate pointed out.
"Her real father's name was Kimbal."
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Kate whirled around so fast, she nearly strangled herself on the seat belt.
"She told you that?"
"Yeah."
"Marsh Kimbal?"
"I don't know. She never told me his first name."
"What is Cameron, then?"
"I don't know that, either, but it's not his name. It isn't her mother's name,
either. At least that's what Jules said."
"How did she find this out? Did she come across her birth certificate?"
"It isn't on her birth certificate, not the one her mother has. There isn't a
father listed on that one. Jules hunted it down in the records of some
hospital somewhere, over the computer."
"How long have you known this?"
He wouldn't meet her eyes. "Since last summer," he said in a small voice.
"Shit, Dio." She turned and smacked her hand hard against the steering wheel.
"How could you keep this kind of information to yourself? I've been trying "
"Kate," Lee said quietly. "He's given it to you now. Work with it."
Kate grasped the wheel firmly with both hands and took several slow breaths.
"Okay. I'm sorry, Dio. Thank you for telling me. I'm glad the hamburger
torture worked. Now I'm going to have to find a phone." She pulled the keys
out of the ignition and began to peer at the surrounding buildings, but she
was interrupted by Dio's hand tentatively touching her shoulder.
"Could the phone wait?" he asked. "I promised Reg I'd be back by nine, and I'd
really like to give you the other thing tonight."
"What is it?"
"An envelope Jules gave me last month, with something lumpy in it. I didn't
open it."
"Where is it?"
"At the squat. It was the only place I could think of to hide something."
She looked at the clock. To the squat and back across town would indeed leave
little time for hunting down first a telephone and then Al Hawkin.
"Why didn't you ever have a car phone put in?" she complained to Lee, starting
the engine and pulling out with a squeal onto Van Ness Avenue.
The three of them sat in the silent car and looked at the dark, dreary bulk of
the warehouse.
"We don't haye a key for the padlock," Kate said, "and they've nailed the
metal sheet down."
"I got in another way last month," Dio told her. "It'll only take me a
minute."
"I'll go with you."
"You don't have to."
"Yes, I do." She left the keys in the ignition and turned to Lee. "If anyone
comes, anyone at all, lean on the horn. I'll be here in twenty seconds."
"Be careful," was all Lee said.
"I wonder if my tetanus shots are up-to-date," Kate muttered, reaching under
the seat for the flashlight.
The boy's alternate entrance was around the back of the building. He dragged a
crate from its resting place against the wall to a position under the metal
fire escape and boosted himself up onto it. To Kate's relief the box proved
itself sturdier than it looked by not collapsing as Dio jumped up to catch the
lowest rung. He pulled himself up, Kate following with a good deal more
effort. Halfway up the stairway, he swung his leg over the handrail and onto a
narrow decorative ledge on the building. Kate kept the light shining on his
feet as he picked his way along to a small window half a dozen feet away,
which easily pushed open. He turned and grinned at Kate, his teeth gleaming in
the indirect glow of the flashlight.
"I was afraid they'd fastened it shut." He placed both hands on the sill and
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