Free Blood Memory by Greg Iles Page A

the disaster identification unit made up of volunteer dentists across the state of Louisiana. I organized that unit. Shubb took one of my seminars in forensic odontology, and he would love a call from me.
    “You know him. I can tell,” Sean says.
    “I know him.”
    “Is he an okay guy?”
    “Yes, but that doesn’t change anything. Get your court order, and Shubb will do you right. You should also be trying to find out if this Malik had any orthodontic work done as an adolescent, or even later. Orthodontists keep their patient models for a very long time, as a defense against future lawsuits.”
    Sean sighs heavily. “I’ll tell them that.”
    “Kaiser probably knows already.” I picture the former FBI profiler in my mind. I can’t imagine much getting by him.
    “I know you won’t make the call,” Sean says in a wheedling tone, “but at least let me fax you what I have on Malik. You want to see that, right?”
    I don’t answer. My thoughts have wandered back to the bloody footprints in my bedroom.
    “Cat? Are you there?”
    “Send me what you’ve got.”
    “Give me a fax number.”
    I give him the number of my grandfather’s fax machine. I know it because we sometimes have to exchange documents dealing with my trust fund.
    “I’ll get it to you as soon as I can,” Sean promises.
    “Fine.”
    There’s an awkward pause. Then he says, “Are you coming back tonight?”
    I actually hear loneliness in his voice. “No.”
    “Tomorrow, then?”
    “I don’t know, Sean.”
    “Why not? You hardly ever go home, and when you do, you don’t like it.”
    “Something’s happened up here.”
    “What? Is somebody sick?”
    “I can’t explain now. I have to go.”
    “Call me later, then.”
    “If I notice anything interesting in the stuff you fax me, I’ll call. Otherwise, it’ll be tomorrow at least before you hear from me.”
    Sean is silent. Then, after a few moments, he says, “Good-bye, Cat.”
    I hang up and look back at the slave quarters, then up at the rear of Malmaison. I want to talk to my mother, but she’s still twenty minutes away. Suddenly, from the roiling mass of thoughts that is my mind in this moment, a clear image rises. Breaking into a trot, I head into the trees on the east side of the vast lawn, following a path first beaten by my own feet fifteen years ago.
    I need to be underwater.
    As I jog through the trees, I spy a dark figure standing in the shadows about forty yards ahead. A black man in work clothes. I bear left so that I won’t pass him too closely, but as I near the figure, I recognize Mose, the yardman who has worked at Malmaison since before I was born. Once a strapping giant who could carry railroad ties on his back, Mose now has a bent spine and white stubble that grows almost up to his watery yellow eyes. He lives alone in a small house at the back of the property, but once a week he commands an army of younger men who groom the grounds like a crack army platoon. I wave as I pass to his left. The old man lifts his arm in a vague way. He doesn’t recognize me. Probably thinks I’m one of the suburban housewives from Brookwood. The scary thing is that I’m old enough to be one now. I quicken my pace, my mind racing ahead to a place I haven’t visited in far too long.
    Years fall away as I run.

Chapter
9
    Pounding through the trees at the eastern border of Malmaison’s grounds, I suddenly emerge behind the houses of Brookwood Estates, a subdivision built on DeSalle land sold to a developer during the 1930s, when Malmaison was out of the family’s hands. The homes in Brookwood are mostly single-story, 1950s ranch houses, but a few at the back are two-story colonials. I came here countless times during my youth, and always for the same reason. One of the colonials belonged to the Hemmeters, an elderly couple who owned a swimming pool.
    I came because my grandfather, despite his enormous wealth and my fanatical dedication to swimming—three consecutive state