“What’s that?” Gage asked.
“They asked me for his next of kin.”
Gage froze at the top of the stairs, then caught his breath, steeling himself for the answer before he asked the question. “Did he…”
“No. Sorry, man. It’s not that. They just wanted contact info.”
Gage exhaled. “Put me down until his wife gets there.”
“Where is she?”
“With Faith up at the cabin. I’ll call her on the way.”
In his bedroom, Gage slipped on a pair of Levi’s, then reached for a gray hooded sweatshirt, and slid it over his body like armor.
CHAPTER 2
The city began to emerge as Gage drove down the pine-and oak-treed canyon toward the Bay Bridge. The clouds had lifted enough to expose a pattern of lights hinting at the shapes of buildings spread around the San Francisco financial district. His mind’s eye perceived what he still couldn’t quite make out: the top three floors of a steel and glass Montgomery Street office tower, home to Jack Burch’s international law firm. His thoughts then drifted up toward Pacific Heights, still masked in gray, now and forever stained in his sight. He then imagined a faceless driver in an anonymous car disappearing into the mazelike city spreading out before him.
Gage glanced at his dashboard clock as he crested the cantilever section of the bridge, beginning the decline toward the waterfront: 5:59. He punched on the radio, already tuned to the local CBS News affiliate. He didn’t know how long it would be until some nurse or clerk or paramedic leaked Burch’s shooting to the press-but he knew how long it would remain there: weeks, maybe months. It wasn’t imaginable that the man who charted the courses by which half of the Fortune Global 500 navigated the world’s turbulent markets had been randomly shot down in the street. The cable news channels would demand a Greater Meaning, perhaps even a Conspiracy. Day after day. Night after night.