Lucy allowed herself to be lifted so that Dixie could wrestle the T-shirt onto her. It was huge and reeked of stale sweat. Lucy assumed it belonged to one of the men. She remained as limp, as listless, as she could manage, returning silently to her fetal position as soon as Dixie finished dressing her.
“You know it wouldn’t do you any good to try to get out of here. We know everybody around for miles and my daddy about supports half the people out here. You could say we’re very instrumental in this community. A lot of the people around here are our kin.
“Honey, you need to sit up and drink this medicine Dixie got for you,” Dixie said, her voice sticky with false concern. “It’ll make you feel better.”
Lucy had known this was coming, but she was filled with sudden terror, knowing the concoction would probably put her out, or at the least turn her into a staggering mess. If she was going to have a chance, she couldn’t allow it. Dixie turned her over, raised her up, and put the coffee mug to her lips, pressing the rim against Lucy’s teeth. The main odor was that of orange juice with an undercurrent of cough syrup.
“Don’t make Dixie mad,” the powerful woman warned. “Drink it.”
Lucy wanted to scream, but instead she opened her mouth to allow the thick, sweet liquid to flow down her throat. Dixie didn’t take the mug away until it was empty.
Dixie stood, letting Lucy go back into her curl. “You get some rest, missy. A nice restful sleep is just what you need. You’ll wake up at home.”
Dixie stood in the doorway staring in at Lucy for a long time. All the while, Lucy was visualizing the medicine cocktail working itself into the lining of her stomach.
Keep thinking you’re winning, you muscle-bound freak, Lucy thought. Just keep thinking it.
Eleven-letter word for Dixie.
P S Y C H O B I T C H
49
Clayton Able knew exactly where Dixie Smoot had called her father from, but he wasn’t going to share that with anybody except the Major. Winter Massey was, as Clayton had insisted from the start he would, proving to be difficult to control. It appeared that if Massey was left to his own devices, he could make a very large mess of things, and generate complications they didn’t need.
He turned to Antonia. “We have to stop Massey.”
“Slow him down,” the Major answered. “It isn’t necessary to do anything so rash. Massey can’t get anything done before tomorrow, and then it’ll work for us. He can die as planned while shooting it out with the kidnappers. No need to change the plan.”
“Randall is hot over what happened at Click’s house. Says we should have warned him that Massey was there.”
“Screw Randall. He didn’t tell us he was going there. This is a two-way street. Max had better not forget who’s calling the tune. Where’s Alexa?”
“Coming here.”
“Good.”
“Massey’s on his way to Laughlin’s.”
“And Laughlin won’t be home. So Massey will go back to see the Smoot kid and-”
“I’ve seen this happen a hundred times and I know in my gut when something is about to go up in flames,” Clayton insisted nervously. “If you don’t let me handle him, I’m not going to stay with this. I’m not going to spend my golden years in prison. We need to let Randall deal with Massey now.”
He heard her exhale loudly. “Go ahead. But it means a change in plan. I’ll work out an alternate with Alexa. Make sure Max understands that Massey’s body can’t be found until Monday. We’ll have to play some hocus-pocus with the forensics. No biggie, since we’ll be controlling the evidence-gathering process and reports.”
“I’ll make the call. You are paying me for my experience with these sorts of matters. It’s the right thing to do,” Clayton said, smiling. “The smart thing is the correct course.”
“It had better be, Mr. Able. It sure as hell better be.”
50
Winter Massey locked the gate to the closed-down clinic, then waited for Alexa to leave. She had the damned phone to her head before she was fifty feet away, probably calling Clayton Able for advice, no doubt begging him for some intelligence that would negate the necessity of Winter’s trip to Laughlin’s. Winter wasn’t going to run everything he did through Clayton, or wait for him to toss Winter some eleventh-hour bone. Winter didn’t care for men who sat at computers playing with human lives that were no more real to them than some teenage sorcerer in a game of Dungeons and Dragons. Clayton was working with Alexa, but the man had worked for Military Intelligence. He gave Winter the creeps, and every bone in his body told him not to trust him.
Something else was bothering him more than Clayton Able or Click’s imprisonment. He couldn’t shake a feeling of unease, a feeling whose source he couldn’t put his finger on. Winter had never gone against his gut without being sorry he had. Right now his gut felt hollow and hot.
He hadn’t wanted Alexa to come with him from Click’s house because he didn’t want her undermining what he was doing with Click. He had told himself that she was better off not being involved in anything that was heavy-handed or illegal due to the consequences to her career. She might want to let go and get down in the dirt with him, but she couldn’t. Still it troubled him that she would bring him in to do something and then block him from doing it.
Winter picked up his own cell phone from the console and dialed Sean.
“Hello, Tiger,” she answered.
“You say that to everybody?”
“Just if caller ID says they’re using your phone,” she replied. “How’s it going?”
“It’s picking up steam,” Winter told her. “I borrowed one of your padded cells. Hope you don’t mind.”
“No,” she said. “If you need it, it’s fine.”
“Your liability paid up on it?”
“Yes. Winter-Is everything all right?”
“Peachy keen. How’s everything at the ranch?”
“There’s a leak in the roof and water is running down the stone fireplace. Olivia has the sniffles. Rush saddled his horse without Faith Ann’s help. Faith Ann cooked speckled trout dinner and it was excellent. Hank’s complaining about everything because he wishes he was with you. This bed is so cold and lonely.”
“Well, if things work out, I’ll be back in it tomorrow night.”
“You’d better be. This hot water bottle doesn’t keep me as warm as you do.”
“I’m glad you need me for something.”
“Massey, I need you for everything. You know that, don’t you?”
“Sure I do.”
“You’d better be careful. You get injured and I’m going to be very angry with you. Is Alexa with you?”
“She’s gone back to the hotel to meet with someone.”
“Who’s watching your back?”
“Doesn’t need watching. I’m just driving around in the rain.”
A horn blared. Winter, realizing he had drifted close to another vehicle, swerved back into his lane. A van sped by, the driver holding his hand out in the rain long enough to give Winter a hand signal not covered in the North Carolina driver’s manual.
“What was that?” Sean asked.
“A Toyota, I think,” Winter said.
“Winter, stay focused,” she chastised.
“Sorry, what did you say?”
“That’s not funny. You hang up and don’t split your attention again for a minute.”
“Okay, babe. Go back to sleep.”
“Know what, Massey?”
“Yes, Sean, I certainly do.”
“You’d better.”
He waited until after she hung up to end the call. After this was over, he would tell Sean about the machine-gun attack at Click’s. No sense in giving her something concrete to worry about. He had come within a split second of being cut to pieces. It was nice to know that retirement hadn’t put cobwebs in his reflexes.
If the phone book was correct, Ross Laughlin’s house was a large Tudor near Queen’s College on a tree-lined st
reet where other stately homes were surrounded by manicured lawns. The windows of the lawyer’s home were all dark except for the ones on the back corner of the first floor-probably the kitchen. Laughlin’s outdoors lighting was pooled for dramatic effect, designed more to show off the landscaping than to offer security. Winter assumed Laughlin had at least as good a security system as everybody else on the street. Perhaps, being a criminal as well as an attorney, his was better than anything his neighbors had. Winter didn’t like the setup. There was no good place to park without letting himself be exposed as he approached the house from the front. He kept going and turned the corner and found a narrow service alley that ran behind the houses.
Winter went around the block and spotted a house that was being renovated, one end of it a yet roofless skeleton made of two-by-fours. A large container jammed with debris had been plopped down in the rutted disaster that would become a yard. The house was protected from its neighbors by a stand of bamboo. Winter cut his lights, turned in, and parked his truck behind the loaded dumpster.
He speed-dialed Alexa on the cell phone she’d furnished him.
“Yeah?” she answered.
“I’m here.”
“You sure you want to go this route? Not too late to change your mind.”
“I’m here, Lex. Unless you have something from Able that makes this unnecessary.”
“Anything I can say to stop you?”
“I can’t think of a thing.”
She was silent for a few long seconds. “Don’t do anything without weighing it against possible consequences. You’re wide open, Massey.”
Winter ended the call, reached behind his seat, and pulled out his hooded foul-weather camouflage jacket.
He set the cell phone Alexa had given him to vibrate and dropped it into his shirt pocket. He put the coat on, took the SIG out of his shoulder holster, and slipped it into the right front pocket of the coat. He opened the door and climbed out, locking the truck and pocketing the keys.
Winter decided that with current events under way, the lawyer might have special security measures in place, so Winter needed to be extremely cautious approaching the property. He had to let his eyes grow accustomed to the darkness so he could see using what little ambient light there was.
He used the stand of bamboo as a shield, waiting several minutes before he crossed the street and dodged behind a big home that backed up to the alley that ran behind the Laughlin house. Winter moved the way he stalked deer-slowly and deliberately, using the shadows and foliage and avoiding open spaces. Unlike deer, humans didn’t have a sense of smell that would allow them to pick him out. The falling rain covered the sound of his footsteps. He reached the back of Laughlin’s property, which was protected by a brick wall. Going over meant exposing himself and dropping into an area he didn’t know anything about.
His eyes lit on a section of ladder leaning against an oak tree in the backyard of the home closest to Laughlin’s. It was a godsend. He could climb up high enough into the tree to reconnoiter Laughlin’s property from a safe place.
Question coincidence, his inner voice reminded him. Anything that seems too good to be true. .
Something about this conveniently abandoned ladder that had looked so perfect now chilled him. Slowly, he backed deeper into the shadows. He put his hands in his pockets, froze completely, and concentrated on the ladder, his mind drawing lines and angles around it.
Long minutes passed while Winter closed his eyes and focused his ears until the normal sounds of the night were filtered out.
Sound betrayed them.
A muffled cough. Probably into a gloved hand.
A sniffle.
A twig snapped as someone shifted his weight.
Winter opened his eyes slowly.
Two or three invisible men trained in techniques of ambush had a kill zone set up around the bait-the ladder. A shadow beside a garden shed shifted and Winter made out the shape of a man giving hand signals.
They were communicating, which might mean nothing, or it might mean they were growing restless. Winter was positive the men hadn’t been there in the neighbor’s yard since dark in case someone decided to drop in on Laughlin. He was certain that they had known he was coming, and had become increasingly uneasy because he hadn’t arrived yet, long after he was supposed to. How many times had he been in a similar position when an informant’s tip about a location or a time had been wrong, and the fugitive recovery team had grown antsy, fearing their target had changed his mind or had made them? And when that happened, the team had communicated.
He wondered if Max Randall was waiting, finger on the trigger of a silenced MP5, its barrel still reeking of cordite from the assault at Click’s house. There wasn’t but a couple of ways they could have learned he was coming here.
The cell phone inside his coat vibrated.
Judas calling.
51
According to his watch, Winter Massey reached the truck an hour after he’d left it. He got in, cranked it, and drove away. As he was driving down the street away from the area, the cell phone vibrated again. With a fire burning inside him, he answered it.
“Winter?” Alexa said.
“Who else would it be?”
“Did you see him?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
His mind was stringing together a lie even as he spoke. “You won’t believe it.”
“Won’t believe what?”
“I parked and decided to take a catnap so I’d be sharp. My alarm didn’t go off, or if it did, it didn’t wake me.”
Winter fought hard to keep the anger he felt out of his voice. Alexa knew him pretty well, and she had a sharp ear for deceit. He yawned to flavor the lie.
“What now?” she asked him.
“Why don’t I come by there and we can put all three of our heads together, try and come up with a plan?”
“Clayton’s here. We’ll be expecting you in, what, ten minutes?”
“About that,” Winter said. “I’m going to stop by the store and pick up some things first. Need anything?”
“No.”
Winter ended the call. His mind was swarming. Why hadn’t Alexa parked at the house across from Click’s where Winter had been parked? Why cut through yards on foot when she didn’t have to? How could she have crossed over to Click’s and not seen the assailants’ vehicle waiting on the street? Was it possible that she didn’t want to find the Dockerys? That was insane. Alexa was his friend, his closest friend-well, she had been once. What could change her like this? How could she set him up to be killed?
What could explain her behavior? Could she resent him for something he was unaware of to the point where she wished him harm? And as he went through the possibilities, he saw it. There was only one person on earth he could think of who was important enough to Alexa to explain her betrayal. There was only one person who hated him enough. .
Winter pulled up at a Quick Mart, got out and used the pay phone-the only way he could be sure nobody could eavesdrop on him. He dropped the coins in, dialed Information, asked for a number. He fed the phone and called the number.
“Westin Charlotte,” a voice said.
“Yeah, this is Scott Keen, can you connect me with my wife’s room? Probably under A. Keen.”
“Just a minute,” the clerk said. Winter heard him typing on his keyboard.
“Alexa Keen?”
“Antonia.”
“I’ll connect you.”
“Oh, never mind,” Winter said. “She’s calling me on my other phone.” He hung up.
Precious. Antonia Keen. How had he forgotten that she began as an MP, had trained in cryptology? He suddenly remembered a conversation with Alexa years earlier: She had mentioned something about someone maybe contacting him to ask about her younger sister because of a security clearance. Nobody had called, probably because Winter hadn’t been enthusiastic about the prospect of giving Antonia a reference. Clayton Able had worked with M.I., too. Wi
nter saw now that he had just been window-dressing. There was another agenda-typical agency-style sleight of hand.
If what Alexa had told him wasn’t true, what was? Was it possible they didn’t want the Dockerys found until the last minute, for added dramatic effect? If that were the case, why would they try to kill him?
He remembered what Clayton had said-that Colonel Bryce couldn’t operate his weapons dealing without the assistance of people in the Pentagon. Clayton had told them that some people in M.I. wanted Bryce convicted and others didn’t. Able had told him the truth, but the man had swapped sides on him. Tell enough truth so that it holds water.
Alexa was working with Antonia, her only blood relative-probably the only person she had truly ever loved. Was it because Antonia was in danger? Alexa might do something this insane to save Antonia, and to do so, she might let Winter suffer the consequences of being in the middle. Maybe they were blackmailing her. Or maybe it was more basic. Maybe it was just about dollars and cents and security.
He couldn’t be sure his vehicle wasn’t bugged with a GPS device, so he called Alexa on the cell phone she’d given him. “I was thinking. You were right: I better run back and turn the lights on in Click’s cell. It isn’t going to help if I turn him into a babbling lunatic. If he talks, I’ll call you. I’ll get some sandwiches on the way back.”
“Okay,” Alexa said cheerily. “We’ll be waiting for you.”
Winter felt sick at heart. He turned at the next light and sped off into the night.
Max Randall was somehow tied into Antonia, and if Max knew where the Dockerys were, so did Clayton and the Keens. Was Clayton Able parceling out the bread crumbs he and Alexa were supposed to use to find the Dockerys’ bodies?
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