“Yes, we think so,” Joe said. He blew out a big breath and grinned over at her. “Damn, you’re good, woman.”
“Not good enough to think about warning Ted,” Eileen said. “He got a phone call of some kind? Dress color was wrong, or shoes the wrong size?”
“The measurements were lost, they said.”
“They’re coming after you,” Eileen said. “We have to powwow. Cards on the table. We have to get Hank and Ted to safety. My parents and Howie’s hunting crew, too.”
“Then?”
“Then we set the trap, and when they enter it, we take them,” Eileen said. “The turn off is right up ahead. Don’t leave any tire marks on the road that they might be able to see.”
“Okay,” Joe said. “Okay.”
“We’ll be fine,” Eileen said. She jumped out of the Jeep as Joe came to a stop, her SIG-Sauer in her hand, and she opened the gate. Ted hadn’t left tire marks with the Mustang, either, Eileen noticed. She approved. She closed the gate and got back into the car.
“What about your dead guy? McLean, or what was his name?” Joe said.
“Oh, that,” Eileen said dismissively. “Dr. McBride. That can wait. I know who killed him.”
Chapter Sixteen
The Reed Ranch
“What’s this all about?” Howie asked. “Is this the Agatha Christie scene where you tell us who the murderer is? Shouldn’t there be a thundering rainstorm?”
The current inhabitants of the Reed Ranch were sitting in Paul and Tracy’s family room, all except Bob the crystal skull. Lucy missed him. The mystery of his origins and the murder of Dr. McBride seemed like a fun little game right now, something delicious and ordinary and safe. Joe had told her that Eileen knew the murderer. Lucy, under her fear, was intensely annoyed that she still didn’t know. She had all the information Eileen had, so why did the murder remain a mystery to her? There was no time to twist her friend’s arm, either. No time to think about McBride’s murder, at all.
Hank was rolling toy cars up and down the carpet, with Zilla an attentive audience at his side. Ted sat at Lucy’s feet, the only spot available in the crowded room. The warmth of his body against her calves and the touch of his hand on her sandaled foot was an entire conversation between them. Lucy knew, if they got out of this alive, that their marriage would be different. Deeper, more complete, with less hidden doorways between them. Provided they made it. She was no longer terrified, but she was still deeply afraid. She’d seen the blinking doll eyes of the fat man. She’d never looked in a killer’s eyes before. She’d seen actors portray them on television, and she’d seen pictures of serial killers like Charles Manson and John Wayne Gacy, but she’d never had a living killer look her in the face. Her insides were quivering. She had to get on top of her fear, she kept telling herself. She had to.
“I wish it were, Howie,” Eileen said grimly. She stood at the mantle of the fireplace, her khaki shorts wrinkled and the armpits of her shirt soaked with sweat. Underneath her open shirt she wore a tank top that showed an irregular tree shape of sweat between her breasts. Her dark red hair was tangled, and Lucy felt a first flicker of strength and humor when she realized that Eileen looked, despite all this, or perhaps because of it, magnificent.
Paul and Tracy Reed sat on the hearth, Tracy with her hands red and raw looking from a morning in the kitchen. She was rubbing lotion into her hands as Eileen spoke. The sweet smell of the lotion cut through the anxious sweaty air of the room. Paul sat solidly, face impassive, one hand resting lightly on a shotgun. His other arm was around his wife, his hand resting at the curve of her waist. Eileen’s parents weren’t usually public in their affection. Lucy knew that Paul was very worried.
Howie lounged in the leather armchair. His brother-in-law, Jimmy, sat attentively in the other one. Nolan Simmons, the comedian, and Mark Plutt the software genius sat on the couch. They all looked like bushes. All the hunters and Paul, too, were dressed in camouflage hunting clothes, patterned shirts, pants, hats and boots. Their faces were painted in irregular patches of cream, green, and black. They were planning to call turkey in the early evening, an operation that included masking their scent and sitting, looking as much like shrubbery as possible, calling turkey with a strange device that looked like a metal plate and a sharp stick.
Their ferocious outfits were perhaps why Jorie Rothman stared at them with such loathing. She and Beryl sat on the other couch, both wearing stained clothes but with clean faces and hands. They’d washed up before they came up the hill from the buffalo jump. Jorie’s long golden legs slanted from her dirty khaki shorts. One of her hiking boots tapped the floor impatiently. Lucy, who hadn’t had time to talk to Ted about Jorie, saw him observing her from the corner of his eye. His initial appreciative gaze was already fading. Jorie was in an even fouler mood than usual. Lucy could hardly believe Jorie had a worse mood than her standard one, but there she was, looking as thunderous as Howie’s Agatha Christie storm. Beryl patted her companion’s knee occasionally, as though to calm her, her own round face crinkled into a look of deep concern.
Joe Tanner slumped next to Lucy, his head in his hands. He’d removed his bandage and his stitches, clotted with fresh blood, showed at his hairline. He’d broken them open somehow during their chase from Rapid City, and they looked like they hurt.
“Okay, then, I’ll try to be as complete as I can, as quickly as possible,” Eileen said. “This has nothing to do with Dr. McBride and his murder. My fiancé, Joe Tanner, has a black eye and some stitches. You’ve all noticed this, I suppose. He was run off the road by a couple of men who then tried to track him down and kill him.”
Eileen paused to let this soak in. Hank, unconcerned, wove a bright purple car along an Oriental curlicue of carpet. Coming to the end, he backed the car up with a spluttering motor sound that was clearly audible in the silent room.
“They tracked him here,” Howie said. He didn’t move but suddenly he was completely aware, completely there, as compact and focused as a big cat. Lucy noticed this with interest. Jimmy, sitting next to him, abruptly straightened.
“Yes, they did. And I’m sorry that you are all involved in this now, but you are. It’s a strange turn of events that I was at my parents’ house because of Dr. McBride, but there’s nothing we can do about that now. These men managed to track Joe down by finding Ted Giometti’s airline reservations. So this is what happened today. Lucy and Hank and Joe went to the airport in Rapid City to pick up Ted. When they got there…”
Eileen finished explaining what had happened in a few minutes, her voice crisp and without emotion. When she was done there was a long silence.
“They’ll find their way here, you mean,” Jorie said.
“Yes, and that means—”
“I’m not leaving,” Jorie said hotly. “We have nothing to do with this!”
“I’m not talking about forever, Jorie, just a few days,” Eileen said. “If Joe and I run, they may come here anyway and take hostages. Or torture you to find out where we’ve gone, and then kill you. These men are vicious killers.”
“Call the sheriff, he’ll protect us,” Jorie said. “Just call the police and set up a whatchamacallit, a stake-out. Why do we have to –”
“These men may have killed upwards of fifteen people,” Lucy said.
“So how would you know that?” Jorie said waspishly. “Did you read it somewhere in between changing diapers?”
“I read about them, yes,” Lucy said. Ted squeezed her foot and she wiggled her toes silently against his palm.
“So no turkey hunt tonight,” Howie said. “Shit fire. I was planning to have my jet pick us up at the Rapid City airport at the end of the week. That’s probably not going to work, is it?”
“Gillette is the alternate,” Jimmy murmured. “If we can get to Gillette.”
“You’re just going to clear out?” Jorie asked, eyes wide. “Just run, like that?”
“Jorie,” Howie said impatiently. “You really are a silly little bitc
h.”
“We can’t sit around and hope they don’t find us,” Eileen said patiently. “I know you see lots of shoot-outs in the movies, but in real life people can get badly hurt. Killed.”
“Could we take Jorie and Beryl on the jet?” Nolan asked. Behind the paint Lucy could see his expression, half-embarrassed and half-defiant. Jorie, whose face was scarlet at Howie’s insult, threw Nolan a murderous glance.
“Certainly,” Howie said. “The jet seats eight, we can fit Lucy and Ted and throw Hank in, too. He weighs next to nothing.”
Hank stopped driving his car and observed Howie closely for a moment. Howie gave him a big wink and a sunny, uncomplicated grin, his teeth bright white in his green-black-cream face. Hank ducked his head back to his toy cars.
“What about Paul and Tracy?” Nolan asked. Behind the paint Lucy was sure he was bright red. Jorie continued to glare at him, her lovely eyebrows drawn tightly together.
“I’ll stay,” Paul said. “No one is running me off my ranch.”
Mark cleared his throat. “I don’t mean to one-up Howie, here,” he said apologetically. “But I have a Gulfstream Four. It can seat eighteen in a pinch. I’ll call up my company and they’ll have it waiting for us. It can go nearly supersonic, too. Nobody is going to catch us in the Four.”
Howie stared at Mark.
“I suddenly have jet envy,” Howie said. “We’ll take it.”
“But you’re going to stay, Eileen?” Beryl asked in her soft, beautiful voice. “What are you going to do? Shouldn’t you go back to Colorado Springs where you can get help?”
“We’ll do that, once everyone is clear,” Eileen lied brightly. Lucy didn’t glance at her face so that she wouldn’t reflect Eileen’s lie. She had no intention of getting on that jet, either. Hank and Ted would go, but she was damn well going to stay. She was going to clear her missile defense file once and for all, if it meant bringing back the fat man’s bloody head on a pike.
“Uh, huh,” Howie said. He obviously wasn’t fooled.
“I have a question,” Jimmy said.
“Yes,” Eileen said.
“Why do they want to kill Joe Tanner?”
Joe lifted his head from his hands. He looked tired. “I’ll answer that,” he said. “I’m a computer scientist on a top secret government program. I’m not even supposed to tell people that I’m on a top-secret program. These guys have been killing people like me. I don’t know if they’re paid to do it or what, but I do know they’ve killed three friends of mine. And now they want to kill me. And I don’t know anything about them.”
“Perhaps I can help with that,” Ted said.
Everyone turned to look at him. Lucy couldn’t see his expression, sitting at her feet with his back to her as he was, but she could see Eileen’s sudden stillness.
“What?” Eileen asked.
“Well, in my former life,” Ted said, “I was taught defensive driving on a rather intense scale. One of the things we learned how to do was escape a kidnap attempt. And the other little skill we were taught was, well – pickpocketing. If he’d had a gun in his jacket I’d have that too, but all he had was this.”
He took something out of his jacket and held it in the air. It was a wallet.
Hulett, Wyoming
“You can’t find your wallet anywhere?” Ken whispered to Rene. Rene, sweating and cursing, rose from the back seat of the Chrysler.
“I can’t find it, damn it,” he whispered back. They were at the lone gas station in Hulett, Wyoming. Rene had all the traveling money in his wallet, a large sheaf of small denomination bills. They never traveled by credit card; it left a trail too easily followed.
“I’ve got about fifty bucks,” Ken said, opening his own wallet. “But that’s it.”
Rene put his hands on the doorframe of the Chrysler and rested his sweaty forehead on his hands. The July day was baking hot, cloudless and dusty. Wyoming was as empty as Rene remembered, an enormous bowl of prairie and sky. He hated everything about Wyoming, he hated the people and the tiny dusty towns and the way people looked at him, marking him and remembering him.
He thought back. He’d had the wallet in the airplane because he’d purchased a drink from the surly stewardess. There was no first class on the tiny puddle jumper of a plane. Right, then, he’d had his wallet at that point. Did he lose it when they shoved the elderly couple into the back of the Oldsmobile? Was it there when Ted Giometti had –“
“He took it,” Rene said, straightening abruptly. “He took my wallet when he elbowed me in the chest. When he escaped us at the airport.”
“Giometti did?” Ken asked. “You sure?”
“Of course I’m goddamn sure,” Rene snarled. “He’s been trained by somebody, we should have thought that Eileen Reed’s little bridesmaid was more than she seemed. They might be FBI or other cops for all we know. Giometti took my wallet. He took my wallet.” Rene clenched his hands into fist, feeling new sweat pop out on his brow, hating the feeling of sweat running down his back.
“I’ll pay for the gas, boss,” Ken said. “Then we’ll get out of here and decide what to do.”
“I know what to do,” Rene said viciously. “We’re going to kill them all, Ken. And I’m going to kill that bastard’s wife and child in front of him before I kill him.”
“Okay,” Ken said. “That’s cool with me. I’ll pay for the gas, okay?”
“Yes, yes, okay,” Rene said. He got back into the car and cycled up the engine after Ken disengaged the pump. Ken headed into the pathetically small gas station. The air conditioning started blasting cold air at Rene and he let the full force of the air blow across his sweaty face.
“Calm, keep it calm,” he reminded himself. “They have nothing. Nothing at all.”
Reed Ranch, Devils Tower, Wyoming
“This is everything,” Joe said. “This is everything.”
“Rene Dubois,” Howie read from over Eileen’s shoulder. “So we know his name. How do we find out everything about him from a passport and a driver’s license and a pile of cash?”
“We can find out about him,” Eileen said. “Lots about him.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Jorie snapped. “Don’t you have to have a warrant, or something, to collect information like that?”
“He’s a dual citizen of France and the U.S.A., looks like,” Howie said, reading the passport. “You’d need someone who has all sorts of clearances to access Interpol. FBI, maybe.”
“Or a CIA agent,” Jorie snorted.
Lucy flushed bright red as Ted, Eileen and Joe turned to look at her. She was changing Hank’s diaper. He’d grown tired of driving toy cars around the carpet and was close to his afternoon naptime. Howie blinked as he followed Joe and Eileen’s gaze and his jaw dropped comically. After a moment he started laughing.
“This has been the most interesting trip,” he said.
“What’s the deal?” Jorie asked, annoyed. Beryl was looking at Lucy with an expression that Lucy couldn’t decipher; was it disgust? Fear? The CIA had a sinister reputation from its very inception, and hadn’t much improved its public persona over the years. Lucy knew the work she did was desperately needed. Still, Beryl’s expression was hard to take. She finished taping Hank’s diaper and slipped his shorts back over his bottom. They were blue, patterned with tiny cartoon airplanes.
“Time to get into the phone booth, Lucy,” Eileen said. “Take the Clark Kent glasses off.”
“Okay,” Lucy said, and sighed. She kissed Hank on his smooth cheek and he nestled into her arms. He was sleepy. She stood and held Hank and looked around the room. Howie was openly grinning, his eyes blazing with delight. Jimmy looked at her with interest. His overwhelming purpose was to get his brother-in-law to safety, Lucy was sure. He sat like a bodyguard with his shoulder behind Howie’s back, his eyes constantly searching. Lucy was sure Jimmy didn’t care if she sprouted horns and a tail as long as she helped get Howie Magnus to safety.
Nolan and Mark were staring at he
r with uncomplicated grins, like brothers whose sister had pulled a particularly good practical joke.
“Whoa, Lucy,” Nolan said.
Jorie looked puzzled and angry, instead of just angry.
“Having a blonde moment, Jorie?” Howie asked sarcastically. Jorie jumped and glared so fiercely at Howie he should have burst into flame. He sat, undisturbed, grinning a particularly toothy and insulting grin.
“No, she’s just so used to treating Lucy like she’s stupid because she has a child that she can’t get her mind around who Lucy really is,” Tracy said. Lucy looked in astonishment at Tracy and saw Eileen’s mother with her fists clenched and her jaw raised. “If she doesn’t get it, I don’t care. Lucy, what do you need from us?”
“Paul’s study, Eileen and Joe,” Lucy said.
“I’ll take Hank,” Ted said, and reached for Hank. He took the sleepy boy tenderly from Lucy and folded him into his arms. Lucy’s throat closed up as she met his eyes.
With my life, his face said.
With mine, she said back without speaking a word.
“Good, you have the study. Paul, you and the hunters get ready to leave,” Tracy said.
“I’ll post a watch on the top of the hill,” Paul said. “Jimmy, how about you first? We’ll get your stuff ready for you. Mark has to call for his jet.”
“What happens if I see someone?” asked Jimmy.
“You let us know with your walkie-talkie,” Paul said, pointing to Jimmy’s small hunter’s communicator. Like everything else, it was camouflaged. Lucy hadn’t even noticed it until Paul pointed at it. She saw the hunters all had them on their belts. “Then you lie down with your face in the turf. Don’t get up. Don’t come down here. No matter what. If we lose, you stay alive.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Jimmy said without expression.
“Be lookout, Jimmy,” Howie said. “We need you up there. I need you up there.”
The Thirteenth Skull Page 19
