“I’ll be lookout,” Jimmy said immediately. Lucy didn’t know if Paul realized that Jimmy hadn’t promised he wouldn’t come back down the hill.
“We’ll stay in gear,” Paul ordered. “Don’t clean up the camo. If we get face paint on the seats of Mark’s jet, we’ll just have to clean it off later.”
“We should be ready to clear out at dusk,” Tracy said. “I’ll pack food and supplies. Jorie, Beryl, you need to secure your site. You’ll be back in, say, three days. Bring enough clothing and toiletries.”
“We aren’t—” Jorie began, but Beryl interrupted her.
“We are. I don’t like it, either, but we have to,” she said. “We have to get the site tarped and staked, we can’t lose a single grain of evidence. Oh my God, what about the skull?”
“We’ll bring Bob with us,” Joe said with the first smile Lucy had seen from him since early in the morning. “Right?”
“Right,” Mark said, already on the phone. “Thirteen adults, one child. Gillette, Wyoming, and I want skid marks on the tarmac, Joyce. I don’t care if the pilots are in their pajamas, I want them here by dark. If we’re not there, they wait.”
“Thirteen?” Eileen said.
“He counted Bob,” Joe replied. “My kind of guy.”
“We’ll be back in an hour,” Beryl said, on her feet and urging Jorie to do the same. Jorie was looking at Lucy with dawning comprehension, and for the first time her habitual scowl was missing.
“You’re a CIA agent?” she said. Lucy shrugged and nodded. Jorie’s guards were down, her anger gone, and for the first time Lucy saw a real person behind the perfect face and figure. Jorie looked like a girl she could like, open and interested and bright.
“I’m not supposed to tell,” she said. “I didn’t mean to try and fool you.”
“You fooled me,” Jorie said, and smiled for the first time since Lucy had met her. “I guess they teach you about that, huh? In spy school?”
Lucy caught a glimpse of Nolan Simmons’s face and felt a deep and sincere pity for the poor man. He was looking at Jorie the way Beryl had looked at the crystal skull, as though she were the most precious treasure he was lucky enough to put eyes on. Jorie with her scowls and petulance was attractive, but wearing a simple and uncomplicated smile she was unutterably beautiful.
“Come on, Jorie, we have to go,” Beryl said, frowning and tugging at Jorie’s arm.
“Let’s go, Lucy, we don’t know how much time we have,” Joe said.
“Tell me about it, later?” Jorie said, letting herself be pulled by the arm towards the door. She passed Nolan without glancing at him, which Lucy thought a kindness. Nolan was not running a line of spittle down his chin, the way Ted said he had when they met, but he was close.
“You bet,” Lucy said, and turned away to find Paul’s study. Behind her, she could hear Paul talking to Howie and Nolan.
“Lucy works her magic again,” Eileen said as the three of them crowded into Paul’s study. “That’s the first time I’ve seen Jorie smile.”
“I bet she was raised on James Bond movies,” Lucy said with a sigh. “She’ll be so disappointed to hear that I work in a basement reading reports.”
“Make up stuff, like how you saved the world from a terrorist nuclear attack,” Joe said, deadpan.
“Or how you discovered the plans for world domination by a failed politician,” Eileen suggested.
“Very funny,” Lucy said. “Lets just concentrate on Rene Dubois, shall we?”
“Is Mark off the phone?” Joe called. “We’re ready to go online here.”
“He’s off,” Nolan shouted back. “Go gettum, cowboys.”
Chapter Seventeen
Hulett, Wyoming
The post office sat in the broiling sun and Rene sat, broiling with frustration, across the street. Ken had his headphones on and was listening to his music. He listened absolutely quietly, without moving his lips or his body. He was the perfect killer’s companion because he was never annoying. Ken sat motionless, patient as the dead, waiting for Rene to decide what to do.
That was the trouble. Rene had no idea what to do. There was no way for them to get the Reed’s location from the post office. There were too many people coming in and out. Since Joe and his friends had gotten back to the ranch, Rene was fairly sure they’d already warned the postmaster. The police, too, although Rene could see no sign of a sheriff. The local bar was crowded with early evening diners. Rene’s tentative plan was to go in to the one diner after it closed tonight, a clean looking place called the Tower Pub and Grill, and take the owners hostage. Once they’d given Rene the information he needed he’d kill them, as messily as possible, as one more victim of a fictitious serial killer.
The problem was the sheriff, of course, and time. Who knew what the police detective was cooking up, her and her mysteriously competent friends? Every minute of delay was a minute that help could be on the way, or their prey on the run. Rene had no illusions about the young lioness Eileen Reed. She’d killed a man face to face, a child serial killer who’d been in the midst of a new kidnapping when she happened upon him. She knew how to kill, this detective.
“Hot out there,” Ken said mildly.
Rene sat up in his seat. Hot, and cloudless, like each day before. There was a wisp of a thought crossing his mind, a potential plan. Perhaps they could –
“Hey, boss, look at that!” Ken said. Across from them a large, pale yellow truck had pulled up into the post office parking lot. Instantly a small crowd gathered around the truck. The truck was decorated with a drawing of a swan and had many small latched doors along the side.
“Ice cream man?” Rene said, annoyed. The thought that was forming in his head was elusive and now he’d lost it.
“No, a Schwan’s delivery guy,” Ken said. The small crowd of mostly children was mobbing a man in a uniform shirt who’d gotten out of the tall cab and was opening one of the doors in the side of the truck. He hauled out a box and handed some sort of ice cream treats out to the eager children. “That looks good,” Ken said in simple greediness. The Schwan’s man smiled and handed the last of the treats to a few adults, locals by the look of them. One of them clapped the Schwan’s man on the shoulder and they exchanged a few words.
“Why are you pointing this out to me?” Rene said. “Your reason?”
“Well, it’s just that Schwan’s delivers food, boss,” Ken said. He was chewing on the side of his mouth. “Back where I’m from they deliver in the towns, but if he’s out here that must mean—”
Rene held up his hand and leaned forward like he was taking a bead on a rifle. Which, in a sense, he was. The Schwan’s man was powerfully built, probably from hauling boxes in and out of his truck, but he didn’t have a soldier look to him. He looked like a kindly, capable young man who liked to give out a box of treats to kids. His hair and eyes were brown and with a hat on Rene thought Ken could probably pass for him for a few minutes, at a distance.
A few minutes were all they were going to need. Rene became aware that he was licking his lips, and stopped.
The Reed Ranch, Wyoming
Lucy, lost in the web of the Internet, heard nothing. Joe Tanner, who was watching Lucy’s traversal of sites forbidden to him, listened with half attention to the sounds outside the study door. There were thumps of hurrying feet and the constant banging to and fro of the front door.
Eileen chewed her lip while she watched. Lucy, once she was on the Internet, moved to a site that required her name, a badge number, a password and an identification number that she read from a tiny card she carried in her fanny pack. Joe, curious, asked to look at it after she was done with it. Lucy refused, but held it up so he could look at it. The card was a simple liquid crystal display that held a twenty-digit number. As Joe watched, the number changed. Lucy put the card back in her little pack, where there was a small collection of gadgets along with Hank’s emergency diapers and a package of diaper wipes. Joe suppressed a longing to rummage through Lu
cy’s pack.
“The card’s number changes every minute,” Lucy said, waiting for her information to be received. “And it’s synched with the Central Intelligence Database. You can’t touch it because it has a fingerprint reader on the bottom side. If anyone but me puts a finger on the underside, the card goes dead. Permanently. Just another way to try and keep secure. This is my second card. Hank got hold of the first one and I had to fill out about a million forms. Here we go.”
The screen flashed and Lucy leaned forward, typing rapidly. Within a few minutes she was entering all the information from Rene Dubois’ passport and driver’s license. In addition, she had Joe read her the serial numbers off four random bills from Rene’s wad of money. While the search engine was looking for information Lucy fired off a rapid e-mail to her boss. She described the attempt on Joe’s life, the attempt on Ted and herself, and their current situation in such rapid, clear, crisp prose that Joe was amazed.
“I wish I could come up with reports like that,” Eileen murmured, watching Lucy.
“Me too,” Joe said.
“Practice,” Lucy said, and sent the e-mail. “Best to get this off in case we don’t get out of here. One would hope the CIA would follow up and avenge us, but…” she shrugged. “Who knows.” Obviously Hank and Ted were far from her thoughts right now. She was in full analyst mode, thinking not of personal blood and death but of the analysis of her long-dormant missile defense case.
“I’d say we can spend no more than twenty minutes on-line,” Eileen said.
“Why’s that?” Joe asked.
“Sheriff King might be calling my mommy and daddy,” Eileen said sarcastically, then grimaced. “Or he might call to warn us about seeing Dubois and his buddy. Any indication in his wallet who his buddy is?”
“No,” Joe said, searching through the empty wallet. “Hey, what’s this?”
Lucy leaned back and Eileen pressed in closely on his side. He felt a thin, almost weightless slip of paper in an inner pocket, one of the tiny slits in a man’s wallet that can hide any number of important papers. It took him a moment or two to figure out where the opening to the hidden pocket was. When he discovered it, he withdrew a black and white photograph.
“That’s an old photo,” Eileen said. “Look at the hair styles.”
Joe looked at the picture of the happy father and his laughing child. The father wore a very dated turtleneck and jacket. He had a big gold cross around his neck. Despite the garish outfit he was handsome, with tousled dark hair and dark eyes that were full of laughter. He held a toddler in his arms, a boy who could be no more than four. The boy was wearing a polyester shirt with a zipper up the front and bell-bottomed trousers in a horrible paisley print. He was as cute as a button. The boy and his father were gazing at each other, looking very happy and very much alike. The boy’s face was recognizable, though years of fat and killing had turned his lovely little features into a grotesque parody. The boy was Rene Dubois.
“Damn, nothing but an old picture of his dad,” Lucy said, turning away. “I’m getting some information, let’s see what they’ve got in Interpol for us.”
Joe continued to look at the picture as though hypnotized. What had turned that cute little kid into a killer? How could that laughing little face have turned into a man who’d taken Sully’s beautiful head in his hands and turned it, snapping her spine as though he were killing an insect?
“What kind of killer carries around a picture of his dad?” Eileen asked. She was still at his shoulder, staring down at the photograph. Joe felt a sudden wave of fear so complete and deep that it was almost like a cramp. He had to clench his teeth together to avoid crying out. He had put all these people in danger. He should never have come.
“They might have gotten us both, if you’d stayed,” Eileen said, as though he’d spoken to her. “Put it out of your mind. We have work to do.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Joe said, feeling the fear recede like a cramp coming unknotted. It would come back, though, he thought grimly. It would come back.
“Here’s our fat ugly slug,” Lucy said. “Rene Dubois. Hasn’t been in official trouble with the law since he was eighteen and killed a robber at the wine shop where he worked.”
“That sounds like a good guy to me,” Eileen said doubtfully.
“That’s just the beginning. The robbers were part of some chintzy low-grade Russian Mafia gang and they took him into their organization. Looks like he branched out on his own a few years after that. The French police keep tabs on him but they’ve never been able to pin anything on him. He does insurance investigation contract work, all above board. Underneath it looks like he was contract muscle.”
“What does that mean?” Joe asked.
“He beat people up for money,” Lucy said shortly. “Maybe killed them. This means we have to find out who’s paying him. He’s a nobody, he’s just muscle. Somebody behind him has brains, they’re the one’s who are paying him and they’re the ones I want.”
“Time, Lucy,” Eileen said.
“I’m disconnecting,” Lucy said. She shut down Paul’s computer and massaged her fingers, staring at the dark screen as though it were still on.
“I think he’s got lots of brains,” Joe said firmly. Lucy turned to him and her cool analyst face was gone. She was Lucy Giometti again, Hank’s mother and Ted’s wife, and she looked scared to death.
“I do too,” she whispered. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“You said it,” Eileen said. “I bet I can pack my bags quicker than either of you two prima donnas.”
“Ha!” Joe laughed. “I have one bag with ’Berto’s clothes. I’m already packed.”
“Darn,” Eileen said. “You’ll have to help Lucy pack all her frocks and pearls.”
“Ho, ho,” Lucy said, her look lightening. “If you think I’m going to let Joe Tanner look at my dainty underthings you’ve got—”
“Let’s go, kids,” Tracy said, opening the door to the study. She was dressed in hiking boots, tough twill khakis and a lavender tank top. A lavender headband held back her flyaway hair and a pair of sunglasses sat askew atop the headband.
“I’m packed, Mrs. Reed, can I help with anything else?” Joe asked.
“You can help with the horses,” Tracy said. “Thank goodness. We’re going to let them loose in the backcountry. We’ll have to catch them again when we get back, but at least these men won’t be able to harm them.”
“What about Brumby?” Eileen asked, stopping abruptly. Lucy, who’d gone first, paused in the hallway to listen. Joe could see Eileen’s face and she looked stricken.
“He’ll be fine, Eileen,” Tracy said, but her face looked worried. “He’s your father’s pride and joy, I know, but he’ll be just fine. He’ll probably decide he’s a stallion again and try to gather up a herd. Now go, we’ve got less than an hour before we’re supposed to leave.”
“Mrs. Reed, I just wanted to say—” Joe began, as Eileen followed Lucy up the front stairs. Tracy waved a hand in the air, stopping him.
“I don’t want to hear it, Joe. They’re bad men and I don’t want you trying to take responsibility for what they’re doing. Enough. Go help Paul with the horses, and don’t watch him release Brumby. He doesn’t admit how much he loves that bad-tempered lug.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Joe said numbly. He went out the front door and tried to hurry down to the barn, but his feet felt like blocks of lead. The day was even hotter than before, a dry shimmering heat that took his breath away and made him break into a sweat almost instantly. He could smell crushed grass and oats and horses.
In the short time he and Lucy and Eileen had been in the study, Howie and his crew had packed their things. They sat by the barn door, waiting to be loaded into the truck. Howie’s battered guitar case sat on top.
As Joe entered the barn he saw Paul checking the hooves of an enormous brown horse, his face carefully blank. The brown horse reached around and tried to take a nip out of Paul’s backside. P
aul elbowed the horse in the jaw without looking around, and the horse shook his head up and down, teeth bared, as though laughing.
The barn was cooler than the yard, and dark. Howie and his hunters still looked like shrubs. They were already in the barn checking the hooves of the other horses. Joe stumbled over a pile of long objects stacked upright by the door. He realized they were compound bows and stepped backward carefully. Each one of the capped quivers, he knew, bristled with razor edged arrows. Best not to fall into that.
“What did you find out?” Howie asked. He was working on a spotted mare, cleaning out the inside of her hoof with a rounded metal scraper. She stood calmly, her head in a bucket of oats, happily munching at the unexpected treat. Paul had evidently gotten all the horses some oats as extra food before they were released.
“Not too much,” Joe said. “He’s a contract killer, but we don’t know who hired him. His name is Rene Dubois.”
“Best take him alive, then,” Howie said. He dropped one hoof and started on the other one.
“Joe, we’ve got the horses,” Paul said, elbowing aside another vicious bite from Brumby. “Can you fill the automatic feeders in the chicken coop? Make sure the water line is clear. If there’s any chickens out, get them back into the coop. They’ll be fine for up to a week, if the feeders are full.”
“Okay,” Joe said. He turned to the barn entrance and stopped. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He felt as though all the life was draining out of him and soaking into the baking hot ground at his feet. He made a hoarse gargling sound in his throat.
Instantly, Paul was at his side. He held his shotgun in his arm. Howie, Nolan and Mark snatched up their bows.
“What is it?” Howie hissed.
Joe pointed, his throat still unwilling to work.
“Look at Zilla,” Paul whispered.
In the space where the road swept from the ridge and into the ranch, Zilla stood. Her tail was wagging uncertainly. Her ears were up, her head high. She was looking up the track that led to the highway.
The Thirteenth Skull Page 20
