"Squawk."
"Nolan's got some more sunflower seeds in that lunch bag on the backseat if you think he's still hungry."
A car came around to pass us, not too wise since we were on a curve. I slowed down just a bit and gave it plenty of room to go around.
Laura started to say something as she turned around to reach for the bag of sunflower seeds. In the next instant, there was a popping sound, then another. I jerked back. I realized that a bullet had gone through her passenger-side window. It had crashed through my window and missed my neck by a couple of inches, leaving a spiderweb of cracked glass in its wake.
I pulled the steering wheel hard right, then corrected to the left, just missing an oncoming car. I saw a man in my mind's eye, on the passenger side, raising what had to have been a gun. I saw the car just ahead of us, a dark red Honda. I gunned the Taurus and winced. In this rain, if I wasn't careful, we'd go skidding right off the road. The Honda roared ahead, cutting hard and fast around a sharp turn. I knew the Taurus wouldn't make it. I had to slow a bit. When I got around the curve, the Honda had widened the distance.
"My God, Mac, are you all right?"
"Yep. You?"
"I think so. If I hadn't turned in just that moment to get Nolan some sunflower seeds-"
"I know. Laura, sit back down and fasten your seat belt."
"Squawk."
"It's all right, Nolan. Think of this as an adventure."
Laura was strapped in and I passed two cars, nearly skimming off the paint on the second one. Horns blared loudly in our ears.
We were getting closer. "Laura, I don't think we can catch them, but we can get the license plate."
"I can try," she said, and buzzed down what was left of her electric window to lean out. Rain flew in the open window, hard and heavy.
I tried to keep my hands loose and relaxed on the steering wheel even though my heart pounded faster in anger each time I saw that webbed bullet hole out of the corner of my eye. I passed another car, a Land Rover.
The driver gave me the finger and shouted a curse. I didn't blame him.
There were just about forty yards of highway between us and the Honda. I saw a man leaning out the passenger window, looking back. He had a gun. "Laura, down!"
She jerked back in and flattened herself against the seat as the man fired five or six rounds.
"Mac," she said, "you've got a gun, don't you?"
"Yes, but I've got to concentrate."
"Give it to me. I know how to shoot."
I didn't want to. It was the last thing I wanted to do, actually. I felt her hand pulling it out of my shoulder holster.
"Laura," I said, "I'd rather you didn't. Please, be careful."
"Just get us closer to that damned Honda."
We closed to within fifteen yards of the Honda. This stretch of 101 was all curves and inclines and twisting hills. The rain had lightened up a bit, thank God. I'd be just on the verge of seeing the license plate when the Honda would disappear again around another curve.
Laura hugged the passenger door, waiting. She seemed very calm, perhaps too calm. Something was strange here. "Laura, are you all right?"
"I'm fine, Mac. Just keep up with them. Yeah, just a little bit closer." Suddenly, she reared up and halfway out the open window, rain curtaining her face. She shot off half the clip, fast.
The Honda's back window exploded. A man came out of the passenger-side window, a gun trained on us. Before he could fire, Laura shot off another three rounds. I saw his gun fly out of his hand and skitter across the highway. She'd got him. Then the Honda disappeared around another turn.
I gunned the Taurus. We came around the bend and skidded out to see the Honda disappear on the short straight stretch in front of us.
"Damn, I wanted to get a back tire."
When we last saw the Honda, it was weaving back and forth, the driver sawing the steering wheel to get it out of a skid. He straightened over a crest and the car shot forward. I gunned the Taurus. Just one more try. But the rain did us in. We hit a slick patch. The car spun in a full three-sixty. We ended up on the side of the road, about six feet from a ditch.
"We didn't get the license plate," Laura said. "Well, damn."
"After this I'm going to rent a Porsche. Bastards got away."
And Laura laughed.
We were still pumped with adrenaline. I started laughing too. It felt good. We were alive.
It took petting Grubster and calming Nolan to get ourselves back down.
"You okay?"
She nodded as she continued scratching behind Grubster's ears. "That was a close one, Mac. My heart's pounding louder than a runaway train. My adrenaline level was so high there for a while, I bet I could have flown right out of this busted window. Oh, Jesus, Mac."
She leaned over to me to put her arms around my back, her elbow hitting the steering wheel. Grubster was between us, purring loudly. I held her tightly, feeling her heartbeat against my chest, her warm breath against my neck, grateful that we'd survived this. It had been close. I took a quick survey of the Taurus.
One busted window and a driver's-side window that was spider-webbed, with one small hole right in the middle. Too bad it hadn't stopped the bullet. Some sort of tangible evidence would have been nice.
"What are we going to do?" She didn't move while she spoke, and I liked that.
"I guess if I had my cell phone with me, I'd call Castanga, the President, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff."
"I don't have mine either," she said against my neck. "It's on the dining room table at my condo."
"Squawk!"
"Oh dear, I forgot about Nolan and Grubster."
She lifted Grubster off her lap and hefted him onto the backseat. She gave Nolan more sunflower seeds.
I turned to see Grubster stretch his front legs against the front seat. I'd swear that cat was as tall as I was.
Then he lightly jumped up front again and curled in Laura's lap.
I raised my hand and picked up a strand of hair that had come free of the clip at the back of her neck. I rubbed the hair between my fingers.
She grew very still.
"I'm glad we're both still alive."
"I wonder if you could be more pleased than Grubster here." The damned cat was purring so loudly she'd had to raise her voice. I sat back, tapped my fingertips against the steering wheel for a moment, and said, "That was excellent shooting."
"Thank you."
I smiled at her and wondered just how much of a smile it had turned out to be. "At least now I know what you lied about. You're a cop, Laura. Since you were a reference librarian at the Salem Public Library, it means you were undercover. Isn't that right?"
A myriad of expressions crossed her face, from doubt, to dread, to guilt. I guess she finally realized it was just too late to go in any direction but toward the truth.
"Laura? You really can trust me. I have no intention of hurting you, or compromising your case, or blowing your cover, or getting you into trouble with your superiors. You've just got to deal me in. We've been through too much together for you to leave me blowing in the breeze any longer. I don't want to be helpless, and that's what I am if you keep me in the dark. Come, it's time."
I took her hand as I watched her take a very deep breath. I watched her come to her decision. I swear her eyes turned two shades lighter because she knew the incessant lying was over. "Yes," she said. "Yes, I'm a cop."
I just nodded for her to continue. Grubster continued purring at high volume, his tail thumping up and down.
"They wanted to kill me," Laura said, her fingers tightening in Grubster's fur. "If I hadn't turned to get some more sunflower seeds for Nolan-"
I quickly took my gun from between us on the seat and eased it back into my shoulder holster. "Meet me halfway," I said as I smoothed down my jacket, and she did. I pulled her against me, Grubster between us again, and lightly pressed her head against my shoulder. I pulled back, touched my forehead to hers, and cupped her head with my hands.
"You've been alone in this for too long. You've got me in it now.
Can you imagine what you and I can accomplish together?"
"There's really nothing more to accomplish. My cover's blown now. That's another reason for me to tell you the truth. My orders don't make sense anymore." "Tell me then. All of it." "I'm DEA, Mac. Even when I called my boss from the hospital and told him I'd been poisoned, that obviously my cover was blown to hell, he told me to lie low for a couple of days, that he'd try to find out what they know and how they'd found out. Of course I told him about you. That made him even more adamant. He said we'd worked too hard to have this case blown by the FBI. I'm sorry I had to lie to you, Mac.".
"This guy sounds like a real winner. For God's sake, they tried to poison you."
"I was getting to be a pretty good reference librarian. I read just about all the assigned texts for a degree."
"What's your real name?"
"I'm really Laura. They just changed my last name. My real last name is Bellamy. I've been undercover for over four months now. It involves drugs, of course."
"And it has to do with Paul and Jilly," I said slowly, looking closely at her. She paled and hesitated because what she was about to say was going to bring me pain.
"Just spit it out."
Grubster meowed loudly. "It's all right, Grubster. Take a nap. You've been through a lot." She closed her eyes a moment and ran her fingers through his fur. His loud purring soon filled the car again.
"About five months ago an electronic surveillance unit picked up a rumor that a new drug was being developed, one that is highly addictive and cheap to produce."
"A drug dealer's wet dream."
"Yes. A man called John Molinas was said to be bragging about it. We think Molinas is a major drug distributor, but we don't have anything solid on him. He's been in business in the past with a cartel headed by Del Cabrizo."
"I've heard of him."
"Del Cabrizo occasionally comes to the United States just to shove a finger in our face. And now the reason I'm here. The word was that there was a wealthy local man involved. It's none other than Alyssum Tarcher."
I must admit I was staring at her now. "Tarcher involved with Del Cabrizo?"
"There's more. John Molinas is Alyssum Tarcher's brother-in-law. That's probably why Tarcher's involved in this thing."
"A real kicker," I said. "I knew Tarcher was powerful, but this? He's a damned crook too?"
"Evidently so. All of this came as a bit of a surprise to us too. You see, John Molinas hasn't been active for a few years as far as we could tell. Maybe he got religion, maybe he got cancer, we just didn't know.
But when we threw Alyssum Tarcher into the mix, it didn't take us long to find out that Dr. Bartlett and his wife, pharmaceutical researchers, had just moved to Edgerton from Philadelphia into a house that Tarcher sold them for a nominal price. We put two and two together and put pressure on their employer in Philadelphia, VioTech, to tell us what they had been working on. Paul and Jilly had been working on some sort of memory drug. It sounded nuts, but still, our people went over all the research Paul and Jilly had submitted. It was obvious why VioTech had pulled the plug. Whatever else the drug did, it was toxic as hell, turned some lab animals completely nuts. They'd sunk millions of dollars into a drug that was going nowhere.
"Still, why had the Bartletts suddenly moved to Edgerton? We found out that Paul had grown up there, but there wasn't anything to draw them back."
"Alyssum Tarcher was behind it," I said.
"Right. I set up in Salem posing as a reference librarian because there was no better way I could get closer to Edgerton, to the major players there. I did go to Grace's Deli to see if she needed help, but she didn't. I couldn't just move to Edgerton. Everyone would have known I was up to no good. It's too small and tight a community."
"Why the library?"
"God, I'm so sorry, Mac. The reason I became a reference librarian was that we found out that Jilly Bartlett was coming to the library in Salem. At least three days a week, like clockwork. Our surveillance showed-oh God, Mac, I'm so sorry about this-she was meeting a lover there, always in the reference section. If I became the reference librarian, I'd have a good chance to meet her, to make friends with her, and I did. The regular reference librarian got a very nice open-ended holiday, with pay."
I had only heard one thing. "A lover? Jilly met a man in the library three days a week?"
"Yes. He's a local thoracic surgeon. No one could find out how they'd met, but as yet we have no reason to think he's involved in anything going on down in Edgerton."
I looked up to see a police car cruising slowly by, his eyes on us. I waved and turned the ignition key.
"Let's go to that McDonald's we passed. I need some breathing space and then a cup of coffee."
The McDonald's was about three miles back up the highway off Exit 133. It was tucked between a Denny's and a Wendy's, with three gas stations completing the grouping.
Grubster slept through being put back into his carrying case. Nolan didn't even squawk once when Laura slipped his cover over the cage.
Over Big Macs and coffee, I said, "You've been undercover for four months. What have you come up with?"
"You mean against Jilly and Paul?"
"Believe me, I don't give a damn about Molinas or Tarcher or this Del Cabrizo character."
"Again, Mac, I'm sorry, but the truth is that Jilly lied to me from the beginning, told me she was here because she wanted to get pregnant. She told me she was the uneducated one in the family. I don't know if she did this to protect herself or me.
"I like Jilly. When you told me she was in a coma, it really hit me hard because I do like her so much.
She's funny, lights up a room when she swings in, her skirts swishing, her hair bouncing. We did get close, but not close enough that she ever really let me in."
"Bottom line, Laura, you didn't have squat on either Jilly or Paul, and that's because there isn't anything to get. I don't believe my sister would be involved with drug dealers, for God's sake. Both she and Paul are scientists, not criminals. They're moral people, not people who'd develop a drug to feed to kids. You're wrong about them, Laura. At least you're dead wrong about Jilly."
I was being a brother, defensive and angry, but I didn't care. I didn't want to accept it, couldn't accept it.
I looked at Laura, felt mean as a snake, and said, "Did you sleep with Paul? As a sort of quid pro quo?"
"No," she said matter-of-factly, but I felt her surprise and hurt at my question. She dropped the french fry she was holding back onto her plate. "Jilly never mentioned anything like that to me. Actually, she's very fond of Paul."
I said slowly, "Jilly said you'd betrayed her. I assumed it meant you'd slept with Paul, but that isn't it at all.
She found out you're a DEA agent, didn't she?"
"She must have but I don't know how. Maybe I gave myself away somehow, I don't know. But she must have found out that very night. Both she and Paul must have known since then. One of them may have made a phone call to Molinas. He's perfectly capable of everything that's happened since."
"So now you're saying that my sister conspired to commit murder. I'll never believe that. Probably Molinas found out about you. Jilly wouldn't blow the whistle on you."
She took my hand and held it between hers. "She came out of the coma, Mac, and disappeared just as soon as she was able. She knew we were getting close. She went into hiding."
"Then why didn't Paul leave with her?"
"I don't know. There's still no direct evidence against either of them. I thought about that, a lot.
Something else I wanted to tell you. Over the past couple of months, Jilly didn't seem quite right. She talked about sex a lot, how much more she liked it than before. Not just one conversation, she went on and on about it. And she seemed somehow off, the way she spoke of other things, mixing in non sequiturs, like she wasn't really with me."
"You think she was experimenti
ng with her own drug?"
"I don't know what I'm saying, but she was different, Mac."
I let it go. It was just too close to my own memories of Jilly's visit the previous February. "Where is Molinas? Has he met with Jilly and Paul? Has he showed up at their house or at the Tardier house?"
"No. But there's just no getting around the fact that it was Alyssum Tarcher who got Paul and Jilly back to Edgerton. He bought Jilly the Porsche, gave Paul and Jilly the house. I'm sorry, Mac, but you just don't do that for no reason.
"Our assumption is that Paul and Jilly are working on this drug, that they're trying to make it less toxic or more addictive, and then it'll be mass-produced and sold on the street."
"For argument's sake, let's say you're right about all of it. To get people hooked, a drug has to produce a high that will knock the user's socks off. Does this drug do that?"
"We don't know, but we think it has to do with sex."
No, I thought. Jilly and all her talk about sex to both Laura and me. No.
"You mean the user shoots up and just lies there in a semi-stupor having orgasms?"
"Maybe. We don't know. Some of the VioTech data showed some very significant changes in lab animals' sexual drive. It went off the charts and frequently showed itself by intense sexual aggression.
There's got to be more to it than that, of course. Jilly and Paul probably took some of their records with them.
"My boss told me to lie low, but I just can't do that. I don't know how close they are to perfecting the drug. If I can help it, that drug isn't going to make it to the streets. I just don't know how to go about that anymore."
"I'm not going to stop looking for my sister, Laura. I guess I don't see any other choice but to join forces with you."
"You could get in big trouble with your people too, Mac. But more than that, I don't want you in any more danger. You've been an innocent bystander in all of this and it nearly got you killed. I couldn't bear that."
I gave her a crooked grin. "We've known each other for two days."
"That's strange, isn't it?"
"Look, Laura, you know as well as I do that if you don't get on a phone and tell your boss you've been fired at in a car on a public highway, you can forget about your long-term career in the DEA. You're the one in jeopardy. You've got to think about covering your butt, driving to a motel on Bainbridge Island or somewhere and hiding until it's all over. That's what's safest."
The Edge f-4 Page 14
