Tempting the Devil

by Potter, Patricia;

  He went into the kitchen, looked in the fridge. Like his, there wasn’t much there. Milk. Cheese. Two eggs. A stick of butter. A jar of peanut butter. Bread. He spread some peanut butter on the bread, poured a glass of milk, then went to the bedroom with it and knocked.

  “Come in.”

  She was in bed, propped against several pillows. Daisy was on her lap.

  He put the plate in front of her and the milk on the bedside table. “Have you called your sisters?”

  “Yes. It wasn’t easy to tell them that I’ve put both of them in danger.”

  Now was the time to pounce. “We can provide protection for them,” he said, hoping it was three.

  “If I cooperate?”

  “Yes.”

  “For how long?”

  He didn’t answer. He couldn’t answer. If they chose not to go into witness protection, there would be a limit, and he wasn’t at all sure that the witness protection program would take extended families. Her source had been right about that. They could only hope they scooped up the Hydra leadership.

  “I haven’t heard from my source. I can’t give anyone his name without at least talking to him,” she said after a prolonged silence.

  He’d feared that would be her response. Hell, it would have been his, as much as he hated to admit it. He’d had a similar decision to make years ago, and he’d made it with his heart, not his brain. The consequences had been disastrous, but he wouldn’t listen then, and he doubted she would listen now.

  “Where do your sisters live?”

  “Lark’s in South Carolina. She’s just gone through a divorce and is involved in a custody case. She can’t leave, or she might lose her children. Kim and Hunter. Star is just a few weeks from having a baby. She’s in Richmond, Virginia. Her husband has a one-man law firm that’s just being established.”

  Though her tone was normal, he felt the tension in her, the barely restrained fear. But then any normal person would feel the same.

  “I’ll alert the FBI offices there. See if they can’t keep an eye out.”

  She looked at him directly. “Thank you.” She released a long breath. “I want to be released from my word. Dear God, I want it.”

  “You may never get it. What then?”

  This time, she didn’t answer.

  “What about a tap on your phone? We can get voice prints on your caller.”

  She shook her head. “The voice is metallic. He’s using something to disguise it.”

  His cell phone rang. He damned it, but answered.

  Mahoney’s voice was clipped. “A sheriff’s deputy has been killed in a traffic accident.”

  “Are you sure it’s an accident?”

  “No, that’s why I’m calling you. Holland wants you and me to come in. He wants us to research this guy’s background and the facts of the accident. Discreetly,” he added ironically.

  “Who is it?”

  “Edwards. Richard Edwards.”

  “How did it happen?” he asked.

  “Looks like he went off the road and the car burned. Coincidental, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I’ll be in shortly.” He hung up and fixed his stare on Robin. “Your source couldn’t be a deputy named Richard Edwards?”

  “No.”

  The puzzled look on her face told him Edwards was not her source. “Do you know him?” he asked.

  “Edwards? Richie? I’ve met him. He was bailiff for the court, and we had coffee several times during a recent trial. Why?”

  “He just turned up dead. A traffic accident and explosion.”

  “No …”

  He watched her.

  Her face crumpled. “It wasn’t him,” she said. “He wasn’t my source.”

  “Then they may be systematically going after anyone in the department associated with you.”

  She closed her eyes, then after a second opened them as if she’d made a decision.

  “Thanks for coming,” she said.

  It was an abrupt dismissal. Any hope that she might give up the source died.

  He also realized she had a plan of some sort forming in that creative mind. Unfortunately most of her plans had gotten her in trouble.

  “Robin?”

  “I’m really tired,” she said.

  “If you are planning to do anything, you’ll let me know? No more secret meetings on your own?”

  Her eyes didn’t meet his.

  “Damn it, Robin.”

  “I won’t do anything foolish. But I do have to get my life back in order and do a few simple things like get a car, a checkbook, and a credit card.”

  He pushed back a curl that had dropped on her forehead, willing her to trust him.

  Her eyes did not change, nor did the stubborn set of her chin.

  He dropped his hand. “You’ll contact me if you need anything? If you get any more calls?”

  “I will,” she said, the earnest blue eyes meeting his. “I promise. And thanks.”

  He hated the helplessness that washed through him. Thanks for what? He’d been able to offer little comfort or advice about her sisters. But he had limited options. He was constrained by his own job, by his orders.

  He gave her one last glance, then reluctantly left.

  chapter seventeen

  The front door clicked behind him.

  Robin locked the door, then went into the bedroom, sat on the side of the bed, and tried to ignore the bone-chilling weariness. The one person she wanted to confide in was the one person she couldn’t. Not yet.

  She had to get in touch with Sandy. By now she suspected he would know about the ambush in Meredith County. Why hadn’t he tried to reach her?

  But how? Her cell phone was a molten shell.

  It was up to her. And she could do nothing without a car.

  She reached for the brace and buckled it on, then pulled jeans over it and slipped into the T-shirt she’d worn earlier. Then she went to her office.

  She looked at her watch. Nearly four p.m. Time to get a rental car. She went through her Rolodex and found her insurance agent. In minutes she had provided information to the agent and received authorization for a rental car. Now to get to the rental car company and convince them to give her a car without a current driver’s license in hand.

  She took a handful of quarters from the large jar that held her spare change, then located her expired driver’s license and the credit card she kept in her desk, as well as her latest car insurance bill. She tucked them all into her jeans. Tomorrow, she promised herself, she would get a replacement driver’s license. She was not about to go into Meredith County without one. But she had to go out tonight.

  Being afraid for others was far more terrifying than being afraid for herself, and God knew she was afraid. Four men dead, and she had come close to being the fifth victim. She had walked into this knowing the risks, but she would never forgive herself if her sisters were injured or killed because of her.

  Now she wasn’t only terrified for them, she was mad as hell. White hot rage filled her.

  Sandy had to release her from her promise. But even if he did, and she told the FBI, the bad guys had sworn to go after Star and Lark. She wasn’t at all sure she believed the FBI would put teams of agents on them for weeks, maybe even months.

  Therefore it was up to her to trump the bad guys.

  Ignoring the lingering pain in her ribs and from other assorted bruises, she went into the kitchen, fed Daisy, made herself a cup of coffee, and formulated a plan.

  First objective: reach Sandy without anyone knowing. It would not be easy to leave her house alone. Not only were the private investigators outside, but she wouldn’t be surprised if the FBI, or even the bad guys, was following her.

  Mrs. Jeffers. There was nothing Mrs. Jeffers liked more than a good mystery unless it was conspiracy.

  She called the older woman. “Mrs. Jeffers?”

  “Oh, how are you, my dear? I’ve been wanting to come over, but you had a stream of visitors and I thought y
ou might be worn out.”

  “I need company,” she lied, unsure whether someone was listening. “May I come over?”

  “I would love it.”

  She checked the locks on all the doors, left on lights in the bedroom, living room, and kitchen, picked up a complaining Daisy, and left through the front door.

  She stopped by the two men in the car. “I’m going next door for supper,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am. We’ll keep watch. There’s someone in the back as well.”

  Good to know.

  She wished every step didn’t jar the still wounded ribs. She had a long walk ahead of her. But there was no help for it.

  The door opened as she gained the porch. Mrs. Jeffers clucked over her face and showed her inside.

  “That nice FBI agent left you?”

  “I chased him away.”

  Mrs. Jeffers cocked her head like a curious bird.

  “I have to get away from prying eyes. I need your help.”

  Her sharp eyes caught Robin’s. “Will it put you in danger?”

  Robin shrugged. “I hope it will take me out of it. It’s the only way.”

  “What can I do?”

  “I would like to use your phone to call a cab, then I need you to distract someone who’s watching the back of my house.”

  “Are you sure you should do this? That Agent Taylor …”

  “He has his own agenda,” she said. “I have to talk to my source without anyone knowing who it is.” She hesitated, then added, “They threatened my family. You might be in danger, too, if they knew …”

  “Hush, child. I have a pistol in my night table, and I’m a crack shot.”

  Another surprise about her neighbor. The thought of plump Mrs. Jeffers going after someone with a gun blazing was mind-boggling. The last thing she wanted, though, was to draw someone else into the line of fire. After this, she would keep a distance from Mrs. Jeffers.

  “If I can use the phone …”

  Mrs. Jeffers pointed toward a phone on a table next to a big, overstuffed rocker.

  Robin had already found a taxi that operated in her area. She called and asked that she be picked up at a deli, three blocks away. “Twenty minutes,” she promised.

  She hung up the phone and turned to Mrs. Jeffers. “Can you take a cup of tea to the guy watching the house out back?”

  Mrs. Jeffers’s worried face creased into a smile. “An investigator?”

  “Yep. Private.”

  “It will be my pleasure. My dear, I haven’t had this much excitement since I ran away with my first husband. Then I discovered he was a rounder.”

  “It could be dangerous,” Robin warned again.

  “I look at your poor, sweet face, and I realize that,” Mrs. Jeffers said. “I don’t tolerate people who do such things, and I’m old enough not to worry about whether death comes tomorrow or next year.”

  “But I do, Mrs. Jeffers.”

  “Maude,” Mrs. Jeffers said softly. “If we are to be conspirators, it must be Maude.”

  “Maude then,” Robin agreed. “One day you have to tell me about your first husband.”

  “Maybe the others as well,” Maude Jeffers said with a twinkle in her eyes.

  Robin restrained a giggle. She hadn’t known there was a giggle left inside her.

  Or perhaps it was a touch of hysteria.

  Mrs. Jeffers made a cup of tea and carried it outside.

  When Robin saw Mrs. Jeffers adroitly turn the man away from her, she slipped out the back door. She moved across the lawn as quickly as her bad leg allowed her, then through a yard to a side street. The effort winded her. Her breath came hard, and her ribs ached, though not as badly as last night.

  Three more blocks. She turned left, then right, keeping to the shadows. She finally reached the deli. The cab was already there.

  Thankfully, she sank inside the back seat, then checked the street. She saw no other cars going in their direction. And there could be no tracking device.

  For a moment, she was proud of her subterfuge. It fled as quickly as it came. She’d also been proud of herself yesterday afternoon. She was a novice to this, and her only weapon, she hoped, was the unexpected.

  An hour later she had her rental car. It hadn’t been easy, not without a current driver’s license in hand. It was even more difficult to explain why. That the last car she drove was a smoldering ruin. Explaining bad guys were after her didn’t seem a good idea. Instead she pretended she didn’t know it had expired.

  “Oh dear,” she said. “I didn’t realized it expired. I’ll have it renewed in the morning.” She’d given him a game smile and asked him to speak to her insurance agent if he had a problem. Fortunately the company did not want to lose the business of that particular insurance carrier. She was finally given keys when she promised to stop back the next morning with a copy of a new license.

  She got into the car and put the key into the ignition. It caught immediately and she hesitated. The image of a car on fire, of her leg caught under the dashboard flicked through her mind. The terror came back, paralyzing her …

  Get a grip. She only had a few hours. Someone would check on her when she hadn’t returned to her cottage. That someone would, most likely, call her boss, who, in turn, would probably call the FBI. She hadn’t used her credit card, since the insurance agency would pay the fee, but she feared Ben Taylor was beginning to know how her mind worked. He would probably charm Mrs. Jeffers into telling him everything. He would find the cab, then the car rental agency.

  He would be mad as hell.

  The late Sunday traffic was light for Atlanta. She took several detours through the city streets, always checking behind her until she felt no one was following.

  She stopped at an ATM and used her one credit card to take out a cash advance, then drove to a large drugstore, where she purchased a small voice recorder and billfold.

  Then she went to the Varsity, Atlanta’s most frequented hamburger emporium, and used one of its multiple pay phones.

  Sandy answered immediately.

  She tried to deepen her voice. “You said you’d call.” She tried to sound like a distraught girlfriend if anyone was listening.

  A silence, then, “I tried the number you gave me.”

  She heard the stress in his voice. “I lost the phone. I have to see you.”

  “My wife …”

  “When can we meet again?”

  “My wife is suspicious. Is there a number I can call?”

  She gave him the number of the public phone.

  He hung up.

  She hovered near the phone. Her stomach rumbled. The aroma of frying onions and chili and burgers beckoned to her, but she couldn’t chance losing the phone.

  Finally the pay phone rang.

  “What happened last night?” he asked. “I waited for you.”

  “I was ambushed on the way,” she said. “You sent the message, then?”

  “Yes. What do you mean, ambushed?”

  “A SUV pushed me off the road. A man threatened to burn me alive if I didn’t reveal your name.”

  She heard him swear. “Did you?”

  “No. Someone came along.” She told him the rest.

  Then there was a silence.

  “Why did you want to meet?” she asked.

  Silence again.

  “I heard they found a dead deputy,” she prompted.

  “It might have been an accident.”

  “I don’t think you really believe that.” She paused, then said, “They’ve called me at home twice. This morning they threatened my sisters and their families if I don’t give them a name.”

  “You can’t!” Panic raised his voice.

  “You have to give me something I can use for barter. I need something strong enough that I can use as a threat this time.”

  “I don’t have anything.”

  “Find it,” she said, ice in her voice. She owed him, but he owed her as well. He had used her to do something he
was afraid to do. She sympathized with his motives, and his fear, but her family was involved now. If there was a way she could protect both of them she would. If not, she would bargain with the FBI to protect all of them.

  “There may be something …,” he ventured.

  “What?”

  “A photo … maybe it could be useful.”

  “I need it tonight.”

  “Where?”

  “There’s a church in north Atlanta.” She gave directions. She’d done a lot of thinking about the “where.” She’d attended a wedding there, and it had a huge parking lot with more than a few exits. Not only that, it was on a busy road. Not easy to be trapped there. She sure wasn’t going to return to Meredith County.

  “It’ll take a while. I’m at my brother-in-law’s house with my kid. I told them I had to get out to get cigarettes.”

  “No one is following you?”

  “No.”

  “You might check for a GPS. I think that’s how they found me.”

  Silence, then, “I’ll see you in about two hours.”

  She hung up the phone. Two hours.

  Robin suddenly realized she’d had only a piece of bread and peanut butter since morning. She went to the counter, ordered a cola and two chili burgers and carried them to one of the many rooms, each featuring a television and furnished with school-type chairs. She found a chair in a corner, where she could look out over the room. An almost hysterical giggle rose in her. Wild Bill Hickok used to do that a hundred years earlier: choose a chair in a corner of a room. She never thought she’d have to emulate him. She hoped she didn’t end up the same way.

  She ignored the churning in her stomach and tried to enjoy the food. Apprehension and, she admitted to herself, cold hard fear had dulled her usually healthy appetite. She knew she was an amateur playing in a field of professionals. All she had were books and movies to give her guidance. She did know Ben and whoever else wanted to could quickly find the car rental. But what good would it do them? Hers was one car among hundreds of thousands in Atlanta. Even the license plate wouldn’t help unless there was a BOLO, a Be On the Lookout notice, and even then it was unlikely the police would spot her car. She just had to stay out of Meredith County.