The Switch

by Sandra Brown

  "No, the Andersons were adamant about keeping their address and first names out of the news."

  "Under the circumstances, I can understand why. I wish Gillian's murder hadn't been widely publicized." She smiled sadly. "It's just that so few people understand my double loss, Gillian and the child she might have had. When she died, my hope of having a niece or nephew died with her. I thought someone who had suffered similarly would..."

  She pretended to run out of steam and paused to take a deep breath. "I'm sorry to have bothered you, Ms. Croft. Forgive me for placing you in such an awkward position. You were very kind to come to Gillian's memorial. We won't keep you any longer. I'd hate for you to miss your program. Thank you."

  "Goodbye, Ms. Croft," Chief said, briefly touching the woman's hand. "A pleasure to have met you."

  He was turning Melina about when Linda Croft blurted out, "I send them cards periodically."

  They came around slowly.

  Before continuing, Linda Croft nervously moistened her lips. "Little pick-me-up notes. You know the kind. Thinking of you. Take heart. Good things are yet to come. Things like that. The Andersons are kind enough to acknowledge them, so they're still at the address I have. It's in my address book at home. You could follow me."

  Her house was in an area of Dallas called the "M streets," so named because for several blocks all the street names began with that letter. It was an older residential neighborhood, but in recent years it had become fashionable again. As retirees sold out or died off, single professionals and young families bought the old houses for renovation. Situated between two houses recently redone, Linda Croft's cottage looked like an outdated dowager trying to hold on to her dignity.

  "Snow White's house," Melina remarked absently as he pulled to a stop at the curb. Linda Croft waved to them from the small porch, then unlocked the arched front door that was set between two mullioned windows. "You go. You handle her better than I do."

  "It's that male-female thing," he said.

  "It's your male-female thing. The chemistry doesn't work that well for everybody."

  He got out and jogged up the walk. Linda Croft had already disappeared inside, calling out to her cats that Mama was home. "Come on in, Colonel Hart."

  He stepped directly into the living area. It was filled with family photographs, needlepoint cushions, and the scent of cat boxes. While he waited, the cats, half a dozen at least, wove their way around and in between his feet, curling their tails up around his shins. Linda Croft returned from the back rooms, extending to him a lined sheet of notepaper with an address written in purple ink.

  "This is against the rules, but Ms. Lloyd's heart is breaking over her sister's death. To my way of thinking, people are more important than rules. Maybe a talk with those who've been there will help her."

  "Melina appreciates this. So do I. Thank you."

  He shook her hand. She held on to his maybe a second or two longer than politeness required. "You remind me of my late husband."

  "He was a lucky man."

  She blushed becomingly. "He was very handsome. He had some Indian blood. A drop or two of Cherokee," she added with a smile. "I never dreamed I'd have such a celebrity inside my house."

  "It's my honor."

  He said a final goodbye. As he was going down the walk, she called after him, "Take care of that cut so it doesn't scar."

  He got in the car and passed Melina the note, then sat for a moment staring directly ahead through the windshield across the dull, dented hood. "What?" she asked.

  "I feel like crap."

  "Do you need another aspirin?"

  "Not physically. I feel bad over the way we manipulated her." "I know what you mean," she sighed. "Sort of like we just screwed over Cinderella's fairy godmother.""Oh, thanks. That makes me feel a lot better."

  He pulled away from the curb. The club where he'd been forced to abandon his car was only a few blocks away. The sports model he owned was an automobile, and this clunker was an automobile, but there the similarities ended. He longed for the maneuverability and speed of his car and was tempted to drive past the parking lot just to see if it was still there and intact. He doubted anyone lying in wait for them would recognize them in this car, but he couldn't take the chance. Resisting the temptation, he circled a block and headed back toward the expressway.

  "Look at it this way," Melina said, evidently still on the subject of manipulating Linda Croft. "By doing this, we could prevent another woman from being killed or keep another couple's child from being kidnapped."

  "That's your motivation for doing all this investigative work yourself? Crime prevention?"

  "Isn't that motivation enough?"

  "Very noble." He glanced at her. "But are you sure there's no vengeance lurking in there somewhere?"

  In a voice made husky by steely determination, she said, "That, too. Definitely."

  "What is this garbage?" Tobias frowned with distaste. He'd sifted through hovels before, many a lot more derelict and dirty than Dale Gordon's apartment. Few, however, had rated this high on the creep factor.

  "Doomsday stuff," Detective Lawson explained as Tobias thumbed through the low-grade paperback booklet. It was filled with graphic illustrations depicting the tribulation to come in the end days. Decapitations. Disembowelments. Babies impaled on swords. "Gordon was big into the apocalypse. I told you about his calls to that Brother Gabriel character."

  After leaving Hennings's brokerage firm, Tobias and Patterson had met the detective at Melina Lloyd's house and recounted for him her story about the two imposters. Chagrined, Lawson had admitted that even though Dale Gordon was Gillian Lloyd's killer, it seemed the case wasn't as open-and-shut as he had originally believed. He'd suggested that the two federal agents see Gordon's apartment, in the hope that out of the rubble they would find a direction to take their further investigation. Leaving other detectives to collect evidence, the three drove to Gordon's apartment together.

  At the mention of the TV preacher, Tobias conjured up a mental image. "Brother Gabriel makes some orthodox religious leaders nervous. They claim his ministry is a cult."

  "Could be," Lawson surmised. "Or maybe established churches are just jealous of the following he's enlisted. Europe. Asia. Africa. He's not just here. He's everywhere."

  "You've researched this." Tobias was impressed with the background work Lawson had done. He looked like an aged hoodlum, but apparently he was more astute than his appearance implied.

  "I followed up on Gordon's fascination with Brother Gabriel," he explained. "Telephone counselors out at the Temple in New Mexico told me Gordon called so often he made a pest of himself, although they put it more tactfully. They're too much into peace and love to speak ill of a disciple. Especially a dead one. Anyway, they said Gordon seemed to be preoccupied with Armageddon."

  "I'm not an expert on cults, but we have specialists who are," Tobias related. "I read their reports regularly. Dale Gordon fits the profile of a cult member. Low self-esteem. Social outcast. Brother Gabriel would have represented both a father figure and a savior, somebody who loved and accepted him, warts and all."

  "When he joined, he became part and parcel of a large family of believers."

  "Which gave Gordon instant identity, something he'd lacked. His devotion to Brother Gabriel became his life to the exclusion of everything else."

  "Not everything else," said Patterson from the other side of the dim room.

  The younger FBI agent came forward with a stack of what appeared to be snapshots. "Found these beneath some loose boards under the bed. Your guys must've missed them," he said to Lawson.

  Lawson harrumphed. He had almost as many years of investigative experience as Patterson was old. Local law enforcement officers typically resented the FBI when they came in and took over their case—especially one already closed. Hoping to keep that resentment at a tolerable level, Tobias exercised some diplomacy. "Easy to overlook something in a dump like this. What've you got?"

  He
reached for the photos. To his credit, Patterson exercised a little diplomacy himself by dividing the stack of pictures between him and Lawson. "Ladies. Naked ladies."

  Tobias leafed through them, his anger for the dead man mounting. "Not your average porno, is it?" It was obvious that the women didn't know they were being photographed. Some were wearing short robes, the kind one donned for a medical examination. Others were completely nude. All were young and appeared healthy.

  "He took them at the clinic." Lawson told them about the peephole they'd discovered. "These must've been other patients. We found a couple of snapshots of Gillian Lloyd like this," Lawson said. "Over there on the altar."

  "Altar, my ass," Patterson said. "I hope God wasn't in a forgiving mood when this fucker died."

  Tobias frowned at the younger agent's editorial comment; but he didn't rebuke him for it. "Does this mean that Gillian Lloyd wasn't Gordon's only obsession?"

  Lawson raised his beefy shoulders.

  "What was Gordon's job at the clinic?" Patterson asked.

  "Here goes your dinner." That was Lawson's way of warning them that what they were about to hear wasn't going to be pleasant.

  "Gordon was an andrologist. I'd never heard the word. Had to look it up. They're the lab techs who work with semen specimens at sperm banks and infertility clinics. They perform all the procedures on it. Storing, freezing, washing. Everything required to prepare it for artificial insemination of one kind or another. Intrauterine or in vitro." He sighed, giving them an opportunity to paint their own mind pictures. "Knowing what I know about him, makes me kinda sick to think about him handling. . . it. Ya know?"

  "Yeah, I know." After a thoughtful moment, Tobias said, "Know what else I know?"

  "We gotta toss that clinic."

  He looked across at Patterson. "Go to the head of the class."

  CHAPTER 24

  As George Abbott paced, he was brutalizing a fingernail already gnawed down to the quick. "I don't understand why."

  "I've explained why." Dexter Longtree was measuring the width of the empty office, using his boots as his measuring stick. Toe to heel, heel to toe, he counted off the yardage.

  "Well, forgive me, Dexter," Abbott said with a nervous laugh. "Maybe I'm not as in touch with my spiritual self as you are. I don't believe in dreams and visions. I leave that kind of crap to the old men of the tribe."

  Longtree raised his head and gave Abbott a hard look. "No offense," he muttered.

  "None taken." Longtree continued pacing off the yardage until he had covered the distance to the far wall. Removing a pencil and paper from the breast pocket of his shirt, he wrote down the measurement. It was only an approximation, but it would serve to plan the layout of NAA's first headquarters.

  "All I'm suggesting," Abbott continued, "is that we should push him a little harder."

  "There's no need to push."

  "We're fresh in his mind. If too much time goes by, he'll for‑

  get he ever heard about NAA. Now's the time to move in, apply some pressure."

  "We said everything we needed to say."

  "Guys like Hart, he's got people coming at him left and right wanting favors, asking for this, asking for that. Write a book. Give a speech. Visit a school. Sign an autograph. He can't do everything, so his stock answer to every request is no." Abbott slapped his palm with the back of his other hand. "I'm telling you, Dexter, only the persistent are going to get anywhere with him."

  Longtree finished counting the electrical outlets and made a notation on his paper. "Hart doesn't want to be wooed."

  "Hell, everybody wants to be wooed," Abbott argued as he attacked another fingernail. "We could go down to Houston. Leave tomorrow. Or the day after at the latest. We'd have to drive. There's no budget for airfare. Maybe spend one night on the road each way. We'll take him to lunch. Someplace nice. White tablecloths, white wine, the whole nine yards. Convince him we're not savages. Then we'll make our appeal." He glanced at Longtree. "I don't suppose you'd think about cutting your hair?"

  Longtree had listened to George's plan with barely contained amusement. "It would be a wasted trip, George. Christopher Hart will come to us."

  Abbott dropped his hand from his mouth. "Come to us? Come to us? Are we talking about the same guy?" His voice rose to a shrill note. "He couldn't wait to get rid of us."

  Longtree could read Abbott's mind. He was thinking that what people said about Dexter Longtree was probably true, that the gossip had some basis of truth. Most of the time, Chief Longtree was a force to be reckoned with. Strong. Passionate. Determined. Intimidating.

  But occasionally he went a little soft in the head. He would become one feather short of a full war bonnet. One arrow shy of a full quiver. They'd tap their temples and shake their heads sorrowfully.

  "It's the tragedy," the old-timers explained. "Sometimes it still affects him."

  Although Abbott had been in grade school when it happened, he'd heard the story about how Longtree had gone crazy. He had made a painstaking and gradual recovery, but he was prone to relapses. No doubt Abbott thought that he was suffering one now.

  That was all right. Let him think what he wished. "George, nothing we say will convince Christopher Hart to join us. He'll make the decision when he's ready. On his own. It will come from something within himself."

  But Abbott wasn't listening. He was already on to another thought. "We could up the ante. Increase the amount of his retainer."

  "Our offer was reasonable and fair."

  "Maybe we should give him a signing bonus like they do professional athletes. I don't know where the money will come from. The deposit on this place will just about empty our account. Maybe we should hold off renting the space."

  "The issue with Hart isn't money."

  "No, the issue with Hart is that he doesn't want to be an Indian." Abbott spat a sliver of fingernail off the tip of his tongue. "His looks might say Indian, but he's white as they come on the inside. What I'd like to do is tell the smug bastard to go fuck himself."

  Longtree showed a ghost of a smile. "Good idea, George. Very persuasive. I'm sure that would bring him around."

  Irritated, Abbott kicked an empty soft drink can that a former tenant had left behind. It rattled across the bare floor. "You're right. We need the cock-strut. Which brings me back to my original point. We push. Push hard. Work on his conscience."

  "Christopher Hart is a conscientious man."

  Again, Abbott wasn't heeding a word he said. "How about this? We'll build in an incentive that wouldn't cost us any cash right now. A housing allowance. Or a car. That's it! A car.

  Maybe we can talk Fred Eagle into donating a new car from his dealership."

  "Would you want someone working as our spokesperson who'd had to be bribed?" Corruption on the reservations regarding gaming and construction contracts was one of the issues the advocacy group planned to address. "Besides, Hart couldn't be bribed."

  Abbott threw up his hands in frustration. "Then what do you suggest?"

  "I suggest that we go straight from here to the rental office and put down the deposit on this space before someone else grabs it."

  "Without a commitment from Hart? You're willing to go forward without him?"

  "We've got him, George."

  "How do you know?"

  "I know."

  "One of your visions?"

  Ignoring the man's scorn, Longtree moved toward the exit. "I know. It's Colonel Hart who doesn't know. But he will. Soon."

  Jem Hennings alighted from his car, barely acknowledging the parking valet. The uniformed doorman stepped forward to hold the door for him. Jem gave him a cursory nod of thanks, then did a double-take. "Who're you? Are you new?"

  "First day, sir. Harry Clemmet."

  "Jem Hennings. Seventeen D."

  "Yes, sir, Mr. Hennings. Anything I can do for you, please let me know."

  Already buttering me up for a large Christmas tip, Jem thought as he continued across the foyer. He was halfwa
y to the elevator bank when Harry called out to him. "You're a mighty lucky man, Mr. Hennings."

  Jem wasn't feeling particularly lucky today. In fact, his day hadn't been at all pleasant. He was preoccupied and in no mood to interact with the hired help. But he never knew when he might need a favor from one of them. He turned. The doorman was grinning at him sappily. "Lucky?"

  "Yes, sir. I met your fiancée."

  Hadn't Harry the sappy grinner just told him that this was his first day on the job? Jem slowly retraced his steps across the lobby. "How could you have met her? When did you meet her, Harry?"

  Sensing that something was amiss, the new doorman stuttered, "Th-this afternoon. When she came by to pick up those things for you."

  Upon leaving Jem's high-rise, Chief announced that they must come to a meeting of the minds.

  "Over what?" she asked.

  "Accommodations. I've had my fill of fleabag motels, Melina."

  "You've only been in one."

  "Which is one too many."

  "And it was clean."

  "Which I don't consider an amenity."

  He checked them into a suite hotel that was still modest by his standards but several rungs up from the motel on the interstate. "You didn't use a credit card, did you?" she asked when he returned to the car from the lobby.

  "Cash. The clerk asked for the license plate number on the car."

  "You knew it?"

  "No, I made one up, but he didn't check. He winked and told me to have a pleasant stay. He thinks we're here for some afternoon delight. A hasty-tasty."

  Apparently. Because the clerk assigned them a room with one king bed. Neither remarked on it. Depending on how the evening went, they might not be here long enough to spend

  the night. If they were, there was always the sofa bed in the parlor. She would sleep there. Because spending the night in the same room with Chief would be unnerving for a number of reasons, most of which made her uneasy to think about. Under the circumstances, even a suggestion of intimacy with him would feel inappropriate. Ironically, those same circumstances were responsible for their togetherness.

  Who could deny his appeal? Even matronly Linda Croft had responded to his effortless charm. Any woman who shared space with him—small, private space—over an extended period of time would be entertaining a few romantic notions, even though the probability of their being acted on was nil.