Edge

Chapter 15

I COLLECTED GARCIA’S car, to which Billy had given a clean bill of surveillance health, and I piloted it back onto the highway. I made several bizarre but legal route changes and, when I was convinced nobody was following me, returned to the highway and drove toward the Hillside Inn.

At a little after 7:00 p.m. I arrived at the motel and parked behind it once more, in about the same spot as when I’d left, several spaces down from the Yukon.

I looked to the north and saw in the haze the distant hints of housing developments. I was probably looking at two or three thousand people… such a tiny sliver of the population in the county, and a smaller portion yet of the region. I couldn’t help but think, as I often did on a job, that the lifter was out there somewhere. But where?

How close?

Thirty miles away, lost in the same speculation about where the principals and I were?

Or was he very close, a mile or less, with knowledge of our whereabouts and a clear strategy for killing the shepherds and kidnapping Ryan Kessler?

I returned to the room, calling Ahmad on the phone to announce my arrival. We don’t use secret knocks, though it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea. He let me in and I got a cup of black coffee from the kitchenette. The smell of room-service food-onions and garlic mostly-permeated the air. Two plates, one clean, one picked over, sat on a tray near the sink.

“We’re going to be leaving soon, for the safe house.”

Everyone was looking at me in anticipation and I realized that I’d left under mysterious circumstances. But keeping with need-to-know, I didn’t explain about where I’d been, just told them they should pack up anything they’d unpacked when we arrived.

While Maree and Joanne were doing this, I pulled Ryan aside. He’d had more liquor, I could tell, but he didn’t seem any more inebriated than when I’d left. “We’ve found out something about the Graham case. He dropped the charges.”

“He did what?” The cop was surprised. “That doesn’t make sense. Are you sure?”

I told him I was.

He continued, “When I first interviewed Graham he was furious about the forgery… Man has a temper, I’ll tell you. How was he going to pay for his kid’s tuition? The boy’d have to drop out. All his dreams for his son were ruined. He was practically bullying me to nail the perp. And now this?”

“When did you talk to him last?”

“Probably Tuesday.”

“So something significant happened between then and yesterday.”

“That’s when he dropped the charges?”

“Right.”

Ryan said, “I was in meetings all day. That accounting crap.” He thought for a moment. “So it’s looking like that could be the relevant case.”

“That’s what I’m thinking. Something you found during the investigation could be a key to whoever’s targeted him.”

He sighed and said defensively, “It’s tough to get information about people like that, the DoD, I mean. They don’t talk to us little guys.”

I had an idea he wouldn’t like what I was about to tell him next-a significant fact about his other investigation that he hadn’t uncovered. “And the Ponzi scheme?”

“Yeah?”

“Clarence Brown is a fake name. He’s really Ali Pamuk.” I explained what Claire duBois had found, then added that she was continuing to look into his background. But if Ryan was upset that a federal government sleuth had uncovered more information than he’d been able to find, he didn’t show it. He was mostly confused by the turn the case had taken, it seemed.

“Legal name change?”

“We don’t know yet. Now, is there anything that suggests you’ve uncovered facts in the investigation that somebody would want to have?”

He lowered his head and looked over my shoulder. I wondered at what. His wife, his sister-in-law, the armed guards? His hidden bottle of Wild Turkey or Maker’s Mark? “I’m sorry, Corte. No, I can’t think of anything. I’ll keep looking. I’ll keep thinking.”

I glanced at my watch. I wanted to get everyone up to the safe house. I stepped outside and walked to the front desk, recalling again who I was.

I’m Frank Roberts. My company is Artesian. We do kick-ass computer software designing.

I smiled at the man behind the desk and said, “We’re going to be heading off. I’d like to settle up.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Roberts,” the man said. He was fidgeting, acting the way a clerk sometimes does when things weren’t going quite by procedure. “Everything okay?”

Meaning, why would you check out after just three or four hours?

“Oh, it’s great, as always. We just needed the rooms for a sales meeting. We finished up early and I’m taking the gang to a play downtown.”

“Sure, sure. Tough, you gotta work on Saturday.”

“Well, the company’s paying for a night out, so there you go.”

I looked over the bill and noted that someone had ordered a bottle of wine with the food they got from room service. Ryan, of course; no one else seemed to be drinking. I was a little irritated. It was always a pain to get liquor expenses approved. And didn’t he have an entire bar in that backpack of his?

I thanked the clerk and I returned to the room.

When Rudy Garcia opened the door I glanced inside and saw Maree, laughing as she spoke to her sister. I frowned as I examined the scene. The women weren’t in the common living area; they were in a bedroom to the side and I was watching them in the mirror.

I asked him, “Did you get the Kesslers and Maree into the bedroom when the room service got here?”

“Oh, sure.”

“Was the door open? To the bedroom there?”

He was looking back. “Well, I don’t know. I made sure they were out of sight.”

I was grimacing. “From the reflection too?”

The agent studied the mirror. “I… oh, shit.”

“Did the bellboy act odd?”

“He was pretty nervous, now that you ask.”

I closed the door behind me and pointed Ahmad to the back windows and Garcia to the front. Without a word, they drew their side arms and moved fast into defensive positions. I swept the lights out throughout the room.

I called to Joanne and Maree, “Bedroom lights out. Now.”

A pause and then that room went dark too.

“What’s going on?” Joanne asked, alarmed, stepping into the doorway.

“I think Loving’s found us and’s on his way.”

Or more likely, I reflected, he was already here.