Edge

Chapter 5

I NEVER UNDERSTOOD the FBI agent’s compulsive joking. Perhaps it was to protect himself, the way not joking is some kind of shield for me. I found it irritating but I didn’t have to live with him, the way his wife and five children did, so I tried not to let it bother me.

I told him, “Come in the front,” and disconnected.

At the door I greeted the tall, white-haired agent. Claire duBois, whose quirky mind had a habit of prodding her to make odd but accurate observations, once said of Freddy, “Did you ever notice that the best FBI agents look like TV Mafia dons and the best Mafia dons look like TV agents?” I hadn’t but it was true. Solid and columnar, ever in low gear, the fifty-five-year-old Paul Anthony Xavier Fredericks was a long-timer in the Bureau; he’d worked nowhere else after his graduation from college. He stepped into the house, accompanied by a younger agent. Both followed me into the kitchen.

Special Agent Rudy Garcia was in his late twenties. Scrubbed and reserved, he’d clearly been military before the Bureau. Quick eyes, unsmiling and married, he wasn’t, I judged, the sort to have a good time going out for a beer with. But, then, I’ve heard the same about me.

“The Kesslers’re packing. Any word from West Virginia?”

A shrug said it all. I hadn’t expected much. An unidentified vehicle, an unknown route. Loving was invisible.

“What do you think, Freddy, about his ETA?”

“At least two hours plus till he gets to Fairfax, at the earliest,” the agent said, reading the framed news story about Ryan the hero. “I remember that. Sure.”

Garcia was walking around the ground floor, glancing out the windows. He was good, careful not to give anything away to anybody outside.

And not presenting any target himself.

Joanne and Ryan came down the stairs, two suitcases in the cop’s beefy hands. They stopped in the hallway and he set them down. They joined us in the kitchen and I introduced them to the agents.

“Messing up your weekend,” Freddy said. “Sorry about that.”

I asked, “Is Maree up? We have to go.”

“She’ll be down in a minute.”

I suggested, “Amanda might feel more comfortable if her aunt goes with her to your friend’s place in Loudoun.”

For some reason Ryan replied, after a hesitation, “Probably not.” Joanne agreed.

Freddy’s radio clattered. “SUV approaching. Registered to William Carter.”

I told him, “The friend. The Kesslers’ daughter’s staying with him.”

A moment later Bill Carter was at the door. He entered without knocking and joined us, hugging Joanne hard, then he shook Ryan’s hand warmly. The white-haired man was in his early sixties, tanned and fit, six-two or so. His face grave and gray eyes sharp, he looked me over through large, clear aviator glasses as he gripped my hand. He greeted Freddy and Garcia too, carefully examining all the IDs. I caught the crown of a holster and shiny butt of a pistol under his jacket.

“This is for real, then,” he muttered.

“It’s terrible, Bill,” Joanne said. “One day everything’s fine and then… this.”

I handed Carter another of the cold phones and explained it to him.

“Who’s after you?” he asked Ryan.

“The devil incarnate” was the dry response.

I replied to Carter’s very nonrhetorical question-the former cop would want details: “His name’s Henry Loving. He’s white, midforties, about two hundred pounds, dark hair. Had a scar, his temple. Probably doesn’t anymore.” I typed on the computer. “Here’s an old picture. He’s good at changing appearances but it’ll give you a rough idea.” My principals and Carter had fallen silent, looking at the benign face of Henry Loving. Put a white band of collar on him and he could have been a minister. A navy blue suit, an accountant or salesman at Macy’s. His face was as placid as mine, merely a little fuller. He didn’t look like a killer, torturer and kidnapper. Which worked to his advantage.

I said to Carter, “I think we’re on top of things and he doesn’t know about you. But be alert. You have wireless in your house in Loudoun?”

“Yessir.”

“Can you disable it?”

“Sure.”

I added, “And make sure Amanda doesn’t configure your computer for dial-up.”

“She’d know how to do that?”

“She’s a teenager,” I said. “She could build a computer out of kitchen appliances.”

“Suppose you’re right about that.” He looked at the Kesslers. “How much did you tell her?”

Ryan said, “Pretty much everything. But I didn’t overdo it.”

“She’s got some grit, your daughter. It’d take a lot to get her rattled. But I’ll keep her distracted.”

“Thanks, Bill.”

“And when you leave,” I told him, “keep her down. Have her look for something you lost under the front seat. Just for a block or two.”

Maybe Carter thought this was excessive but he agreed.

Amanda bounded down the stairs, clutching a pillow in a red-and-white gingham case. It seemed teenagers couldn’t travel without pillows, girls at least. Security blankets maybe.

“Uncle Bill, hi!” She hugged the man and sized up Freddy and Garcia, the new arrivals.

“Hey, this’s some weird adventure, honey,” Carter said.

“Yeah.”

“We better hit the road,” the former cop said.

I was amused; the solidly built teenage athlete had around her shoulder a purse in the shape of a plush bear, with a goofy smile and a zipper down its back.

Joanne grabbed the girl and hugged hard, to her stepdaughter’s embarrassment.

Then her father did the same. He too was treated to a stiff return embrace. “Come on, humor your old man,” Ryan said affectionately.

“Dad… okay.” She stepped back, though her father kept his hands on her shoulders.

“You call us anytime. About anything.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“It’s going to be fine, honey.” Then the bulky detective released his grip, apparently worried that his coddling might give his daughter more cause to worry. He smiled.

“Like, bye.” Lugging her pillow, backpack and bear purse, Amanda ran to Carter’s SUV.

Again the former cop hugged Joanne and then gripped Ryan’s hand with both of his. “I’ll take really good care of her. Don’t worry. God bless.”

Then he was gone.

Ryan returned to the den and came out with his briefcase and another backpack. It was heavy and I assumed it contained ammunition and possibly another weapon.

Freddy called his men outside on the radio. We heard one of them respond, “Carter’s gone. Nobody following. The girl wasn’t visible.”

Then I heard footsteps on the stairs, and a woman, quite attractive, appeared in the kitchen doorway. She was blinking, as if she’d just awakened, though she was dressed in a nice outfit and her face was made up. She bore a faint resemblance to Joanne and was six, eight years younger. She was taller but willowy, not as solid.

“This is Maree,” Joanne said.

“Well, lookit this,” she said. It seemed that she hadn’t quite believed what her sister had been telling her. Sure enough: “I thought you were kidding, Jo. I mean,” looking at Freddy and Garcia, “didn’t I see you in The Sopranos?” She poured some orange juice and added an herbal powdered concoction to it. She drank it down and made a face.

The agents regarded her blankly.

Maree had longer and straighter hair than her sister’s and it was mostly but not completely, or authentically, blond. She wore a full suede skirt and a gossamer floral blouse of yellow and green. Silver jewelry. No wedding ring. I always look, not for availability, of course, but because marital status gives me information about a lifter’s options in getting an edge on the principal.

A fancy camera dangled over her shoulder, and I could see in the foyer her luggage. She had a large wheelie, a heavy backpack and a laptop case, as if she were going away for two weeks. Maree picked up a stack of mail on a table near the kitchen door. The pieces had been sent to her but the printed address-in the North West quadrant of the District-had been crossed out and the Kesslers’ penned in, forwarded here. Maybe she’d lost her job and been forced to move in with her sister and brother-in-law.

As she flipped through the mail, I noted the woman give a slight wince; she moved her left arm more gingerly than her right. I thought I saw a bandage near the elbow, beneath the thin cloth. She took a jacket from a coat rack, tugged it on and turned to her sister. “This looks like it’s shaping up to be a great party but I’m out of here. I’m going to stay in the District tonight.”

“What?” Joanne asked. “You’re coming with us.”

“I don’t see a lot of fun in that option. I’m choosing door number three.”

“Mar, please… You’ve got to come. Where would you go?”

“I called Andrew. I’m going to stay with him.”

“Called him?” I was concerned she had another mobile. “From the house phone?”

“Yeah.”

This didn’t trouble me; while monitoring and tracing mobiles was a piece of cake, tapping into a landline was very difficult, and even if an associate of Loving had done so, Maree couldn’t have given away anything crucial to the job.

She was looking around. “I couldn’t find my cell. You know where it is?”

“I’ve got it.” I explained about the risks of tracing.

“Well, I need it.”

She wasn’t happy when I told her that she was incommunicado. I didn’t have any more cold phones to hand out.

“Well… I’m still going downtown.”

Joanne said, “No, you don’t want to do that.”

“I-”

I said, “I’m afraid you’re going to have to stay with your sister and brother-in-law. And I want to leave now. We’ve waited too long as it is. I mean, right now.”

Maree waved a hand whose fingernails ended in glittery white crescents, French tipped, I thought they were called, though I could have been wrong. She said to me, nodding at her sister, “I don’t want to stay with her. My God, she’s no fun.” Then laughed. “I’m kidding… But really, I’ll be fine.”

“No,” I said firmly. “You’re coming with us and-”

“You guys go on. Let me borrow the Honda, you don’t mind.” She looked at me. “My car’s in the shop. Do you know what they want for a new fuel pump?… Hey, what’re you doing?”

Garcia was taking the luggage out to the Armada. He returned to the kitchen and nodded at me, meaning the yard was clear.

To Maree, Freddy said, “You’ll have to listen to Corte. You need to leave. Now.”

Maree opened her eyes wide. “Wait, wait… I know you.” She regarded me with a frown.

I must have blinked in surprise. Had we met?

The woman added, “You’re on that reality show. The Vacation from Hell. You’re the tour guide.”

“Please, Mar,” Joanne said.

Her sister pouted. “He’s mean. He stole my phone.”

At that moment I was looking out the kitchen window again into the backyard, trying to figure out what was different from when I’d looked earlier. There was something visible now that hadn’t been a half hour ago, because of the shifting angle of the late morning September sun. I called Ryan over and pointed. “Is that a path?”

A line of trampled grass lay between the Kesslers’ house and the one I’d mentioned earlier, kitty-corner to the left. It was Teddy’s, I recalled, the man who’d gone out for coffee.

“Yeah, to the Knoxes. They’re our, I guess, best friends in the neighborhood. We hang out with them all the time.”

The path had been created over the summer, from trekking back and forth for barbecues, borrowing cooking ingredients and tools, birthday parties.

“What is it?” Joanne asked. “You’re making me uneasy.”

“Wow, he does look totally intense,” Maree said.

“Corte?” Freddy grunted.

Grimacing, I nodded.

“Shit,” the agent muttered. He sighed and unbuttoned his jacket. “Garcia!”

“Go dark,” I said.

Freddy and Garcia pulled shades and drapes in the den, TV room and kitchen.

Ryan tensed and Joanne, eyes wide, blurted, “What’s going on? Tell me.”

I could see the palm of Freddy’s hand tap the butt of his Glock. We do this to reorient our muscles and nerves so we know exactly where our weapons are. Like I noted the pressure of the Baby Glock, in the small of my back. I left it in the holster for the moment.

Ryan stepped forward to the window.

“No,” I said firmly. “Get back. Loving’s here.” I herded everyone into the windowless hallway between the kitchen and the front foyer.

“How’d he do it?” Freddy asked. “He should still be halfway from West Virginia.”

I didn’t answer. There were several possible explanations, though none relevant to our goal at the moment: to keep the principals alive and get out of the area instantly.

“What do you have, sir?” Garcia asked me.

“The house that path leads to? The window closest to here? The blinds were down ten minutes ago. They’re about six inches up now. Makes no sense for them to be open only that far, except for surveillance.”

“A spotter?”

“No,” I said. “A spotter would’ve picked the house with the best view. That’s the one directly behind here, or to the right. Loving’s in the left house because he noticed the path and figured the family who lives there’d be good friends with the Kesslers.” I added, “They’d have the best information about you and might know what my SUV was doing in your drive and the sedan parked in front.”

“Teddy and Kath!” Joanne blurted. “You mean he’s there with them?”

“You sure, Corte?” Freddy asked. Meaning, we push the button on this, it’s going to get expensive and possibly messy.

“I’m sure enough… I want people here now. Fairfax County and your folks, whoever’s nearby.”

“Call it in,” Freddy ordered Garcia, who pulled his cell phone out of a holster and hit a speed dial button.

“I’m sorry, this is too weird for me,” Maree said with an edgy laugh. “The tour guide’s freaking us out because somebody opened a window? Good luck, guys.” Maree lifted car keys from a dish on a table nearby. “I’m going downtown.” She started for the front door.

“No,” I told her firmly. “And everybody, get-” The rest of my instructions were cut off at the sound of a huge crash from the street.

Joanne screamed, Maree gasped and stood frozen in front of the door.

I strode forward fast, gripped the young woman by the collar of her jacket and yanked her backward and we fell together onto the tile floor, as the bullets began crashing through the front picture window in the living room.