After the accident he wouldn’t talk to a psychiatrist. He would stay alone in his room for weeks at a time. He had bathed irregularly, didn’t speak, and avoided his children. Erin had been terrified of him, as much because of his fits of rage as because of the disfigurement. He would go off like a pipe bomb at the slightest problem, throwing things through walls or smashing the television set with a crutch. It had been frightening for all of them. Then there had been the night when things had come to a head in the bedroom, and they had had a terrible fight. She had said some things she shouldn’t have said.
The following day Laura had returned home to discover that Paul had packed a few things and was gone. He didn’t even leave a note. She had followed him to Montana, but he wouldn’t talk to her. She had sat on the cabin’s porch begging and pleading and then yelling at him for hours. But he had refused to acknowledge her presence. He didn’t even look out the window. “Well, then, screw you!”
She had gone home to Arlington, packed, and moved back to New Orleans. No matter how busy she stayed, her heart ached and ached.
Laura looked down at Wolf. He was sound asleep on his side, his feet jerking-dreaming of chasing or being pursued. She looked at her watch. It was two-thirty. She had been painting since seven that morning. She turned off the radio, which was tuned to a classical station, and the dog rolled to his feet and yawned.
“The silence wake you up, Wolf?”
He padded over to her and nudged her leg for a rub. She scratched behind his ears, and his rear leg started scratching at his side but the claws were hitting the floor.
“Oh, no, Wolf, you’ll ruin the floor,” she said.
She went to the front door and out on the porch to see if the mail had arrived, but it hadn’t. She looked down the street but saw no suspicious vehicles.
Reid was in New York at a sales meeting. All morning Wolf had kept Laura in sight. When she had gone to check the mail, he had accompanied her, and while she had studied the street, he had sniffed the air and marked the bushes and beds in front of the porch with his scent.
Thirty minutes before Reb’s classes were dismissed, Laura piled Wolf into the car and headed to his school. She parked on the street two blocks away and watched the line of buses. Just before the children poured out, she saw a red Volvo pull up across the street from the bus yard and stop.
She wished she had thought to bring her binoculars. After ten minutes the bell rang, and a few minutes later the children lined up outside for the buses. When the buses pulled out, Laura watched the car. As Reb’s bus passed the car, it made a U-turn and shadowed the bus. Laura followed the car and, being careful to keep a few vehicles between them, dialed a number on her mobile phone, calling Allen White, the policeman she had spoken to the evening before.
“Allen, it’s Laura. The car, a red Volvo sedan, is following the bus.”
“Just trail behind. Don’t let them see you. I’ll be waiting,” Allen’s voice coached.
When the bus stopped to let Reb out, the red car pulled over against the curb almost directly in front of Alice Walters’s house. It stopped under the canopy of a live oak that covered the sidewalk. Laura angled in behind a VW van, stopping a half block behind the car. She stepped out and pulled a smiling Wolf to the grass. He stayed close enough to her side that there was slack in the leash. After watching Reb inside the gate she walked toward the Volvo. A lone figure turned the far corner and was jogging toward the red sedan.
NOPD detective Allen White was dressed in a gray sweat suit, and as he drew even with the automobile, he slowed, then bent in a motion that made it look as though he were going to tie his shoe. He knelt, pulled a pistol from an ankle holster, and aimed his gun at the head of the driver. Laura moved toward the car with Wolf beside her, his ears erect. She could hear what Allen was saying.
“Okay, pal, just keep the hands on the wheel where I can see them.”
Wolf turned and barked, and Laura was aware of armed men running down Alice’s drive, toward the car, with their pistols aimed at the detective. Allen White turned his head for a split second toward the driveway, and the Volvo’s driver disarmed him and was out of the car in a second. The air was filled with the sound of running feet and loud voices.
“Freeze, DEA!” someone yelled.
“Lose the piece!”
“Gun on the ground! Now!” an armed man yelled. “Do it now!”
After the shock started wearing off, Laura realized that there was something very familiar about the man who was walking down the driveway from the back of Alice’s house.
“He’s a policeman, Thorne,” Laura yelled. “Pull them back.”
“Hello, Laura,” Thorne said, smiling at her. He waved a hand, and the men stepped back from the prone detective.
“Why in the hell was he tailing Reb, Thorne?” Laura demanded, pointing at Woody Poole.
The agents replaced their automatics in their holsters, and Allen stood. The agent from the car reached down and handed him back his Chief, butt first. “What the hell’s going on here?” the young detective asked as he replaced the pistol in the ankle holster and dropped the right leg of his sweat pants to cover it.
Thorne turned to Allen White. “Sorry. We’re running a protective surveillance on Laura and her children.”
“On me?” she asked. “What for, Thorne?”
“We’re all DEA.” Thorne pointed down the street at a car that had just parked behind Laura’s. An agent in casual clothes stepped from the car and moved to the group on the street. “He was following you, but you-”
“I lost you in traffic,” the man finished.
Laura stared at the agent without speaking to him. She turned to Allen White. “I’m so sorry, Allen, I had no idea.”
“Don’t mention it,” the detective said. “I’m glad it was good guys.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Laura quipped. “Good guys don’t spy on citizens who’re minding their own business. And calling it protective surveillance doesn’t make it so. I want some answers really fast, Thorne. If Paul put you up to spying on us…”
“I’ll explain everything later.” Thorne looked at the detective as he spoke.
“I’m down the street if you need me, Laura,” Allen said as he turned and walked away.
“I’ll make coffee,” Laura offered, but her eyes were flashing with anger. “And you can explain all this, Thorne Greer.”
The two local agents went back into Alice’s house. Laura tossed her car keys to Woody. “You with the reflexes… make yourself useful. Put my car in the garage and come in through the kitchen door, if you can find it.”
Woody turned his hard eyes on Laura, smiled for a split second, and nodded.
Thorne and Laura crossed the street behind Wolf. As they neared the gate, Wolf barked excitedly. Laura looked up to see Erin turn the corner and come running up with a backpack hanging from a shoulder. There was a can of Mace locked in her grip.
“Mama, there’s a man following me!”
Sean Merrin turned the corner. He seemed more embarrassed at being discovered than pained for the chemical he had captured in his eyes.
“Never mind, Sean,” Thorne said. “Looks like we’re all blown.”
“Erin, this is Thorne Greer. I don’t know the man you’ve just Maced.”
“Agent Merrin,” Thorne said. “Sean Merrin.”
“She turned a corner and I followed and she was waiting behind a tree.” Sean’s eyes were red, and he was sweating.
“I friggin’ Maced your short ass,” Erin said proudly.
Sean nodded sadly.
“You should wear a uniform if you’re gonna follow people around in this town.”
“They’re friends of your father’s,” Laura said.
“What are they doing scaring people? Shouldn’t they be busting drug dealers or something?”
“We’re headed in for coffee,” Laura said. “Agent Merrin, join us inside and we’ll run some water over your eyes.”
Erin pointed her finger at Sean. “And you owe me a can of this,” she said, handing him the empty can of Mace. “It was eight dollars at K and B.” Then she added, “I was hoping it’d work better, though.”
