one here in the studio and two in the bedroom, one in the telephone again. The telephone devices pick up whatever is going on in the rooms. We weren’t able to locate the receiver. Could be anywhere.”
“Why in the receiver and the base?” she asked.
“Redundancy, maybe. Different kinds of transmitters.”
“Martin Fletcher has been in my house?” Fear silenced her for a moment; then her anger came surging back. “Christ, I feel like I was raped once and then raped again by the cops when they showed up. I must be the most watched woman in America.”
“Well, you’re clean now,” he said. “He’ll know we found them when he checks the listening post.”
“Great,” she said. “So Paul’s out. Where is he now?”
“He’s heading this investigation. He’s on the ninth floor of the U.S. Courthouse building annex in Nashville. The DEA has offices with the federal prosecuting attorney. He’s using Rainey’s office.”
“I didn’t think anything short of dynamite could blast him out of his hole,” she said, aware of the bitterness that filled her words.
“He’s really changed,” Thorne said. “He’s not the same man. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. After what happened and all.”
“He didn’t want me to know, did he?”
Thorne looked down. “Laura, it’s…”
“Of course he didn’t.”
“He only agreed to come out when he knew you and those children were in danger. That was the only reason. He cares.”
“Oh, I know how much he cares. Enough to send people to protect us… but not enough to actually visit his children. Enough to use us to lure Martin.”
“That isn’t fair, Laura.”
“Do you know that he hasn’t laid eyes on Reb or Erin in all these years, except for the photos I send? I don’t care for myself. Really, I don’t. But he has hurt those children. He was never around when they were little. Always chasing a drug lord or flying raids in Bolivia or someplace. We never saw him. Then he ran out on us completely. He didn’t even try. So, fine. But I’m not going to let that son of a bitch tell me what to do. Don’t tell me he cares-don’t you ever tell me he cares about us. This is about him. All of you are using us. Fine, there’s nothing I can do. But I don’t have to like it. If it weren’t for the kids, I’d take my chances with Martin Fletcher. At least Martin Fletcher is honest. He says he wants to hurt us, but Paul says he wants to protect us. Only trouble is he’s the one who has hurt us.”
“That isn’t true.”
“What do you mean?”
“I shouldn’t be telling you this, but he’s… the local agents say that he asks them to check on you every so often and report to him.”
“When? When was the last time?”
“Reb had his school play last year-they took pictures of the thing and sent the prints to Paul.”
“Why?”
“I’d guess he wanted to make sure you’re all okay. Laura, when we first saw him in the mountains, he was like a wounded animal, defeated, frightened. But you should have seen him in Nashville. He was like the old Paul. In charge, surefooted-he seemed strong as a bull.”
“Thorne, I can’t tell you how sorry I am to hear about your family. I wish I had kept in closer touch. And Doris Lee and I were friends once. I’ve never been good about staying in touch with anyone, especially Paul’s friends. You know how it is. People take sides or feel disloyal somehow.”
She looked at Thorne and seemed to be figuring something out, weighing her words. “Promise me something?”
“If I can.”
“Tell him I want to see him face-to-face. I need to have some closure so I can get on with my life. If he doesn’t want to see the children, I’ll understand, even though they won’t. He has devastated Erin and Reb by hiding from them. It’s plain rejection to them. I told them it’s because of his face, the incident, and the brain damage, but now that they know he’s back, all that is changed. No. On second thought he has to see them. He has to let us say good-bye so we can go on. I can’t give Reid what he needs until I know Paul doesn’t want it. I owe him that.” After what I did.
“I’ll try. You know Paul.”
“Try hard.”
16
“The car thing’s a wash,” Sherry said as she placed a folder on the conference-room table. She drummed her nails on the table surface for emphasis. “No abandoned or towed cars near where the Rover was taken. No speeding tickets we can connect. Nothing on surveillance tapes of outgoing air travelers we can connect.”
Paul opened the report cover and grazed over the information. “So he probably had an assistant,” Paul said. “You did a thorough job, Sherry.” He smiled at her, memorizing details about her the way he committed a favorite view to memory. She was a beautiful woman, and more intelligent than he had figured at first. Not that brains and beauty couldn’t reside in the same place. Laura had proved they did.
Paul had studied the surveillance pictures from the Nashville airport’s cameras until they had become teasingly familiar, yet he hadn’t seen anyone who looked like a newer model of Martin based on the old Martin Fletcher frame. It was an impossible task, though. Paul’s mind had wandered as he’d scanned the shots for something familiar, waiting for a bell to ring.
“Martin’s game on Martin’s turf in Martin’s time,” Paul said out loud.
“Vengeance is mine thinketh Martin,” Rainey said.
“Why leave the opening for you to thwart him? Why didn’t he get Laura and the kids sooner?” Sherry asked. “The challenge?”
“I’m afraid he is saving the best for last,” Paul said.
“Why don’t you… I mean, why did you decide to stay here instead of being in New Orleans?” she asked.
“I’ve got a good team in New Orleans. They’ll know what to do if Martin comes.”
“Sure, but what I was really asking-wouldn’t you rather be there? In New Orleans?”
Paul noticed Rainey turn to look at him, waiting to hear what Paul would say.
“Look, we need to try to get a description of Martin, hopefully to track him from where he was last seen. Maybe we’ll narrow the variables somehow. I’m better off doing that here. Also, Martin believes he’s superior to the rest of us. He’ll want his final action to gain him maximum satisfaction. He wants to kill…” Paul stopped for a second and took a deep breath. “Unless our intelligence and mental profiles are way off, he’ll want to kill the family while I’m on the scene. We know he’ll meet his mother somewhere around the third of October to get his mind retwisted, or whatever the visits do for him, and go for the family after, when he thinks we aren’t paying attention. So it’s imperative we get him with Eve.”
Paul thought about the A team, his carefully selected hunting team sitting at an East Texas air base, anxiously waiting for a direction to run in. Freelancers, and expensive ones at that. T.C. Robertson had agreed that he needed men like that to meet Martin. He hadn’t quibbled about costs.
“There’s no room for error,” Paul added, more to himself than to her.
“I see,” she said. And she did. Paul’s family was meant to lure Martin Fletcher to strike, and Paul wasn’t ready yet. The question was, Would he ever be?
Rainey turned away.
Paul thought about Martin’s plan. Or plans, more likely; he’d have alternatives. He had had years to think and rethink his options. There was a trigger, and Paul wanted to keep from hitting it as long as he could. Being in Nashville was a way of playing for time. Maybe it was futile. Was he fooling himself? Was he wasting his time? Was he just afraid to get closer to the action, to Martin or the family?
Paul had never been consciously self-analytical until he had taken to the cabin. He knew now that he had
