take care of everything.
But…
But what?
Got to warn them. Gotta tell… Charley?
He blinked again, then immediately felt dizzy and sick to his stomach as the spine-chilling awareness hit home.
Charlie Team. The kids. Oh Christ.
Boggs fumbled for the phone on the monitor table, but he immediately gave that idea up when he realized he couldn't remember a single phone number. Not a one. He thought about asking someone for a phone book, but the door to his room was almost shut, and he didn't feel strong enough to yell. Instead, he simply reached over, shut the monitor off, ripped the rest of the electronic sensors off his head and arms, then staggered to the nearby closet.
And discovered, to his amazement, nothing but a pair of white hospital pajamas, a white bathrobe, and a pair of flat cloth slippers.
Wait a minute. What happened to my clothes?
He tried to remember how he'd wound up there, but the only memory he could dredge up out of his aching head had something to do with crawling toward his truck on his hands and knees, which didn't make any sense at all.
So lacking a better plan, Wilbur Boggs pulled himself out of the open-backed hospital gown, worked himself into the pajamas, robe, and slippers — trying, as he did so, to ignore the cast on his hand — re-taped the IV needle to his arm, and then did what he vaguely remembered seeing someone do on TV.
He got up and staggered out the door of his room and into the wide hallway, dragging the IV rack in his wake.
Incredibly, he made it all the way to the lobby, and then through the wide automatic door and across the covered entryway before anyone reacted to his presence — and appearance — with anything other than a brief, professional smile.
'Mr. Boggs?'
Wilbur Boggs blinked in the unaccustomed daylight.
'That's right,' he replied in a raspy voice, trying to remember if the muscular yet attractive young woman standing in front of him was his nurse.
'Are you going somewhere?' she asked hesitantly.
'My office,' he mumbled, wondering if he could muster the strength to shove her aside and make a run for it, or find a taxi before she called the security guards to drag him back to his room.
No, probably not, he told himself glumly.
'Oh really?' The young woman smiled. 'Do you have a ride?' He looked around the entryway. Except for a single truck parked at the far end of the driveway, it was empty.
'Uh, no, I guess not.'
'Well then,' she beamed at him, 'may I offer you one?'
Chapter Thirty-six
Mike Takahara had based his time estimate for locating Wilbur Boggs on rough distance and the clearly marked speed zones through town, rather than the speed and mobility of the small Honda.
And the uneasy determination of Henry Lightstone.
Consequently, it took Lightstone five minutes less than the tech agent's estimate to find Boggs's office. But he then spent another ten slowly circling a four-block area — until he felt reasonably certain he hadn't been followed — before he risked entering the small office building through a door that opened into the back alleyway.
It took him another five minutes to properly identify himself as a federal agent of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and get the relevant information out of Boggs's secretary. No, she hadn't seen Wilbur since last Tuesday. Yes, she was worried, but she felt confident that the other agents who also were looking for Wilbur would find him soon. The names of the other agents? She paused for a moment to scan her notebook. Oh, yes. Gus Donato, Mark LiBrandi, and a young woman agent whose name escaped her at the moment.
Gus Donato, Mark LiBrandi, and Natasha Marashenko. Henry Lightstone smiled to himself. The offensive players of Charlie Team, scene two, sleazy congressman and bagman try to make a deal.
Bingo.
Fifteen minutes later, using directions provided by Boggs's eager-to-help secretary, followed by a good half- hour spent on the back-track, searching for any sign of an active or passive surveillance, Lightstone stood in the covered carport next to the resident wildlife agent's home, wondering what out-of-place element had triggered his mental alarms.
He'd done the standard things first. Rang the doorbell, and received no response. Then he carefully examined all the doors and windows — house and garage — and found everything securely locked with no sign of forced entry. A cursory search of the yard led him next to the carport, where he'd stood studying the backed-in pickup truck and boat trailer for a good two minutes now.
Then it finally hit him.
The boat trailer.
It was still attached to the truck.
And not just the bumper hitch, but the safety chains, trailer brakes, and electrical hookup, too.
Not an unusual situation if you planned to go on a trip, or left everything hooked up for a quick run out to the lake; but hardly the way a wildlife agent would leave his personal truck and trailer when working twelve-hour patrol duty shifts with a government truck and trailer. Lightstone moved in closer… and then immediately went on the alert when he saw the blood splatters on the boat's windshield.
What had Boggs's secretary said? Something about the other agents checking Boggs's home every evening?
Which made as much sense as anything else, he decided as he cautiously moved to the rear of the carport — where the back of the boat trailer nudged the back wall — because if Mark or Gus or Natasha had checked the house during the day, at least one of them should have noticed the blood splatters on the windshield… or at the very least, the damage to the back of Boggs's boat.
Pretty hard to miss, guys, even in the middle of the night, Lightstone thought as he knelt and surveyed the external damage sustained by the small watercraft.
Okay, Wilbur, let's hope for your sake this isn't what it looks like.
Alert for the slightest movement, Henry Lightstone cautiously approached the near side of the boat, looked over the railing, then breathed a small sigh of relief.
No body.
But more than enough blood for a body to have been here, Lightstone decided as he carefully stood up on the trailer, eased himself into the boat, and began to examine the scene like he'd done so many times when he and Bobby LaGrange had worked homicide investigations together.
Yeah, you do like to play, Bobby, Lightstone smiled to himself as he made a cursory examination of the damage sustained by the outboard engine, then furrowed his brows in concentration as he turned slowlywatching where he stepped, carefully avoiding any potentially latent-fingerprint-bearing surfaces with his bare hands — and began methodically to work through the cause-and-effect aspects of the blood splatter patterns around the windshield…
And I can see you and Susan hooking up with Halahan to have some fun with Bravo Team.
… the instrument panel…
Problem is, though, I know you too well.
… the steering wheel…
You were scared when I called last night because you were worried about Susan.
