Fear itself

years. Something wasn’t copacetic around here. “Where’s Rosie?”

“You Cappy?”

“Yeah.”

“She doesn’t want to see you.”

“I’d like her to tell me that.”

“She told me to tell you.”

Cappy drew himself to his full height-once, six-two, still close to six-one-and crossed his arms over his chest. “Either I see Rosie or I call the cops.”

The door opened. Cappy found himself face-to-face with one of the creepiest guys he’d ever seen. And balder than Cappy on his worst day, bald right down to his eyeballs. “C’mon in.”

Cappy brushed by him-he’d dealt with more desperate characters than this in his thirty years in the Navy; hell, he’d been commanded by more desperate characters than this. Rosie was lying on the Murphy bed, a cold compress over her forehead. She sat up.

“Cappy, this is my son, Simon,” she said, weakly, but with an undertone of pride in her voice. “Simon, this is my friend Cappy I told you about.”

Simon stuck his right hand out, reached behind him with his left to close the door. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Didn’t sound that way a minute ago.” But Cappy shook the man’s hand. He knew how big a deal this was for Rosie-she’d often mentioned the children she’d been forced to abandon as infants. “Rosie baby, why don’t we take a rain check on dinner? You probably want to have a little time alone with your boy here.”

“Yes, that might be-”

“I wouldn’t think of it,” said Simon quickly. The old guy seemed to be pretty clueless as to Simon’s recent notoriety, but you never knew, he could leave here, turn on a radio, pick up a paper, watch the news, make the connection. “I’m the one who came busting in without calling first. Why don’t we have dinner together-we’ll send for takeout. My treat.”

“Very kind of you,” said Cappy, trying to work his way around Simon, who was standing with his back almost to the door. “But I couldn’t possibly…”

“Oh, yes, you could,” said Simon, reaching behind his back and drawing the Colt from his waistband. “You really, really, could.”

Cappy backed away from the door. Rosie saw the gun for the first time. “Simon, what are you-”

“I’m in a little trouble. Mom.” The word sounded strange to Simon, coming out of his own mouth-he hadn’t used it as a form of address since he was three. “I can’t take a chance on Cappy here dropping the dime on me.” He turned back to Cappy. “Why don’t you join your girlfriend on the bed-I’m sure you’ve been there before.”

9

To Linda’s surprise, the doctor, with whom she’d had only one appointment shortly after her transfer to Washington, returned her call within a few minutes; to her relief, he didn’t sound particularly alarmed.

“It’s called Lhermitte’s sign,” he told her. “If you hadn’t already been diagnosed with MS, it would be a red flag-as things stand, it just tells us what we already know. The numbness and tingling in your fingers concerns me more. That’s a new symptom, is it not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And we have you on a course of Betaseron every other day?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Side effects?”

“Just the red blotches at the injection site-and those flu symptoms I told you about.”

“Let’s stay with it, then, and if necessary we’ll think about stepping it up a notch after your next evaluation. When are you scheduled to come in?”

“First of the month-I guess that’s Monday.”

“I’ll see you on Monday, then. And until then, I want you to take it easy. Avoid stress, no strenuous physical activity. And by all means try to avoid any sudden bending or twisting of your neck.”

“Yes, sir,” said Linda promptly. As far as she was concerned, one Lhermitte’s sign per lifetime was plenty.

Linda hung around the office long enough to see the updated BOLO and arrange for its high-priority national distribution to law enforcement only, then left for home. Although the information about the vehicle Childs might be driving was the closest thing to a break in the manhunt thus far, it wasn’t the sort of break you’d expect to bring about immediate results.

Nor would it have, if the car had still been in California, or even a neighboring state. But on M Street in Georgetown, a Volvo with California plates might have been conspicuous enough to have been noticed even if hadn’t already accumulated two tickets and a tow warning since Tuesday evening.

Linda had left the office by the time the patrol car called it in. She was traveling north on the River Road and had just passed the sign for Piney Meetinghouse Road (she loved that name), which meant she was only a few miles from Tinsman’s Lock, when her cell phone started chirping.

“Abruzzi.”

“Joe Buchanan, Metro.” Washington Metropolitan on Fourth Street was the FBI field office with jurisdiction over the District of Columbia. “Thought you might want to know a patrol car spotted your Volvo in Georgetown.”

“Georgetown,” echoed Linda dully.

“Yeah. No sign of Childs yet. They pulled off it right away and set up a surveillance perimeter: if he so much as shows his-”

“Joe-what was the location of the car?”

“I don’t remember exactly. Somewhere on M, I think-I can get it for you if it matters.”

“Please,” said Linda so calmly it was hard to believe that her world, and what was left of her career, was crashing around her ears.

“Just a sec.”

It was more than a sec, it was an eon, an age, an eternity, during which Linda tried to tell herself that although M Street’s retail shops and restaurants were within walking distance, even her walking distance, of the Gees’ brownstone-it was a long street-this could be a coincidence. But deep down she knew better: even before Buchanan came back on the line to confirm her worst fears-the Volvo was parked only two blocks from Conroy Circle-her mind had already switched into cover-your-ass mode. You don’t have to tell them, she reminded herself; it still could be a coincidence. Or maybe it wasn’t Skairdykat at all, maybe he got the address some other way.

Yeah, sure. And maybe God didn’t make little green apples, and maybe Hoover and Tolson were just good friends. “Joe, I’ve got an address about two blocks north of there that needs to be checked out soonest. Seventeen Conroy Circle, that’s one seven C-O-N-R-O-Y. It’s a one-family brownstone. I stayed there for a few weeks when I first got to Washington. Should be two residents, James and Gloria Gee-that’s G-E-E.”

He told her he could have somebody there in five minutes-Metro agents were already converging on Georgetown. And although he did not ask her why the Gees were at risk, or what the connection was to Childs, she knew that before too long, the question would have to be asked.

Along with a few others. Such as what the fuck could you have been thinking, putting civilians in jeopardy like that?

No excuse, sir, she muttered to herself as she switched off the cell phone and slipped it back into the pocket of her black wool car-coat. A glance in the rearview mirror-all clear. She jammed on the brakes and wrenched the wheel to the left, throwing the poor Geo into a screaming, sliding, four-wheel-drift of a U-turn.

As she passed Piney Meetinghouse Road again, this time from the opposite direction, her phone went off in