close this case and get things back to normal for you.”
“You look tired.”
“Well, it’s been a long day.” He glanced over at Simon. “Is it all right if we talk inside?”
“No problem.” Simon started toward the house. “You’ve seen the latest in
“Believe me, we’re working on it.”
“We’re no happier about it than you are,” Mantz added as they stepped inside. “If Eckle gets the idea we’re looking for him, he could go under.”
“That answers the top question. You haven’t found him yet. Do you want anything?” Fiona asked them. “Coffee? Something cold?”
“Let’s just sit down. We’re going to tell you as much as we can.” Tawney sat and, leaning forward, linked his hands on his knees. “We know he was in Portland on January fifth because he sold his car to a used-car lot on that date. There’s no other vehicle registered in his name, but we’re checking on purchases in the Portland area on or around that date.”
“He could have bought something from a private seller. Not bothered to register it.” Simon shrugged. “Or had fake ID. Hell, he could’ve taken a bus to anywhere and bought a car off Craigslist.”
“You’re right, but we check, and we keep checking. He needs transportation. He needs lodging. He needs to buy gas and food. We’re going to turn over every stone and use every means at our disposal. That includes Perry.”
“We spoke with him earlier today,” Mantz continued. “We know he and Eckle communicated, using a third party to smuggle letters in and out.”
“Who?” Simon demanded.
“The minister Perry bullshitted at the prison. The minister took Perry’s letters out and mailed them—they were to different names, different locations,” Tawney explained. “Perry claimed they were to members of a prayer group his sister belonged to, and the minister swallowed it. He brought Perry the responses, mailed to him, again from different names and locations.”
“So much for maximum security,” Simon muttered.
“Perry managed to get a letter out a few days after Kellworth’s body was found, but there’s been no correspondence
“Eckle’s distancing himself ?” Fiona glanced from agent to agent. “Is that what you think?”
“It plays. Eckle’s gone off script now,” Tawney added. “And that’s something Perry’s not pleased about. Now that he knows we’ve identified Eckle and we’re focused on him, Perry’s not pleased about that either.”
“You told him?” Simon interrupted. “So he’ll have a chance to confirm the damn news story with his pen pal?”
“Short of ESP, Perry’s not getting any more messages out or in,” Mantz insisted. “We’ve blocked his conduit. He’s been locked down, and now he’ll remain locked down until we have Eckle in custody. Eckle’s not living up to his standards, and Perry’s feeling the squeeze of losing some of the privileges he gained through good behavior.”
“You think he’s going to tell you, if he knows, how to find this Eckle?” Fiona demanded. “Why would he?”
“He wants to cut the cord there, Fee. He’s not happy his protégé is making mistakes, going his own way. Perry knows, because we made sure he knows, those mistakes will make it impossible for Eckle to get to you.” Tawney waited a beat. “You’re still his one failure, and the reason he’s in prison. He still thinks about you.”
“That’s not particularly good news.”
“We don’t have much to bargain with. Perry knows he’s in prison for life. He’s never getting out. Eventually, his pride will push him into telling us what we need, or we’ll take Eckle without him.”
“Eventually.”
“He’s offered us information. He’s careful enough to couch it as observations, speculations, theories, but he’s ready to turn on Eckle with the right incentive.”
“What does he want?” She already knew. In her gut she already knew.
“He wants to speak with you. Face-to-face. You can’t say anything I haven’t already thought,” Tawney said as Simon surged to his feet. “Nothing I haven’t already said to myself.”
“You’d put her through that, ask her to sit down with the man who tried to kill her so maybe he might toss you a few crumbs?”
“It’s up to her. It’s up to you,” Tawney said to Fiona. “I don’t like it. I don’t like asking you to make this decision. I don’t like giving him squat.”
“Then don’t,” Simon snapped.
“There are plenty of reasons not to do it. He may lie. He may get what he wants and claim he knows nothing after all, or give us information that sends us in the wrong direction. But I don’t think he will.”
“It’s your job to stop this bastard. Not hers.”
Mantz shot him a single hard look. “We’re doing our job, Mr. Doyle.”
“From where I’m standing, you’re asking her to do it.”
“She’s the key. She’s what Perry wants, what he’s wanted for eight years. The reason he recruited Eckle, and she’s the reason he’ll betray him.”
“Stop talking around me,” Fiona murmured. “Just stop. If I say no, he’ll shut down.”
“Fiona.”
“Just wait.” She reached up for Simon’s hand, felt the anger through his skin as clearly as she heard it in his voice. “Wait. He’ll say nothing. He’ll hold out for weeks, maybe months. He’s capable of that. He’ll wait until there’s another. At least one more, so I’ll know she’s dead because I wouldn’t face him.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“It’s how I’d feel.” She squeezed Simon’s hand, hard. “He took Greg to hurt me, and he could do this. He’d like to do it. He expects me to say no. He probably hopes I do until someone else is dead. It would appeal to him. That’s what you think, too.”
“I do,” Tawney confirmed. “He can wait, and the waiting gives him more time to think. He considers us inferior. We wouldn’t have caught him but for a fluke, so he’d calculate Eckle may have time for one or two more.”
“There wouldn’t have been a fluke if he hadn’t killed Greg. He wouldn’t have been driven to kill Greg if I hadn’t gotten away. So it comes back to me. You need to make the arrangements. I want to do this as soon as possible.”
“Goddamn it, Fiona.”
“We need a minute.”
“We’ll be outside,” Tawney told her.
“I need to do this,” she said to Simon when they were alone.
“The fuck you do.”
“You didn’t know me when Greg was killed. You wouldn’t have known me in those weeks, months even, afterward. I shattered. My broods? They’re a shadow of it. They’re nothing compared to the guilt, the grief, the depression, the despair.”
She took both his hands now, hoping to transmit her need through his rage.
“I had help through it. The counseling, sure, but it was friends and family that pulled me out. And Agent Tawney. I could call him, day or night, talk to him when I couldn’t talk to my mother, my father, Syl, anyone else. Because he knew. He wouldn’t ask me if he didn’t believe. That’s one.”
She took a breath, steadied herself. “If I don’t do this, don’t try, and someone else dies, I think it’ll break something inside me. He’ll have won after all. He didn’t win when he took me. He didn’t win when he killed Greg. But, Simon, God, you can only take so many beatings and get up again. That’s two.
“Last. I want to look him in the eye. I want to see him in prison and know he’s there because of me. He wants to use me, he wants to manipulate me.”
She shook her head, the gesture as fierce as the sudden fury that lit her face. “Fuck him. I’ll use him. Maybe, I hope to God, he’ll tell them something that leads them to Eckle. I hope to God. But whether he does or not, I’ll have used him, and done what I needed to do to live with whatever happens after. I’ll be the one who wins. I’ll be
