She considered it all a journey. The early morning ferry, the plane, the drive. Every leg brought her the comfort that she’d traveled farther and farther from home. That Perry would never know or see what she knew and saw every single day.
Southeastern Washington wasn’t just a trip away, but almost another world. These weren’t the fields and hills of home, the villages busy with tourists and familiar faces, the sounds and the sea. These weren’t her streams and woods and deep green shadows.
The red brick and thick stone of the penitentiary struck her as formidable and intimidating. The square, squat, unadorned block of the Intensive Management Unit that housed him added stark and cold. And that dark place inside her hoped his life had been, would continue to be, equally stark, equally cold.
Every length of iron, every foot of steel added to her comfort, and her secret celebration.
He believed he’d caused her pain and distress by bargaining for this meeting, she thought, but he’d done her an enormous favor.
Every time she thought of Perry now, she’d think of the walls, the bars, the guards, the guns.
She submitted to the security, the search, the paperwork, and thought Perry would never know that by forcing her to open this door he would help her, finally, to close it—lock off even that tiny chink she’d never been able to shut out.
When she walked into the room where he waited, she was ready.
It pleased her she’d worn that deliberate touch of bold color, that she’d worked her hair into a complicated braid and had been meticulous with her makeup. Because she knew he studied her when she came in, knew he took in those details.
Eight years since he’d locked her in the trunk of his car. Seven since she’d sat in the witness chair facing him. They’d both know the woman who faced him now wasn’t the same person.
“Fiona, it’s been a very long time. You’ve bloomed. Your new life obviously agrees with you.”
“I can’t say the same for you and yours.”
He smiled at her. “I’ve managed to find a tolerable routine. I have to tell you, up until this moment, I doubted you’d come. How was your trip?”
Wants to run the show, take the lead, she concluded. Requires a small correction. “Did you ask me to come here for small talk?”
“I rarely have visitors. My sister—you remember her from the trial, I’m sure. And, of course, in recent days our favorite special agent and his attractive new partner. Conversation is a treat.”
“If you think I’m here to offer you a treat, you’re mistaken. But... the trip was uneventful. It’s a beautiful spring day. I’m looking forward to enjoying more of it when I leave. I’ll enjoy it particularly knowing when I leave you’ll be going back into—what do they call it?—segregation.”
“I see you’ve developed a mean streak. A shame.” He offered her a sorrowful look, adult to child. “You were such a sweet, unaffected young woman.”
“You didn’t know me then. You don’t know me now.”
“Don’t I? You retreated to your island—condolences, by the way, on the death of your father. I often think people who choose to live on islands consider the water surrounding them a kind of moat. A deterrent to the outside world. There you have your dogs and your training classes. Training is an interesting endeavor, isn’t it? A kind of molding of others into your likeness.”
“That would be your take.” Lead him, she told herself. Lull him. “I see it as a method of helping individuals reach their potential, in my particular area of interest and expertise.”
“Reaching potential, yes. On that we agree.”
“Is that what you saw in Francis Eckle? His potential?”
“Now, now.” He sat back, chuckled. “Don’t segue so ham-handedly when we’re having such a nice time.”
“I thought you’d want to talk to me about him, since you set him on me. Of course, he’s made a mess of it. He’s diminished your legacy... George.”
“Now you’re trying to both flatter and annoy me. Did the agents prep you? Tell you what to say, how to say it? Are you a good little puppet, Fiona?”
“I’m not here to flatter or annoy you.” Her voice stayed flat, her eyes steady. “I’ve got no interest in doing either. And no one tells me what to say—or what to do or when to do it. Unlike your situation. Are you a good little puppet in your cage, George?”
“Feisty!”
He laughed out loud, but it wasn’t only humor that sparkled in his eyes. She’d hit a switch, she knew, and turned on the heat.
“I’ve always admired that about you, Fiona. That classic, and clichéd, redhead’s spunk. But as I recall you weren’t so feisty after your lover and his faithful dog took bullets.”
It hurt, brutally, and she held on to the pain.
“You needed medication and ‘therapy,’ ” he added, putting quotes in the air. “You needed your own fatherly special agent to protect you from me, and the drooling press. Poor, poor Fiona. First a heroine through a stroke of luck, then a creature of tragedy and frailty.”
“Poor, poor George,” she said in the same tone, and saw the temper flash, for just an instant, in his eyes. “First a figure to be feared, and now one forced to recruit the inferior to finish the job he couldn’t. Let me be honest. I don’t care if you tell the FBI anything about Eckle—a part of me hopes you won’t. Because he’ll try to finish what you couldn’t. You took mine, now I’ll take yours. If they don’t find him first, he’ll come after me, and I’m ready for him.”
Now she leaned forward, letting him see it. Letting him catch a glimpse of her will, and the secret inside her. “I’m ready for him, George. I wasn’t ready for you, and look where you are. So when he comes for me, he’ll lose— and so will you. Again. I want that more than I can say. You’re not the only one who sees him as a proxy. So do I.”
“Have you considered he wants you to feel so confident? He’s manipulating you into this sense of power and security?”
She let out a half laugh as she leaned back again. “Who’s being ham-handed now? He’s not what you thought he was. Judging character and abilities is one of the traits of a good trainer. Not just teaching, instructing, but recognizing the limitations and the pathology of those you train. You missed that one. You know you did, or I wouldn’t be here.”
“You’re here because I demanded it.”
She hoped she pulled off an expression between bored and amused because her heart thumped riotously. She was beating him.
“You can’t demand anything of me. You can’t scare me, and neither can the vicious dog you’ve set on me. The only thing you can do is try to make a deal.”
“There’s no telling who a dog might attack. No telling how many he may bloody along the way.”
She cocked her head, smiled a little. “Do you really think that keeps me up at night? I’m on my island, remember? I have my moat. I’ll only be sorry if he screws up before he gets to me. Feel free to let him know that— that is, if he’s still listening to you. I don’t think he is. I think your dog’s off the leash, George, and going his own way. As for me?” Deliberately, she glanced at her watch. “That’s really all the time I have to spare. It was good to see you here, George,” she said as she rose. “It really made my day.”
“I’ll escort you out.” Mantz got to her feet.
“I’ll find another. Sooner or later, I’ll find another.”
Fiona glanced back to see his chained hands fist on the table.
“You’re always in my thoughts, Fiona.”
She smiled at him. “George, that’s just sad.”
At Mantz’s nod, the guard opened the door. The minute the door closed behind them, Mantz shook her head, held up a hand. “We’re going to be escorted to a monitoring area where you can wait.”
Fiona held on to her composure, following Mantz’s example, saying nothing, keeping her eyes straight ahead. The sound of the thick electronic doors opening, closing, made her want to shudder.
They entered a small room holding electronic equipment, monitors. Mantz ignored them and the officials running them and gestured to a couple of chairs set up across the room.
