But Catherine had been caught by that first response. “Why didn’t you think Gallo was connected to terrorists?”
“Gallo’s not the type. He seemed to be a real nice guy.”
She stiffened. “Wait a minute. You’ve met Gallo?”
“Yeah, he invited us all up here for a barbecue when he took over the place. He said that you never could tell when you needed the law to protect you, and he wanted to make sure that we all knew each other and exactly where the place was located.”
“What?”
“It was a real nice barbecue. My wife brought the potato salad.”
“How… nice.”
“He’s a local. He was brought up in Wisconsin before he went into the service. He was an Army Ranger, you know.”
“Yes, I did know.”
“I always wanted to be a Ranger, but then I met Sarah. That put an end to that. I’ll be right back.” He ducked into the cabin.
She pursed her lips in a silent whistle. A barbecue? Just a local boy trying to protect himself by getting to know the local authorities. Clever and foresighted. Gallo was a man who was accustomed to trouble and trying to minimize the impact.
And he had done just that with the sheriff and his deputies. They would do their job, but they liked Gallo and would give him every benefit of the doubt.
And by tomorrow she would be almost alone in these woods with Gallo.
Under the circumstances, that would not be a bad thing. No one to get in her way. She’d always preferred to work alone. No one for her to worry about when she got on the hunt.
“Come on in.” Deputy Johan stood in the doorway. “Andy is putting on the coffee. He’s real eager to meet you. He said the sheriff told him about you.” He grinned. “The sheriff said you were one of those Lara Croft types. You sure look the part.”
“Thank you… I think.” She moved toward him. “I actually came to take a look around the cabin and see if I could find anything that would be helpful. I don’t really know what I’m looking for. Do you think the sheriff would object if I did that?”
“Nah, you’re one of us. Though I think you’re out of luck. Do you want us to help?”
“No, I know my way around. On the night that Gallo took it on the run, I brought a child here who Paul Black had kidnapped. I had to find a haven for her until we could get her out to safety.”
“See, Black was a real scumbag. Not worth bothering about.”
“Yes, I see your point.” She took a last look at the dark woods before she entered the house.
You’re out there. I feel it, Gallo. You felt safe here with all these good old boys looking for you, but that’s going to change. I’m going to know you so well that you’re not going to be able to breathe without me knowing how deep. Before long, we’re going to be close as lovers.
Lovers. Where had that come from? Probably because Gallo had been Eve’s lover all those years ago when she was only a sixteen-year-old kid.
“Agent Ling?”
Her smile was dazzling. “Coming. I need that coffee. Then you and Andy can tell me all about the barbecue and everything that you learned about Gallo. Probably a lot of details sank into your mind though you didn’t realize it. It’s automatic with a good law officer like you…”
CATHERINE WATCHED THE TAILLIGHTS of the three sheriff’s cars fade in the distance before she turned and went back into the cabin. Sheriff Rupert had been pleasant and firm and as much as told her she was wasting her time, continuing to search for Gallo.
And she had been pleasant and firm and resisted telling him to go to hell. It had been a very satisfactory interchange because she was now rid of them and could run her own show.
Should she get some sleep before she took off into the woods?
Probably. She wouldn’t get much rest once she was on the hunt. She’d had breakfast cooked by the accommodating deputies, so that she could dispense with food for a while. She’d have the field rations in her backpack when she needed them. She’d be living with that backpack for the next days or weeks. She’d leave her suitcase in the trunk of her car and take only the necessities of the hunt.
But first she’d go over the Gallo information as she’d meant to do when she’d first driven up to the cabin. She sat down at the kitchen table and opened the folder she’d taken from her knapsack.
She knew most of it by heart, but there might be something she’d missed. Some of the information she’d gathered from various intelligence agencies. Some were notes about details Eve had told her about Gallo during the period she’d known him as a young girl.
Those Eve notes were very short and to the point. She’d lived in a housing project in Atlanta. At sixteen, she’d met John Gallo, who had recently moved down to the neighborhood from Milwaukee so that his uncle could get medical treatment from the local veterans’ hospital. She’d become impregnated during the four weeks they were together before he’d left to join the Army. After that time, she had not seen him again and had been told by his uncle, Ted Danner, that he’d been killed on a mission to North Korea. She’d given birth to her daughter, Bonnie, and her life had gone on without John Gallo or contact with his uncle.
All brief, cool, and cut-and-dried. Yet Catherine was sure that there was nothing cool or unemotional about that period between Gallo and Eve. Even as a sixteen-year-old, Eve would have been strong and in control, and for her to be careless and become pregnant would be unlikely. Eve had told her there had been no emotional bond between her and Gallo, and that it had been a purely sexual relationship. But that sexual affair had been enough for Eve to take a chance that would change her life forever.
And Gallo had been the catalyst.
She took out the picture of Gallo taken when he had gone into the Army.
Olive skin, dark eyes, a full sensual mouth, a faint indentation in his chin. Yes, stunning good looks. Mature for his nineteen years. Anyone could see why a woman would be drawn to him.
And the brief glimpse she’d had of the older John Gallo had been even more impressive. A streak of silver in that dark hair, wariness, confidence born of experience… and yet still that hint of recklessness. And a personality so strong that he had managed to persuade Eve that he was innocent when she’d found out he was still alive and a suspect in her daughter’s murder.
Innocent and able to point the way to a suitable substitute, Paul Black.
“You’re quite a spellbinder, John Gallo,” she murmured. “Now what can I do to break that spell and bring you down?”
She switched to the intelligence reports on Gallo. He had been a Ranger who had been sent with two other soldiers into North Korea by Army Intelligence officers Nate Queen and Thomas Jacobs on a supposed mission to retrieve a ledger with information regarding North Korea’s attempts to acquire nuclear materials. The mission had gone south and he had hidden the ledger before he was captured. He had been thrown into a prison and undergone deprivation and torture for seven years before he escaped. In the hospital in Tokyo he had been diagnosed as mentally unstable, a schizophrenic with frequent blackouts. Yet Queen and Jacobs had taken him out of the hospital and continued to use him in their intelligence missions abroad. Catherine had thought it bizarre the first time she’d learned about it. The action stank of a suicide mission. But Gallo had survived and learned that Queen was dirty, involved in drugs and smuggling. He had retrieved the ledger from Korea.
The ledger.
Catherine flipped back to the statement Eve had given her about the story Gallo had told her about the ledger. It had proved to be evidence of Queen’s and Jacobs’s involvement in the drug trade and had been held by a North Korean officer who had been their partner. Gallo had used it to blackmail Queen to make them release him from those missions that were becoming increasingly deadly in nature. He had demanded money for his years of incarceration as a prisoner of war and built the fund into a fortune by his ability at card counting, a skill he had
