Dead Watch

They spent a half hour in the bath, which was big enough to float them both simultaneously, and then climbed out, retrieved their clothes. While Jake got dressed, Madison changed into jeans, boots, and a plaid shirt. She already had a bag packed. “You ready?”

“I’m ready.” She touched her hair, as though for a TV appearance. “Let’s do it.”

“You’re sure?”

“I think about the girl in Madison. You described her a little too well.”

“I could figure out something with the car,” Jake said.

“Nah—I’m going.”

He trailed her down to the front room. Launching the play, she said, “You’re sure you don’t want another glass of wine? You have to go?”

“Yeah, I’ve got to get this done,” Jake said. “I could use a Coke. It’s a long drive.”

They went out in the kitchen, still talking, and Madison got two Cokes out of the refrigerator and said, “Take another one for the road.”

“Thanks.”

They drifted back into the front room and he twisted the top off the Coke bottle; Jake wondered if the pfffttt it made would be audible on a tape.

“I don’t understand why you can’t look at it here,” Madison said. “I mean, in Washington, at your house.”

“Because I’m tied into the Wisconsin thing. If Novatny smells a rat, the feds might come crashing through the door. And they must be getting frantic, with Barber going out the window. If I’ve got the package, I’m toast. I don’t even know everything that’s in it yet. It might be impossible to hold on to . . .”

“You’ve got to hold on to it, Jake,” Madison said, urgency in her voice. He thought, Not bad. “You’ve got to. All of this will have been pointless if that thing gets out there now. All you have to do is hold it until after the convention. Or even just before the convention, that would do it. Just hold on to it for a few weeks.”

“I’d like to. But I gotta find out what’s in it, sugar,” Jake said. “The cabin has everything I need—it’s got Internet access, got a computer, and nobody’s gonna find it. I talked to Billy and nobody’ll be there all week. For the rest of the month, for that matter.”

“When are you coming back? I might need you here.”

“I need you, too.” He kissed her, spent some time with it, then broke away, breathing hard again. “We gotta stop. I gotta get going.”

“Please try to hold on to it,” she said, an urgent, pleading tone in her voice. “If Landers gets knocked out now, they’ll give the job to Goodman in a flash. He’s the one they want. Landers won’t do them any good this year.”

“I will, I’ll hold on to it.” Sounding a little harassed now. “I’ll try to hold on. If there’s nothing in it that would push it out there right now, I’ll stick it in a safe-deposit box, somewhere that’s not obvious, and we’ll break it out in October.”

“Where are you going to be? Give me a phone number . . .”

“You can’t call from here, if there’s trouble, they could trace it back, they’d know you knew where I went.”

“Only for an emergency. I’d call you from outside.”

“All right. Got a pen? It’s 540-555-6475.”

“540-555-64 . . .”

“6475. Don’t use your cell phone, either. We don’t want any tracks that the feds can find later. For one thing, that might drag Billy into it, just for loaning me the place.”

“What if I have to call you, and you’re not there?”

“I’ll be there. Or I’ll be on my way back here. I’m gonna get up early and work on it all day; I won’t be going for a walk in the woods.”

In the doorway she kissed him a last time and whispered, “How was that?”

“Perfect.” Though he wasn’t sure about that: some of it sounded like dialogue from a bad novel.

He left her in the doorway, headed back down the walk, tapping along with his cane. He was twenty feet down the walk when he heard a woman’s voice calling, “Sir? Sir, I’m with the New York Times.”

He thought, Damnit, and turned back, scurried up the front steps to the house, rang the bell. Madison appeared at the door, puzzled, and Jake stepped inside, held her close, and whispered, “The Times still has the place staked out. I’ll give you a single ring when it’s clear.”

“Okay. I’ll start turning out lights.”

Back outside, the Times reporter was standing on the sidewalk, carefully outside the property line. As Jake came down the front walk, she called, “Sir, could you tell me who you are?”

“I do paperwork for Miz Bowe and the law firm. You’ll have to call Johnson Black, I’m sure you have his number.”

“If you . . .”