'He's in there,' Becker said.
'How do you know that?'
Becker did not bother to respond.
'He's not just yours,' she said.
Becker glared at her.
'He isn't?'
'I'm thinking about the woman,' she said. She could feel his eyes on her, but she kept her own gaze fixed on the road. Looking directly at him made her more uncomfortable than ever. She was glad it was getting dark so she could avoid his eyes more easily; it seemed to her they had taken on a feral character, as if something wild were hidden within the man and had decided to come out of hiding at last.
'Good. Do that. I'm thinking about him.'
'He's not our only concern,' she said. They had reached the edge of one of the little towns that dotted the Tennessee-Virginia region.
'He's mine,' Becker said. 'She's yours. That about covers it, doesn't it? We've got them both taken care of'
'I think I should call Nashville,' she insisted.
'No,' he said flatly.
After a pause she asked, 'Is that an order?'
'Pull in there,' he said, pointing at a motel sign that had just come on in the gathering gloom.
When they got out of the car and he put his hand on her arm, it was all Pegeen could do to manage not to push it angrily away.
'Haddad,' he said, his voice now soft and calming, 'I know what you want. In most cases you'd be right.
But we don't need help. And they don't want to send it.
Not now, not when we've found him.'
She looked at him, puzzled.
'Come on, you get it,' he said. 'That's why they sent me. II He walked into the motel office, leaving Pegeen to interpret his remark.
The only translation she could come up with made her shiver.
She was aware of a presence in the darkness outside her door as she stood in front of the mirror. Pegeen had showered as soon as they checked into the motel, trying to let the hot water wash off the feeling of apprehension that clung to her. Things were not right, the whole inexorable flow of events had shifted in its course and was now heading in a direction she knew was wrong, but she felt powerless to deflect it.
Becker was suddenly a different man and she realized that he was guiding the flow, he was sitting astride the events now, like a man riding an avalanche, looking to all appearances as if he were controlling it.
Perhaps he had been all along and she had been so busy looking at him that she had not noticed the ground moving underneath her feet. At one point she had thought this was a Bureau investigation, a search for a felony suspect being assisted somewhat eccentrically by Becker, true, but by her as well, plus the power of the FBI, the speed of computers, the cooperation of countless police, and as with all searches, it took its own course according to leads and clues and circumstance. Now she thought it had been a one-man activity all along, and not a search but a stalk. She had not been assisting, she had been manipulated, just as the whole massive grid of Bureau procedures had been used to provide Becker with what he wanted. Had she been wrong about everything else, too? she wondered. Those qualities of his that had so fascinated her, his strange moodiness, the sense of great vulnerability that hid beneath the facade of strength like a little boy in a suit of armor, the languid, restrained sexuality that seemed to course from his eyes, his hands. Was she mistaken about all of it? One of the things that had so appealed to her was the impression that everything about Becker was under a tight but temporary control like a coiled spring held in check by a hair trigger that would release explosively if she could just find the right spot to touch. She could unleash all that power and passion, she had thought. Stupidly. Stupidly. Now she feared that he was about to blow up in her face.
She looked at herself in the mirror, a towel wrapped around her head.
She wore the boxer shorts and tank top she normally slept in, and spots of moisture from the shower had darkened areas of the tank top. Her skin seemed even pinker than usual because of the heat of the water and Pegeen cursed her luck for having inherited none of the olive tone of the original Haddad.
She glanced again at the door with the sense that something was outside.
She had heard nothing that she was aware of, but still there was the feeling of something waiting there, something large and dangerous. It frightened her first, and then it angered her. Fuck this, she thought, I'm a special agent of the FBI, I'm not supposed to be afraid of unknown creatures in the dark. She pulled her pistol from its holster atop the dresser and opened the door.
Becker stood several feet away on the concrete porch, leaning against a wooden column, his arms folded across his chest. He was staring at her door, now at her.
'Don't shoot,' he said laconically, not moving.
Pegeen moved the gun behind her back, feeling foolish.
'What are you doing?' she demanded.
'Waiting.'
'What for?'
Becker said nothing, moved nothing. Even slouching against the column, even in the languid pose of a drugstore cowboy, he looked coiled and ready to strike. Pegeen could make out his features only dimly in the light shining from her window, but she thought he was smiling.
It's creepy, she thought. What the hell is he up to now?
What is he doing, what am I supposed to make of it?
'How long have you been standing there?' she asked.
He still didn't answer and she could feel his eyes boring into her. She was aware suddenly of what she was wearing, of how her heavy breasts would be showing dark against the tank top, of how her legs would look, too pink and speckled by the heat. The anger of a moment before returned, only now it was directed at him. To hell with how I look, she thought. I'm tired of caring, I'm tired of trying to guess what he's thinking and how I should react to it, I'm tired of the whole damned game, the elaborate tease, for that is what she now realized it had been, his holding back, never saying quite enough to be clear but just enough to keep her guessing, or hoping; that was the problem, the meaner he got to her, the more he withheld from her, the more she trailed hopelessly after him. Classic, she thought. Classic dim-witted behavior, chasing someone inaccessible, it was no, better than that, however she had tried to dress it up with imagination. Well,lfuck it, fuck the game, fuck him.
'What?' he said.
'What what?'
'You should see your face. You look all worked up about something.'
Damn his eyes, too, she thought. He never missed anything.
'I'm fine,' she said.
'You usually come to the door with a gun in your hand?'
'When I feel like it. Did you want something? Or are you just hanging around outside my door for fun?'
She knew for certain that he was smiling now. He turned his head slightly to indicate the door of the adjoining room.
'I thought I was outside my door.'
Wrong again, Pegeen thought, but now she was too angry to care. Let him have another victory, let her make a fool of herself, it didn't matter anyway.
Pegeen closed the door and rammed the gun back into its holster. She whipped the towel off her head and glared at her reflection. Sure enough, her ears were fiery red.
Well, fuck them, too, she thought.
She flounced onto the bed and stared at the ceiling, trying with all her might to think of something other than Becker. He was an asshole, anyway, and not worthy of her time. He was probably a psycho of some kind-she should have paid attention to the warnings given to her by the agents in the office. Tomorrow she would have to go with him and do God-knew-what under the guise of law enforcement. Think about the woman, Aural McKesson, she told
