“Agreed. When?”
“Tomorrow night, just after dark,” Spalding said.
“I’ll be there,” Tyler said, “Do I need to bring anything with me?”
“Just your brain,” Spalding said and he hung up.
Tyler sat there a few moments running the call through his mind, trying to take it down on his notepad verbatim in his own shorthand. There wasn’t anything in there to go on.
Tyler turned his mind to thinking what Spalding could want from him. It had to be something to do with Sarah; that was the only thing that made any sense. Did he want to know how she was, what her emotional state was? Did she talk about her mother? How did she enjoy skating on the fringes of the law and putting her job in jeopardy with every moment she was in contact with Tyler or searching out Spalding when she wasn’t assigned to the case?
The thought crossed his mind about letting Sarah know about this, but he knew at once he couldn’t. No matter what he said to her, if she thought there was a chance to know where Spalding was going to be at any given time, she would bring down the whole FBI on that spot right away. Or worse still, insist on coming along and trying to take him out herself. It was revenge really she was after wasn’t it? Wasn’t it this that drove her? That fed her never ending energy for the resolution of her mother's case?
Not to mention Spalding being dead wasn’t a good outcome for him personally. Tyler needed Spalding to help finish out his book, to be interviewed and tell all. This was a story every person in America was going to want to read about and he was the one with the inside information. But... He needed Spalding alive to be able to capitalize fully on it. No, there was no way in hell he could tell Sarah what had just happened or where he was going to go tomorrow night.
As for Carson Lemond, what Tyler was going to do about him after meeting with Spalding was a problem he could sort out later on. For now, he just had to keep on working and let the hours count down to the meeting with Dwight Spalding. Who would have thought he would ever be able to say that.
Chapter 37
THE DAY HAD FINALLY arrived. It was either the day she was going to be free or the day she was going to die. Megan and Ellie exchanged a hopeful glance when they woke that morning, and that would be the last communication they had until they heard Spalding leaving. That was of course assuming he did leave today.
They had been listening out for a long time to his movements up above and through this and anecdotal things others in the dungeon said, they had pieced together that Spalding left for a few hours most days and sometimes he didn’t come back for a couple of nights. The only warning for this was when he sent down extra food but even then Megan had felt this was a test some of the times and that he was up there waiting to see what would happen when they all thought he was gone for a longer period.
Megan was so nervous her hand shook at breakfast and she resorted to dropping food into her napkin to eat later when no one was around to see. Ellie was the same but she ate in small fast bites while the attention was on someone else at the table talking. They never once looked at one another during this meal.
Carson Lemond was still the flavour of the month with the household and they went on asking him again to tell his story. Megan couldn’t blame them for that. Even in the short weeks she had been here, she had grown weary of the stories and preoccupations with the others who came before her. Anything at all new was the relished and poured over and examined from every possible angle. This is what life becomes when you don’t get to live it, hearsay, rumour and fascination at even the most mundane of things from your previous life.
Carson spoke again, not so willingly and fast as he had before and a few times Megan felt his eyes on her as he spoke. She didn’t meet his eye and the conversation they’d had before came back to mind. It was better that he talked as much as he was allowed rather than listening to what the others had to say, she felt.
With breakfast over, Megan went to the bathroom with her napkin and finished her breakfast in peace. Ellie was showering and another of the women, Suzanne, was drying off after a shower of her own.
“I don’t think that Carson guy is telling us everything,” Suzanne said and over the cubicle wall Megan assumed she was talking to her. Ellie wouldn’t have been able to hear well with the running water.
“No?” Megan said after swallowing some bacon.
“I get the impression from him that he was doing something, maybe illegal, when he got wrapped up in this.”
“What makes you think that?” Megan asked; she was glad someone else shared her distrust of Carson and was happy to hear any idea on the topic that might elucidate her own.
“Just something about him. He speaks as though he wants to prove something. I think he was in a gang or wanted to be, something like that.”
“I don’t know,” Megan said, she didn’t get any sense of toughness from Carson but she could be wrong. If he had been through something like she and others had it wouldn't take long for that toughness to melt away.
For the rest of the morning Ellie and Megan rotated around the house alone, listening in different parts for any activity above. Megan could feel it was going to happen but she tried to talk herself out of this notion, knowing the hurt it would
