stands to unmask them, as having very little worth, and frankly-
“You mean like the mob, the Mafia?”
“-and frankly, at the moment, I don't know anyone we can trust.”
The plane banked a bit. She stared once more into his deep-set, sure brown eyes, the centers filled with dread. She found her mouth dry and her palms sweating, her heart rate having jumped. “I'll see this thing through with or without you, you know.”
He frowned and dropped his gaze and shook his head. “Perhaps that is the one thing of which I have been certain all along.”
The plane continued to bank, smoothed out, played tiddledy winks with the air and their stomachs, the purr of the engine continuous and loud.
“You were good back there,” she told him.
“Just good? I thought I was a regular Columbo.”
“All you needed was the raincoat.”
He shook his head in amazement. “You know what I can't fathom?”
“What's that?”
“I can't believe those fools in Oregon overlooked so much.”
She shrugged. “Not everyone's got the gift. Hell, it was weird the way you did that. It was as if you knew the exact spot to go, the exact angle the killers used against Little.”
He realized she was looking at him with those blue-green eyes in a strange new light. “Hey, when I said we can't know who to trust, I meant people other than the two of us, Meredyth. You can trust me, and I can trust you, right?”
She hesitated only slightly, but enough that he noticed, she feared. “Sure… sure, I know I can trust you.”
“And I'm going to trust you.”
She managed a smile. “Big step in a… relationship.”
“Yeah, don't I know it. And don't forget, when this is over, you promised to get me out of the Cold Room permanently, right?”
“Yeah… sure, I'll do everything in my power.”
Why didn't it sound like enough? he wondered.
NINETEEN
It was extremely late when they arrived in Houston. Even the airport was deserted. They shared a cab into the city, and Stonecoat's place being closer, he said good night to her on the street. She had taken custody of all the information and photos they'd brought back with them. Tomorrow, they would share it all with Lawrence, who would in turn provide Bryce with the information.
Lucas waved the cab off and strolled for his door, swinging his small bag. He placed the key into a locked gate that surrounded the building, stepped through, and found himself caught off guard when someone in the shadows between the building and the gate grabbed him about the neck, toying with a huge knife at his Adam's apple, using it to make like a violin, the knife the bow, playing it back and forth, creating little rivulets of blood and telling him to shut up and listen. Lucas dropped the bag to free both hands, but he was in a helpless situation. He dared not attempt a fight.
“You get yourself free of this case you're pursuing, son, or you and your girlfriend are dead. You understand that, kimosabe?”
“I–I-I…” He couldn't nod for fear the razor-sharp knife would cut a major artery, and he couldn't find the words in his suddenly parched throat. He imagined what the world would be like tomorrow without him in it.
“That's what we think, son, exactly. Now, you just come to your fucking senses, boy.”
Lucas felt a double-fisted hammer-blow to the base of his skull just as the knife was lifted away from his throat. His last thoughts were twofold: The attack on him was the work of two assailants, and Meredyth was in danger as well. But Stonecoat was in a black world now, the dirty cement his pillow. Through a fog, he thought he heard one of his assailants say, “We should just kill the bastard here and now.”
The words filtered through Lucas's fog in broken slow motion.
“No, not-now-and-not-here.”
A sudden, teeth-jarring kick struck Lucas in the side.
“Why're-we-screwing-with-him?”
The other man answered, “That's-'enough. We-do- it-the-way-we' re-told.”
Another vicious kick, same exact spot. “Damn. It's- a' ways-hell-Sanger's-way, isn't-it?”
“Orders-is-orders.”
“Our-lives-on-the-line.”
“Damn it. Part-ner, we're-all-in-this-t'gether.”
“Bas-tard!”
Stonecoat felt a third sharp pain in his ribs where one of the apes again savagely kicked out at him. Fighting it every step of the way, Lucas then went into complete unconsciousness.
Blood seeped into the pavement where he lay from the open wounds on his neck, wounds that were cautionary and formed a pair of miniature but painful rents like railroad lines along the throat, parallel to one another.
A passerby on the street saw the assailants leaving through the front gates, looking as if they lived there. The passerby, walking his dog, saw next that someone lay between the building and the lock gate, realizing only now that he was witness to what appeared a horrible, gruesome murder. His first impulse was to turn and step quickly the way he'd come, to hide himself and his dog away, not because he feared the fleeing pair of killers, but because he didn't want to get involved. A thing like this, he reasoned, could take years to resolve, and the authorities could make his life hell. He'd seen it happen before. He'd seen it happen in the movies and on Court TV.
Lucas awoke with a terrible headache, scratched about to locate his bag, wondered how long he'd been lying here, and tried desperately to focus his eyes. Eyeballing the bag, he focused on it until it came into clear view. He wondered now just how many people-neighbors-had walked by, offering no help. He was angry to've been caught so totally off guard. He hadn't imagined they'd come after him this way, and certainly not this soon. Whoever they were, they seemed clued into his and Dr. Sanger's movements.
He tried to assess who in the city knew of his returning from Oregon tonight; who knew where he lived; who knew how to get through the damned gate, and that he'd be stepping through it at just that moment?
Maybe it was just retaliation between cops.
Maybe it had been Fred Amelford and Jim Pardee. In Texas, every cop liked to think he was a Texas Ranger-a judge, jury, and executioner all in one.
They were smart cops. They had asked around, gotten the answers they wanted, learned that the guy out at Mootry's the other night had to be Lucas Stonecoat. Hell, even Phil Lawrence might have supplied them with the information. Pissed off at him for stepping in where he wasn't wanted, sure. When the guy with the knife said to butt out of the case, he was talking as one cop to another. Maybe it wasn't the crossbow mob at all. He rifled his memory for every word the knife wielder had said in his ear as he played the blade across his now burning, still bleeding throat. Not much there: “You get yourself free of this case, son, or you and your girlfriend are dead.”
Damned nasty enough threat, he thought. But cops who've felt wronged had been known to use strong language. The other guy wanted to do him in, but the more controlled guy, the one who held the knife and kept calling him son, had balked at actually sticking Lucas with the pitchfork he was waving about.
Fred Amelford was a lanky giant, a senior detective at the Twenty-second Precinct, and the apelike arms that'd draped over Lucas could've been his. The phantom in the dark had called his accomplice by the term partner, or had Lucas heard it wrong, had he said Pardee? And there was another word they used that sounded like a name, Sanger. But that must've been the daze talking.
Pardee and Amelford. Fill in the blanks, he told himself now. Most likely a strong dose of warning to butt out
