was chilly there, so he built a fire and paced for a while to keep himself warm-and to try to work off the tension he felt. He went to the phone. He had lifted its receiver dozens of times over the last few months but had fought off the urge to call Meghan. This time, he lost the fight.
It rang four times, then went to voice mail. He could tell from the outgoing message that he had reached her cell phone-she must be forwarding messages to it from her home phone. He hung up without leaving a message.
He sat staring into the fire for a moment, then called again-the cell phone directly this time. He’d leave a message for her this time-
“Hello?” she said drowsily.
“Sis? I woke you up-I’m sorry.”
“Gabe! Oh, thank God-Gabe!”
He could hear her crying.
“Meggie…don’t cry,” he said, but he was crying, too.
“Don’t mind me. I’ve done more weeping in the last few days than I have since Mom and Dad died. Gabe, I’ve been so afraid for you! I’m so glad you’ve called.”
“I’m okay, Sis,” he said. “I’m fine. Especially now that I’m talking to you.”
“Where are you?”
He hesitated, then said, “I can’t tell you, Meggie. I’d like to, but I promised the person who let me stay here that I wouldn’t talk about it. I’m safe, though. I just wanted to let you know that. And that I miss you. I’ve missed you for a long time.”
“Gabe, if you’re in the States-anywhere in the country-we’ve got to get you out. Do you know-”
“About the Exterminators? Yes. Look, I probably shouldn’t talk to you too long-I don’t know what can be traced from a cell phone, but-”
“Don’t hang up! Listen, I’m staying with Kit, and he-”
“Staying with Kit? In Colorado?”
“No, in Malibu-the house that used to be his grandmother’s. Gabe, you should talk to him-”
“Maybe. Tell him I said hello, okay?”
“I will, but Gabe-”
“And tell him to keep my little sister safe, okay?”
“I’m your big sister. Listen-”
“Gotta go. I’ll call again.”
“When?”
“Whatever you hear-No, wait, that’s not important. Forget that.”
“Gabe, I don’t care what you’ve done, I don’t. But-”
“You’re the best, Meggie. I just called to let you know that-well, that I love you, that’s all. I never say that to you anymore, I know, but please don’t ever doubt that I do.”
He heard her calling his name as he hung up. He kept his hand on the receiver for a long time before letting it go.
So Meghan was with Kit.
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Too bad, he thought, staring into the fire. Too bad.
38
Malibu, California
Thursday, May 22, 3:42 A.M.
Kit wondered what had delayed Moriarty. He had left three hours ago with one of his men to pick up the Suburban from LAX. It would have taken him about an hour to get to the airport from the house. He had called once to tell Kit to listen to a radio news station-to hear the reports of the suicides-but Kit hadn’t heard from him since.
Kit had spent the time waiting for him to return by gathering Molly’s things and placing them in a large cardboard box. He moved the leather couch in the study to reveal a treasure trove of flip chips and the knotted ends of rawhide bones. Under tables and chairs, beneath beds, and in the corners of closets, he found tennis balls, squeaky toys, and the lamb’s wool exteriors of formerly plush toys-he pictured her ridding them of their stuffing, shaking her head vigorously as she pranced in victory over her “kill.”
Many of these prized possessions of Molly’s would have to be thrown away, but he wasn’t sure he could be the one to march them out to the trash bin. To distract himself from his grief, he thought of Chase Brandon’s excitement over Rusty. He thought the two of them would be good for each other. And he had learned a great deal about Alex Brandon in those few minutes. Brandon hadn’t wanted a dog. That much was plain. He hardly knew his nephew, unless reports were mistaken. But he had agreed to take Rusty home all the same.
Kit checked on Spooky, who was sound asleep. She was unhappy with him, he knew, but he wasn’t sure how best to smooth things out between them. Over the last few years, he’d worked hard to help her feel more secure, to be trusting of him. He felt almost as if they were back to square one today. He found the reversal unsettling and wondered how an experienced foster parent or guardian would have handled this problem.
He heard the muted ringing of a cell phone and rushed down the hallway, toward the study. As he passed Meghan’s room, he realized that the ringing was coming from behind her door. He stopped, puzzled, and wondered how his phone had come to be in her room.
Then he heard her shout Gabe’s name.
Her phone ringing, then.
Gabe was alive. For a few minutes, that was all that mattered.
He moved away from the door, not wanting to eavesdrop. Or, he admitted to himself, wanting to eavesdrop but overcoming the temptation. He called Moriarty from the study.
“Just getting ready to call you,” Moriarty said. “There’s a reason you were feeling like you were being followed.”
“You saw someone?”
“No, we waited around for a little while, just watching, and then we decided to look the car over-I’ve got a suspicious nature, you see.”
“That’s why you’re good at what you do,” Kit said. “What did you find?”
“A transmitter. Secured near the back bumper.”
“Any idea how long it’s been there?”
“Judging by the amount of undisturbed mud near it, maybe before you left Colorado.”
“Someone followed me from there?”
“I doubt it. This type of device has a range of about thirty miles, forty if you’re tracking it from the air. If they had attached a little larger model GPS system, they could have found you just about anywhere. From that and everything else we know, I think they were waiting for you to come back here.”
“How hard would it be for them to get this type of equipment?”
“You can order it off the Internet. Companies get these devices for their company cars and delivery vans, to make sure the drivers are going where they say they’re going. Shippers use them to make sure their cargo doesn’t get lost. This is a fairly sophisticated one-it will pulse at about forty beats a minute when the vehicle is still for fifteen seconds or more, but if the vehicle moves, it pulses at more than ninety beats per minute.”
“So it alerted them every time I moved.”
“Whenever they were close enough to pick up the signal, yes.”
Kit was silent for a moment. Moriarty waited patiently.
“Did you take it off?”
“No. I didn’t think that would be smart. For one thing, this type of transmitter has a tilt sensor that would tell them if it was pried off the car. So we couldn’t just take it off and stick it on a mail truck or something.”
“Better to leave it on anyway,” Kit said. “If they’ve tracked it to the airport, they may think I’ve taken a plane
