True Evil

The only absolutely required stop of her day was St. Stephen's Prep, to pick up Ben. While most mothers waited in line for up to twenty minutes-in case their children came charging out of school right after the bell-Thora always showed up twenty minutes late. That way she avoided the boring wait and usually found Ben shooting baskets alone on the playground. After taking him home to the maid, she would spend the remainder of the afternoon running errands or shopping, then stop by the Avalon site one final time before going home to the Elgin house.

It was during these end-of-the-day stops that Dr. Shane Lansing had twice stopped by for an informal visit. Alex had never entered the house while Lansing was inside, but if the surgeon showed up again, she planned to try. After her two meetings with Dr. Shepard (whom she hadn't expected to be so staunch in defense of his wife's morals) she regretted not bringing Will Kilmer to Natchez with her. Her father's old partner routinely worked marital cases, and he owned equipment that could listen in on and decode digital cell calls in real time. But Will was already going beyond the call of duty in his surveillance of Andrew Rusk, and Alex couldn't afford to pay one of his operatives to come to Natchez. She was working on hacking into Thora's e-mail account, though. Thora carried a Treo 650 everywhere she went and frequently logged on to the Internet with the device. Alex felt sure that if she could obtain a single e-mail proving that Thora and Lansing were lovers, Dr. Shepard would realize the danger he was in and get on board with her plan.

Thora stopped again, this time to speak to a man about her age. As Alex cautiously moved closer, trying to catch the conversation, her private cell phone rang. When she moved away and answered, she heard the gravelly voice of Will Kilmer.

'Hey, Uncle Will,' she whispered, though the honorific was purely one of affection.

'Got some news for you,' said the old man.

'Good or bad?'

'Bad, in the short run. A little while ago, Andrew Rusk made one of my guys and turned rabbit.'

'Oh, shit. How did he lose one of your guys?'

'Bastard took that four-wheel-drive Porsche down to the Pearl River and drove slap into the mud. My guy was in a Crown Victoria-supercharged, but that don't do you much good in the mud. And I don't think Rusk was doing it for fun. I think he was headed somewhere important. Otherwise, why go to the trouble?'

'Damn it.'

'I told you we needed more cars. But you said-'

'I know what I said,' Alex snapped, furious that she lacked the money to pay for the kind of surveillance this case required. Penny-wise, pound-foolish, her father whispered from the grave. Now all the surveillance she'd paid for up to now was wasted. Rusk was gone, and she could do nothing about it until he chose to show up again.

Thirty yards away, Thora Shepard shook hands with the man she was talking to, then crossed Commerce Street and turned right. Alex followed.

'I'm sorry, Will. This is completely my fault. I hamstrung you.'

Labored breathing came down the line. Kilmer was seventy, and he had more than a touch of emphysema. 'What you want me to do now, hon?'

'Put someone out at Rusk's house, if you can. He has to come home eventually, right?'

'Sure. He'll be home tonight for sure.'

'Unless we really spooked him.'

Will said nothing.

'You think a guy like that would blow town because of this?'

'No, I don't. Rusk is dug in. He's got a high-dollar job, a wife, a big house, kids.'

'His kids don't live with him,' Alex pointed out.

'Take it easy. Rusk is a rich lawyer, not a CIA field agent. He'll be home.'

She forced herself to calm down. Thora had almost reached the Thai restaurant.

'I'll send somebody out there,' Will said. 'And if I don't have anybody free, I'll go myself.'

'You don't have to do-' Alex froze in midsentence. Thora had stopped dead on the sidewalk to answer a cell call. Now she was backing against the wall of a building with the phone held close to her ear.

'God, I wish you were here,' Alex breathed.

'What's the matter?'

'Nothing. I've got to go. Call me.'

As she hit END, Thora leaned out from the wall and looked obliquely through the window of the Thai restaurant. Apparently satisfied, she nodded, then put the phone back into her pocket and reversed direction, moving quickly back toward Main Street.

Straight toward Alex.

Alex darted into the nearest shop, an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink place, filled from wall to wall with antique furniture, framed mirrors, prints, woven baskets, and trays of pecan pralines for sale. When Thora passed the shop, her features were set in an expression of severe concentration. Alex counted to fifteen, then walked out of the shop and followed Thora toward her Mercedes.

Something was about to happen.

CHAPTER 14

Andrew Rusk checked the Porsche's odometer once more, then started searching the trees for the turn. He'd left I-55 forty minutes ago, and after twenty miles he'd turned onto a narrow gravel road. Somewhere along this road was the turn for the Chickamauga Hunting Camp. Rusk had been a member of the elite camp for fifteen years, buying his way in after his father-in-law opted out, and the membership had proved useful in many ways beyond providing recreation in the fall.

Rusk saw the turn at last, marked by a sign over the entrance road. He swung his wheel and stopped before the steel gate blocking his way, then punched a combination into the keypad on the post beside his vehicle. When the gate swung back, he drove slowly through. He still had a half mile of gravel to cover, and he did this slowly. Despite the vast wealth of the club's members, this road was poorly maintained. He wondered if they left it that way to preserve the illusion of primitive conditions. Because illusion was all it was.

Though the camp buildings appeared to be log cabins, they contained hotel-style rooms with private baths, central air and heat, and satellite TV in the common room. For serious hunters, the expense was justified. There were more whitetail deer per acre in this area than in any other part of the United States. And they were big. The largest trophy buck ever taken had been shot in Mississippi. Whitetail loved the deep underbrush of second-growth woods, and the virgin forests around this part of the state had been logged out almost 200 years ago. This was deer heaven, and hunters from around the country paid premium prices for hunting leases here. The prices were even higher to the southwest, right around Natchez. That was deer heaven.

As Rusk drove up to the main cabin and parked, he scanned the clearing for Eldon Tarver. He saw no one. Climbing out of the Cayenne, he checked the main cabin's door but found it locked. That made sense, because Eldon Tarver was not a member of the club and thus had no key. But Tarver did have the combination to the front gate, courtesy of Andrew Rusk. That was the arrangement they had made long ago, in case of emergency. They chose Chickamauga because they had planned their first joint venture here. Their acquaintance predated that meeting by two years, but there had been almost no physical contact in the interim. Any further meetings had been kept to less than two minutes, and at a place so public that no one would even call their contact a meeting.

Despite the emptiness of the clearing, Rusk was certain that Dr. Tarver was already here. He would have hidden his vehicle, in case any other members happened to be here-an unlikely event out of season, but you never knew. The question was, where would Tarver wait for him?

Rusk closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of the forest. He heard the wind first, the rustling dance of a billion spring leaves. Then the birds: sparrows, jays, martins. A lone bobwhite. The erratic pop-pop-