always to blend into the crowd.
Though it was difficult to blend into a crowd consisting mainly of Annapolis cadets, Aldo thought. He'd have to make sure no one saw him watching the girl playing darts across the room. Although it was difficult not to watch her when she was doing her best to attract attention. In her cadet uniform and short haircut, Carrie Brockman appeared both mannish and loud. Laughing, whistling, kidding the other players. A noisy, boisterous extrovert.
Not like Cira, who need only walk silently into a room to rivet everyone's eyes on her.
It seemed almost sacrilegious that this woman possessed a few of Cira's features and yet none of her charisma.
Not like Jane MacGuire.
Don't think about Jane MacGuire. He mustn't compare her to this woman or he wouldn't be able to do what was necessary. The act with the woman in Richmond had made him feel like a cheat and that mustn't happen here.
“Another drink?”
It was the bartender.
“Yes, please.” He made a face. “I need it to face these kids. Every time I come up here to see my son I go home feeling a hundred years old. How do they do it?”
The bartender chuckled. “Youth.” He set another bourbon in front of Aldo. “It ain't fair, is it?” He turned away and strode toward a cadet who was hailing him at the end of the bar.
But youth didn't have to be crass. It could be full of grace and fire and elegance.
Like Cira.
He flinched as he heard Carrie Brockman laugh shrilly across the bar. He welcomed the response.
Yes, let him feel disgust. It would make her death much more satisfying.
Richmond, Virginia
4:43 A.M.
The call woke Joe from a sound sleep.
“You said you wanted to know if we had anything come in on the wires,” Christy said. “A female cadet was found at a rest stop outside Baltimore three hours ago. No attempt to disguise her identity other than the removal of her face. They ran fingerprints and they came up with Carrie Ann Brockman, age twenty-two, a cadet at Annapolis.”
“Shit.”
“He's getting bolder. This corpse wasn't more than eight hours old and he made practically no attempt to hide the body in the bushes at the rest stop. He dumped her and the ashes and took off. Arrogant as hell. Thumbing his nose at us?”
“Maybe.”
“If he's getting this careless, you'll be able to pounce soon. You're heading for Baltimore?”
Another city, another step, leading him farther and farther away from home.
You can't have it both ways, Eve had said.
Take a chance that Trevor was telling the truth or take a chance that Aldo was going to be stupid enough to walk into his hands? Either way he could be screwed.
So rely on instinct.
“No.” He swung his feet out of bed. “You monitor what's happening in Baltimore. I'm going back to Atlanta.”
He told me to set up a meeting with Trevor.” Jane slowly hung up the phone. “He's coming home, Eve.”
“Thank God.” She studied Jane's expression. “You're not acting pleased. Why not? This is what you wanted.”
“I know.” Her teeth closed on her lower lip. “And I still think it's for the best. It's just . . . I feel as if I've set something in motion and it kind of scares me.”
“You should have thought of that when you let Trevor use you to bring Joe back.”
She stiffened. “He didn't use me. I don't let—” She smiled. “You were trying to get a rise out of me, weren't you? Tit for tat. I didn't intentionally try to use Joe.”
“If I thought you had, I'd be giving you more than a few verbal jabs.” She turned away. “When and where is this meeting?”
“Joe wants it no later than tomorrow here in the woods across the lake. I told him I wanted to go with him.”
“So do I.”
She nodded. “Mac and Brian won't follow us as long as Joe is with us.” She grimaced. “He told me to make it clear that any amnesty toward Trevor ends when Joe gets his hands on Aldo. And he said he'd see Trevor in hell before he'd turn a prisoner over to him.”
“You couldn't expect any other reaction. Trevor may not deal.”
“I think he will. He usually asks more than he thinks he can get. He takes what he can and then works on finessing the rest.”
“Really?” Eve tilted her head. “‘Usually'? How the devil do you know what he usually does?”
“I don't. I mean . . .” She had spoken without thinking, her mind on the meeting tomorrow. “Of course I don't. How could I? But everyone gets impressions and he definitely leaves a strong impression.”
“That he does,” Eve said. “And evidently a particularly significant one on you.”
“But that may be good. It's always good to have a grasp of the character of the people you have to deal with.”
“If you're not wrong.”
She nodded. “Absolutely.” But she wasn't wrong. Not about Trevor. Her every instinct radiated that certainty. “But Joe won't rely on my ‘impressions.' He's very good at forming his own opinions.”
“Tell me about it,” Eve said dryly. “And he's not going to give Trevor an easy ride.”
Trevor was in Rome four years ago,” Christy said when Joe answered his phone while he was driving home from the airport that night. “He was under suspicion of smuggling artifacts found near an aqueduct in northern Italy. No arrest.”
“Any link to Aldo?”
“Not so far as we can find yet.” Christy paused. “I'm glad you decided to come home, Joe. It's better.”
He went still. “Why is it better?”
“You belong here.”
“And you can't talk? The captain wants to tell me herself? Let me do some guesswork. The captain is withdrawing most or all of the protection they've given Jane. They consider it not necessary since Aldo has clearly moved on. When are they taking the guys off her?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Everyone?”
“They're leaving you, Mac, and Brian.”
“Better than nothing. I was half expecting it.” And Trevor had told Jane that Aldo had planned on it happening. “Thanks for giving me a heads-up, Christy.”
“Like I said, it's better that you came home.”
“I agree.”
“I'll let you know when we find out more from the Italian police about what Trevor was doing in Rome.”
“Do that.” He hung up.
And tomorrow he'd be asking Trevor that same question, he thought grimly.
Where the hell is he?” Joe scowled as his gaze circled the forest surrounding the glade. “He's thirty minutes late.”
