Todd began searching the crowd for her, trying not to show the panic he felt at losing her. Then his eyes swept the Plaza and he saw her, already on the other side of the square, disappearing down a side street. He broke out of the crowd and began to run.
LAUREN MADE IT AROUND the corner, but as she hazarded a glance back, she saw the man break from the crowd and start across the Plaza.
She hurried across the street and into a building that had a restaurant on the ground floor and a stairway up to galleries on a mezzanine. She ran up the stairs and looked for a way out of the rear of the building. An exit sign over a door drew her, and she opened it to find fire stairs descending to an exterior door. In a moment she was out the rear of the building and into a parking lot that faced the street behind. She ran to the sidewalk and turned up the street in the general direction of where she had parked the car, near the cathedral.
TODD REACHED THE CORNER and surveyed the street, which was not crowded. He couldn’t see her anywhere. He started down the street, looking through the windows of each shop, then crossed and worked his way up the other side, toward the Plaza. She was nowhere to be found.
LAUREN CROSSED THE STREET in front of the cathedral and hurried to where she had parked the green Volvo station wagon. Before she approached the car she checked carefully to be sure the man was not behind her, then she jumped into the car, got it started and pulled into traffic, which was moving slowly because of a stop sign at the end of the block.
She kept checking the rearview mirror, looking for the man, but she didn’t see him. Then it was her turn at the stop sign, and a moment before she was able to turn, she checked the mirror again and saw him come running around the corner into her block.
TODD STOOD ON the bumper of a pickup truck parked on the block, to give himself some more height, and looked up and down the street. The slow-moving traffic was being held up by a stop sign.
He got down from the truck’s bumper and began walking down the middle of the street, checking the driver of each car.
LAUREN TURNED RIGHT AT the stop sign, because that would put her on the opposite side of the car from her pursuer. She forced herself not to do it quickly, because that might attract his attention. Ahead of her was a long, straight stretch of roadway, leading to and crossing a main artery, so she took the first left, then another, then a right, then another right, which she hoped would keep her out of his line of sight.
TODD REACHED THE CORNER just after a green Volvo station wagon made a turn to the right, then drove away. A woman was at the wheel, but all he could see was the back of her head. He began running, but before he could close the distance between them she turned left, and he lost sight of her again. By the time he reached the next corner she had disappeared. The big problem was, he had no idea if the woman in the car was the woman at the Indian market.
LAUREN MADEIT BACK to Canyon Road, then turned onto Garcia Street and pointed the car toward home, constantly checking her mirror. Once home, she pulled into the garage and closed the door behind her. She jumped out of the car and ran into the kitchen, where Teddy was sipping a cup of tea.
“I think I got made,” she said.
“Where?”
“At the jewelry market in front of the Palace of the Governors,” she said. “When he turned his back for a moment I got out of there, but I think he spotted me. Then I lost him for about ten minutes, but he nearly caught up to me in traffic, though he couldn’t have had any idea which car I was in.”
“Do you think the Volvo is blown?” Teddy asked.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Describe the man.”
“Six feet, a hundred and eighty, short, sandy hair, sort of muscular, like he works out a lot.”
“Did you make eye contact?”
“Once, just for a second, then he turned around and looked at the people behind him. He may have been looking for you.”
Teddy put his arms around her and kissed her on the cheek. “He’s lucky I wasn’t there,” he said.
33
Bart Cross woke up at four A.M., shaved, showered and began cleaning up the house. It took him the better part of an hour to make it presentable, then he wiped all the surfaces down with Windex to remove his fingerprints, packed his gear and threw it into the bed of the pickup.
On the front seat were three empty FedEx boxes. Using his super-sharp bowie knife he cut apart two of them and pasted them to the doors of the pickup with two-sided tape. The third box he closed and sealed, and put it back onto the front seat with a clipboard he had bought.
He locked up the place and closed and locked the garage, and by five thirty he was making his way toward Tesuque on dark roads.
He drove up the hill past Ed Eagle’s house and found a perch where he could keep an eye on the place through binoculars, then sat down among the rocks and ate a breakfast he had prepared the night before. At about six thirty he heard a car come up the road, but when he looked down the hill in the dim light he saw nothing.
VITTORIO DROPPED OFF CUPIE at his usual rock, then drove past Eagle’s house and into the rocks, where he normally parked. He was in place by the time the sun began its climb, and he knew that Eagle would appear around a quarter to eight. He pressed the button on the radio. “You okay, Cupie?”
“Yeah,” Cupie responded. “I’ve got my coffee.”
BART KNEW THAT EAGLE arrived at his offices at eight, so he figured him to leave the house fifteen minutes before that. He watched the time carefully. At twenty before eight, he got into the truck, slipped into a navy-blue Windbreaker and matching baseball cap, checked his gun and knife, and started down the hill, coasting, so they wouldn’t hear any engine noise. At precisely a quarter to eight, Bart pulled into the Eagle driveway at the exact moment when Eagle left the house. As Bart got out of the truck, carrying the empty FedEx box and the clipboard, Eagle stopped on his porch to kiss his wife good-bye.
VITTORIO’S ATTENTION was diverted for a moment as he watched a hawk circling in the sky, hunting. When he looked back at the house he was astonished to see a dark pickup truck parked in Eagle’s driveway, and a man in a Windbreaker and baseball cap getting out, as Eagle stood on his front porch, talking with Susannah. Then he saw the FedEx logo on the side of the truck and the box and clipboard the man was carrying, and he relaxed. Just an early FedEx delivery.
BART SMILED to put the two people at ease and walked toward them. “Good morning, Mr. Eagle,” he said. “FedEx delivery for you.”
Eagle turned and faced him, while his wife went back into the house and closed the door. “You’re kind of early, aren’t you?”
“Gotta get the day started,” Bart replied, handing him the clipboard. “Sign on line one, please; first delivery of the day.” He patted his pockets. “Left my pen in the truck.”
“That’s all right,” Eagle said, reaching into an inside pocket. “I’ve got one.”
