find out where Sean was.
Tessa picked up. “Hey.”
At first I thought maybe I’d inadvertently dialed the wrong number. “Tessa?”
She got right to the point: “You fell in a river? Seriously?”
“Why do you have my phone, Tessa? Where are you?”
“I’m with Sean. I decided to drive over and see you. He picked me up at-”
“You what!”
“Decided to come see you. And then I hear you, like-”
“Tessa, I was clear that I didn’t want you driving today!”
“I thought you wanted to show me around. Spend time with me.”
“I do, but that’s not the point. You were supposed to stay there.”
“Noted,” she said. “So what happened at the river?”
“Tessa-”
“Tell me about the river, Dad.”
Oh, she said that last word on purpose. Very sly.
Very.
Sly.
And despite myself, as I contemplated a reply, I found that her tactic just might be working.
Even though I was frustrated that she hadn’t listened to me, I was also thankful she was safe, and right now, more quickly than I ever would have guessed, that relief was overtaking my irritation. “It’s a long story.” I laid the crutches against the wall and propped my leg up on the bed. “We’ll talk about it later. Where are you two?”
“You almost drowned. You could have died.”
Margaret did say you weren’t breathing…
“Well, I’m up and at it again.”
“You’re always doing this to me,” Tessa said softly.
“Always doing what to you?”
“Almost dying.”
“How am I doing that to you?”
“I’m your daughter. You’re the one…” She hesitated until the silence became uncomfortable. “It’s just, you can’t go and get killed-or almost killed, or whatever. Not when you have someone that you have to, well, you know.”
Take care of, yes, I know.
“I’ll be careful.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”
“I mean it this time.”
“That’s what you said last time. When you got shot.”
“That time was different.”
“And the time before that, when-”
“Listen, are you two almost here?”
Faintly, I heard her speak off the phone to Sean before returning to the line. “Sean says we’re like ten minutes from his house, about twenty-five from the hospital. Maybe a little more.”
“Actually, I left the hospital. I’m at the motel.” I’d reserved a room for Tessa earlier this morning, and in the rush of the day’s events I’d forgotten about it.
But “Hang on, that’ll take you even longer. Let me talk to him a sec.”
A short pause as she handed Sean the phone. “You doing all right?” he asked.
“I’m good. Listen, just take Tessa to your place for the night. Don’t chance the roads, there’s no reason to. We’ll connect in the morning.”
“I was thinking the same thing.”
“Great. And just hang on to those papers that I gave you at the sawmill. I’ll get them tomorrow.” I paused. “Oh, and did you hear about your sled?”
“I was there with the paramedics when they picked you up at the river. I saw what was left of it.”
“Yeah. Sorry about that. I didn’t really expect that tree to jump out at me like that.”
“Didn’t really shock me. You can be impulsive sometimes.”
He had me there. “I’ll get you a new one.” A lightness that hadn’t been present between us for years had entered the conversation, and it felt good. “Maybe I can even get the Bureau to chip in since I was chasing a suspect in a federal investigation when I commandeered it.”
“Finally some tax dollars put to good use.”
“Exactly.”
“I’m just glad you’re all right. Amber’s snowmobile is in the shed. I can use that if I need to get around.” His words held forgiveness, and it made me wish my apology had been a little more forthright and comprehensive.
We said our good-byes, hung up, and then I headed to the front desk to borrow a couple five-gallon buckets.
Time to take care of that ankle.
40
Simon Weatherford, the manager of the Schoenberg Inn, hadn’t given Cassandra Lillo’s associate Ted Rusk any trouble on Wednesday when Ted offered him $50,000 of Valkyrie’s money for exclusive use of the two basement sections of the hotel for the week. Weatherford vowed that they wouldn’t be interrupted for anything, and so far he’d held unswervingly to his promise.
The hotel had been named a National Historic Landmark in 2004, and a federal grant had allowed the place to be restored and refurbished to its 1930s decor and even some of the little-used rooms in the lower level had benefited.
The two sections of the basement were on opposite wings of the building and weren’t connected. She’d chosen a room at the other end of the hotel yesterday for their meeting with Alexei Chekov. A small precaution, but if he were as good as she was beginning to suspect he might be, a wise one. Now, even if he came looking for them, he would be looking in the wrong place.
She traversed the hallway toward the room where Dillinger had once stayed for five days in 1934, waiting for federal agents to give up their search and go home. As she did, she passed the rarely used guest rooms that now housed the seven members of her team she hadn’t allowed Chekov to meet.
So, Bowers, the FBI agent, had survived-or been brought back to life, depending on the definition of death you wanted to use. In either case, even though it would probably take him time to recover, he was still around, and she would have to make sure the FBI didn’t poke too closely into her team’s affairs.
A brawny man who was standing sentry at the room at the end of the hall acknowledged her with an informal salute. She’d moved him into this role after she’d strangled Clifton White-who’d let her down when he encountered Chekov-and had her people deposit his body outside and cover it with snow.
She pressed the door open, and inside the room she found two more of her people on guard, as well as the man who’d been the reason for so many of the events this week.
Donnie Pickron.
Alive and well.
He sat at a desk with three flat-screen computer monitors arranged in front of him and now looked up from his work. Sweaty. Nervous. His bald head appeared shiny and polished in the blue-tinged light of the computer screens. “I want proof my wife and daughter are still alive.” He spoke with a surprising amount of determination. “Or I’m not going to do any more work for you.”
His words were not unexpected. Cassandra unpocketed her cell and walked toward him in silence. His right ankle was chained to the leg of the metal table.
“If I let you speak to your wife on the phone, will that be sufficient?”
