though she knew Matt was still in the cop shop, she wasn’t taking any chances.
She bought a decaf and sat near the window. The place was full of uniformed police, but that didn’t bother her. She was used to being in the belly of the beast-there was no better place for a professional killer to merge into the background.
‘This seat taken?’ The cop was young and fresh-faced. He was on his own, the gear on his belt shaking and jangling.
‘Go ahead,’ she said, giving him a restrained smile. ‘Busy day?’
‘Busy night, more like.’ He took a slug of black coffee.
She decided to probe. ‘You at that fire in Springfield Road?’
‘That’s right.’ He looked at her quizzically.
‘I saw the flames. Got to admit I did a bit of rubber-necking. What happened?’
‘You didn’t hear the explosion?’ He was keen to impress now. ‘Seems one of the residents took it into her head to blow the place up.’
She winced. ‘Was anybody hurt?’
‘No one, by some miracle.’ The cop took a bite from his doughnut. ‘We’re still looking for the woman.’
‘That would be Ms. Jacobsen.’ The Soul Collector had done her research.
He nodded. ‘You know her?’
‘Not personally.’
He laughed. ‘But she has a reputation.’
She went along with that. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a black Grand Cherokee move forward slowly on the other side of the diner.
The driver was a well-built white woman wearing a woolen hat. It wasn’t the first time she had seen the vehicle-it had been in her mirror, three cars behind, when she had driven out here earlier in the morning. Maybe it was a coincidence, but there was no point in taking a chance. Since the pain had started, she had become more prone to acting on impulse.
‘Oh, no,’ she groaned.
‘What is it?’ The young cop was the picture of concern.
‘It’s just…oh, never mind.’
‘No, really, I’m here to help.’
Sara sighed. ‘I don’t know…it’s embarrassing, really.’
‘Whatever it takes,’ said her admirer, following the direction of her gaze.
‘All right, thanks, Officer. You see the Cherokee? It’s been following me all week.’
The young man craned forward. ‘You know the driver?’
‘Well, like I say, it’s embarrassing…I met her in a club last Saturday night. Em, not the kind of club you go to.’
He got her meaning, attempting to conceal his disappointment.
‘We…we went back to her place, but I got frightened. You see…she wanted to do something…extreme. When I refused, she turned nasty. She found out where I live and she’s been on my tail ever since. I’m…I’m frightened.’
The combination of sexual deviance and the old-fashioned damsel in distress scenario hooked the officer.
‘Come with me,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘We’ll get this fixed.’
The Soul Collector followed him, but not too closely.
‘Get out of the vehicle!’ the cop ordered, when he was ten yards from the Cherokee. ‘Now!’
The woman at the wheel looked at him in a way that looked lethargic to the layman, but Sara could read it was full of menace. She slowed her pace and stepped behind a pickup.
‘Out of the vehicle!’ her savior yelled again.
This time he provoked a reaction. The woman floored the gas pedal and the SUV roared forward. As it did so, an elderly man in a Lincoln Continental crunched into the side of the Cherokee, pushing it toward the police officer. Before the young cop could take evasive action, he was knocked into the air, landing with a crash on the hood of a pickup. His head made solid contact and he stopped moving. Cops immediately filed out the door of the diner and went to their comrade.
The Soul Collector watched as the SUV sped off, swerving out of the parking lot and accelerating up the road. She walked back to her car at normal pace and started the engine, and that’s when it happened.
A line of cars came out of the underground lot beneath the police building. In the back of a Crown Victoria sat her lover, Matt Wells. This was as close as she’d been to him in a long time, and it made something in her mind click with a strange mixture of hatred and desire.
Nineteen
We took a flight to Newark and caught a connection to Houston. Neither plane was full. Quincy kept his distance. I looked around from time to time, but I didn’t see anyone else I recognized. Fortunately, I managed the same anonymity. My picture had been all over TV screens and front pages after the attack on the President, and the last thing I needed was for some dutiful citizen to clamp a hand on my shoulder. I wore a Maine Forever cap low over my forehead. Sebastian was ahead of the game: he gave me a British passport with the appropriate entry visa, which listed my name as William Andrew Ronson. I memorized that. There was a credit card to go with it. Remembering the PIN code was a lot harder-I’d never been good with numbers.
On the plane to Houston, I thought about what had happened in Portland. Nora Jacobsen had got the jump on us. Sebastian was pissed off with me for getting her cuffs removed, but I had reckoned that was essential to weaken her guard-she might have let a vital piece of information slip. As it was, she and Mary had given us a lead that had at least put us on Rothmann’s trail-or so I hoped.
I thought about Mary Upson. She had seemed genuinely upset about Karen and the baby. Was that why she told me what her mother had been saying? Was it possible she had lived in the same house as the older woman without realizing she was still active in the Antichurch? Could she really be so innocent? There was a maelstrom of emotion under those soft features.
Still, Mary wasn’t the most pressing problem to come out of Maine. While we were at the airport, Major Hexton heard about an incident in a parking lot near police headquarters in which one of his officers had been injured. No one was very clear about the details, but a woman with long dark hair and a baseball cap had been seen talking to the policeman just before a black Grand Cherokee hit him and another vehicle before tearing off. The interesting thing was that the dark-haired woman had left the scene before any of the other cops could talk to her. None of them got a good view of her face, nor had they gotten her plates, so concerned were they about their colleague. He had come round in hospital, but had a bad concussion and didn’t remember what had happened. So what had happened? Who was in the Grand Cherokee that had left at high speed? One report said the driver had been another woman. Why had the dark-haired woman also made tracks so quickly? One rapid departure was conceivable, but two? I had noticed the parking lot as we left. It had a good view of the State Police headquarters building. Were the drivers there for a particular reason-were they waiting for me? An icy finger twisted in my gut. Could one of them have been Sara?
I took another look around the passengers. No dark-haired woman in a cap. If Sara was after us, I should tell Quincy and the others. Sebastian had provided us with cell phones, so I could call or text him when there was a signal. Then again, what good would that do? He was a professional and he knew we were heading into the lion’s den. What more could he do? Besides, I thought as I emptied my bottle of water, knowing Sara was on your tail didn’t reduce the chances of her nailing you. She’d have changed her identity and her appearance-like a vengeful ghost, you would never hear her coming.
Lack of sleep finally caught up with me, but I got no real rest. They were there again, the shadowy figures. The woman had one arm extended, the other holding the infant. Her mouth opened wide as she called to me, her face soaked with tears. But I could hear nothing and I struggled even to remember her name, while the baby’s was long gone.
