CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

LuAnn looked at the Lincoln Memorial as she drove the Honda over the Memorial Bridge. The water of the Potomac River was dark and choppy. Flecks of white foam appeared but then quickly dissipated. It was the morning rush hour and the traffic over the bridge was heavy. They had spent one night in a motel near Fredericksburg while they decided what to do. Then they had driven to the outskirts of Washington, D.C., and spent the night at a motel near Arlington. Riggs had made some phone calls and visited a couple of retail establishments preparing for the events that would take place the next day. Then they had sat in the motel room eating while Riggs had gone over the plan, the details of which LuAnn quickly memorized. With that completed they had turned out the lights. One slept while the other kept watch. That was the plan at least. However, neither one got much rest. Finally, they both sat up, one curled around the other. Under any other circumstances they would have probably made love. As it was they spent the night looking out the window onto the dark street, listening for any sound that might herald another wave of danger.

“I can't believe I'm doing this,” LuAnn said as they drove along.

“Hey, you said you trusted me.”

“I do. I do trust you.”

“LuAnn, I know what I'm doing. There are two things I know: how to build things, and how the Bureau works. This is the way to do it. The only way that makes sense. You run, they'll eventually find you.”

“I got away before,” she said confidently.

“You had some help and a better head start. You'd never get out of the country now. So if you can't run, you do the reverse, you go right at them, take the offensive.”

LuAnn focused on the traffic at the same time she was thinking intently about what they were about to do. What she was about to do. The only man she had ever absolutely trusted was Charlie. And that complete trust had not come quickly, it had been built and then cemented over a ten-year period. She had only known Riggs for a very short time. And yet he had earned her trust, even in a matter of days. His actions reached her far more deeply than any words he could try to tempt her with.

“Aren't you nervous?” she asked. “I mean you don't really know what you're going to be walking into.”

He grinned at her. “That's the really great part, isn't it?”

“You're a crazy man, Matthew Riggs, you really are. All I want in my life is a little predictability, a semblance of tranquillity, of normalcy even, and you're salivating over walking along the edge of the cliff.”

“It's all in how you look at it.” He looked out the window. “Here we are.” He pointed to an open spot on the curb and she pulled over and parked. Riggs got out and then poked his head back in. “You remember the plan?”

LuAnn nodded. “Going over everything last night helped. I can find it with no trouble.”

“Good, see you soon.”

As Riggs walked down the street to the pay phone, LuAnn looked up at the large, ugly building. The J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING was stenciled on its facade. Home of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. These people were looking for her everywhere and here she was parked ten feet from their damned headquarters. She shivered and put on her sunglasses. Putting the car in gear, she tried to keep her nerves in check. She hoped to hell the man really knew what he was doing.

Riggs made the phone call. The man on the other end was understandably excited. Within a few minutes Riggs was inside the Hoover Building and being escorted by an armed guard to his destination.

The conference room he was deposited in was large but sparsely furnished. He passed by the chairs gathered around the small table, and remained standing waiting for them to arrive. He took a deep breath and almost cracked a smile. He had come home, in a manner of speaking. He scanned the room for any hidden cameras, and saw nothing obvious, which meant the room was probably under both audio and video surveillance.

He swung around when the door opened and two men dressed in white shirts and similar ties entered.

George Masters extended his hand. He was large, nearly bald, but his figure was trim. Lou Berman sported a severe crew cut and a grim demeanor.

“It's been a long time, Dan.”

Riggs shook his hand. “It's Matt now. Dan's dead, remember, George?”

George Masters cleared his throat, looked nervously around, and motioned Riggs to sit down at the nicked-up table. After they were all seated, George Masters inclined his head toward the other man. “Lou Berman, he's heading up the investigation we discussed over the phone.” Berman nodded curtly at Riggs.

Masters looked at Berman. “Dan”—Masters paused, correcting himself—“Matt was one of the best damned undercover agents we ever had.”

“Sacrificed a lot in the name of justice, didn't I, George?” Riggs eyed him evenly.

“You want a cigarette?” Masters asked. “If I remember correctly, you were a smoker.”

“Gave it up, too dangerous.” He looked over at Berman. “George here will tell you I stayed in the ball game one inning too many. Right, George? Sort of against my will, though.”

“That was all a long time ago.”

“Funny, it still seems like yesterday to me.”

“Goes with the territory, Matt.”

“That's easy to say when you haven't watched your wife get her brains blown out because of what her husband did for a living. How's your wife by the way, George? Three kids too, right? Having kids and a wife must be nice.”

“All right, Matt. I get your point. I'm sorry.”

Riggs swallowed hard. He was feeling far more emotion than he had expected, but it did feel like yesterday and he had waited half a decade to say this. “It would've meant a lot more if you had said it five years ago, George.”

Riggs's stare was so intense that Masters finally had to look down.

“Let's get down to it,” Riggs finally said, breaking out of the past.

Masters put his elbows up on the table and glanced over at him. “FYI, I was in Charlottesville two nights ago.”

“Beautiful little college town.”

“Visited a couple of places. Thought I might see you.”

“I'm a working man. Gotta keep busy.”

Masters eyed the sling. “Accident?”

“The construction business can be very hazardous. I'm here to strike a deal, George. A mutually satisfactory deal.”

“Do you know where LuAnn Tyler is?” Berman leaned forward, his eyes darting all over Riggs's face.

Riggs cocked his head at the other man. “I've got her down in the car, Lou, you want to go check? Here.” Riggs reached in his pocket, pulled out a set of keys, and dangled them in front of the FBI agent. They were the keys to his house, but Riggs figured Berman wouldn't take him up on the offer.

“I'm not here to play games,” Berman snarled.

Riggs put the keys away and leaned forward. “Neither am I. Like I said, I'm here to make a deal. You want to hear it?”

“Why should we deal? How do we know you're not working with Tyler?”

“What do you care if I am?”

Berman's face turned red. “She's a criminal.”

“I worked with criminals most of my career, Lou. And who says she's a criminal?”

“The state of Georgia.”

“Have you really looked at that case? I mean really looked at it. My sources say it's bullshit.”

“Your sources?” Berman almost laughed.

Masters intervened. “I've looked at it, Matt. It probably is bullshit.” He glowered over at Berman. “And even if it isn't, it's Georgia's problem, not ours.”

“Right, and your interests should lie elsewhere.”

Berman refused to give it up. “She's also a tax evader. She won a hundred million bucks and then disappeared for ten years and hasn't paid Uncle Sam a dime.”

“I thought you were an FBI agent, not an accountant,” Riggs shot back.

“Let's settle down, guys,” Masters said.

Riggs leaned forward. “I thought you'd be a lot more interested in the person behind LuAnn Tyler, the person behind a lot of people. The invisible guy with billions of dollars running around the planet playing games, causing havoc, making your lives miserable. Now, do you want to get to him, or do you want to talk to LuAnn Tyler about her itemized deductions?”

“What are you suggesting?”

Riggs sat back. “Just like old times, George. We reel in the big fish and let the little one go.”

“I don't like it,” Berman grumbled.

Riggs's eyes played over the man's features. “Based upon my experience at the Bureau, catching the big fish gets you promoted and, more important, gets you pay raises; delivering the small fry doesn't.”

“Don't lecture me on the FBI, Riggs, I've been around the block a few times.”

“Good, Lou, then I shouldn't have to waste time on this crap. We deliver you the man and LuAnn Tyler walks. And I mean from everything—federal, taxes, and the state of Georgia.”

“We can't guarantee that, Matt. The boys at the IRS go their own way.”

“Well, maybe she pays some money.”

“Maybe she pays a lot of money.”

“But no jail. Unless we can agree on that, it's a no go. You have to make the murder charge go away.”

“How about we arrest you right now and hold you until you tell us where she is?” Berman was inching forward, crowding Riggs.

“Then how about you never break the biggest case of your career. Because LuAnn Tyler will disappear again and you'll be stuck at point A again. And on what charge would you be holding me by the way?”

“Accessory,” Berman fired back.

“Accessory to what?”

Berman thought for a moment. “Aiding and abetting a fugitive.”

“What proof do you have of that? What actual proof do you have that I even know where she is, or have ever even met her?”

“You've been investigating her. We saw the notes in your house.”

“Oh, so you came by my house on your visit to Charlottesville? You should've called ahead. I would've fixed up something nice for dinner.”

“And we found lots of interesting stuff,” Berman snapped.

“Good for you. Can I see the search warrant you used to enter my premises without permission?”

Berman started to say something and then clamped his mouth shut.

A thin smile broke across Riggs's face. “Great. No search warrant. All inadmissible. And since when is it a crime to make a phone call and get some public information on someone? Considering that I got that information from the Feds.”

“Your WPP handler, not us,” Berman said threateningly.

“I guess I treat all you guys as one big, happy family.”

Masters started speaking slowly. “Supposing we do go along, you haven't given us the connection between Tyler and this other person.”

Riggs had been expecting this question and was surprised it hadn't come up before. “He had to get the money from somewhere.”

Masters considered this statement for a moment, and then his eyes flickered. “Listen, Matt, this is a little bigger than you probably know.” He looked over at Berman briefly before continuing. “We know—or rather we think—the lottery was . . .” Masters paused, searching for the right words. “We believe the lottery may have been compromised. Was it?”

Riggs sat back in his chair and tapped his fingers on the table. “Maybe.”

Masters again chose his words carefully. “Let me make this real clear to you. The president, the A.G., the director of the FBI, they've all been apprised of this possibility. I can tell you that their collective reaction was one of absolute shock.”

“Bully for them.”

Masters ignored Riggs's sarcastic tone. “If the lottery was fixed, then this situation has to be handled very delicately.”

Riggs chuckled. “Translation: If it ever gets out to the public, half the guys in Washington, including the president, the A.G., the director, and you two guys, will probably be looking through the want ads. So what you're suggesting is a major cover-up.”

“Hey, this all probably happened ten years ago. It didn't occur on our watch,” Berman said.

“Gee, Lou, that'll go over real big with John Q. Public. All of your butts are on the line here and you know it.”

Masters banged his fist down on the table. “Do you realize what would happen if it becomes public that the lottery was fixed?” Masters said hotly. “Can you imagine the lawsuits, the investigations, the scandals, the blow it would give the old U.S. of A. right in the gut? It would almost be like the country defaulting on its debt. It cannot be allowed to happen. It will not be allowed to happen.”

“So what's your suggestion, George?”

Masters rapidly calmed down and ticked off the points with his fingers. “You bring in Tyler. We question her, we get her cooperation. With that information in hand we bring in the people—”

“Person, George,” Riggs interrupted. “There's just one of him, but let me tell you, he's a very special one.”

“Okay, so with Tyler's help we nail him.”

“And what happens to LuAnn Tyler?”

Masters spread his hands helplessly. “Come on, Matt, she's got a state murder warrant out. She hasn't paid taxes for almost a decade. I have to assume she was in on the lottery scam. That all adds up to a few lifetimes in prison, but I'll settle for just one, maybe half of one if she's real cooperative, but I can't guarantee it.”

Riggs stood up. “Well, guys, it was nice talking to you.”

Berman was up in an instant and he slid over to the door, blocking Riggs's exit.

“Lou, I've still got one good arm, and the fist attached to it is just itching like hell to plant one right across your face.” Riggs started to advance menacingly toward the door.

“Wait a minute, just hold it. Both of you sit down,” Masters bellowed.

Riggs and Berman engaged in a suitably lengthy stare-down and then slowly returned to their seats.

Riggs stared over at Masters. “If you think the woman's going to waltz in here so she can risk her life in order to bring this guy down and then be rewarded by spending the rest of her life in prison, then you've hung around the Bureau too long, George. Your brains are gone.”

Riggs pointed a finger at him. “Let me fill you in on something. It's the game of life and it's called ‘who's got the leverage.’ You call up the state of Georgia and tell them that LuAnn Tyler is no longer wanted for murder there, or for anything else. If she's got a friggin' parking ticket outstanding, then it's wiped out. You understand me? Squeaky clean. Then you call up the IRS and you tell them that she'll pay what she owes, but they can forget jail time. As far as being involved in any lottery scam, if the statute of limitations hasn't already expired, then that goes away too. The tiniest infraction that could possibly put her in jail for even a second gets blotted out. Gone. She's a free person.”

“Are you nuts?” Berman said.

“Or?” Masters said quietly, his eyes fixed on Riggs.

“Or, we go public with everything, George. What does she have to lose? If she's going to go to prison for life, then she's going to have to have some hobbies to fill up her days. I'm thinking appearances on Sixty Minutes, Dateline, Prime Time Live, maybe even Oprah. A book deal would probably be in the cards too. She can just talk her little heart out about the lottery being fixed, how the president and the A.G. and the FBI director wanted to cover it all up to save their jobs and how they were stupid enough to let a master criminal who's been wreaking worldwide havoc for years walk away so they could put a young woman who grew up dirt-poor in prison for doing something all of us would've done in an instant!”

Riggs sat back and looked at both men. “That, gentlemen, is what I mean by leverage.”

While Masters considered this, Berman snorted. “One guy? I don't believe that. We're looking at a big organization. No way could one person do all the stuff I've been seeing on my radar screen. We haven't been able to prove anything, but we know there are multiple players.”

Riggs thought back to the cottage, right before the knife sliced into his arm. He had stared right into the most deadly pair of eyes he had ever seen. Over the years working undercover in some very dangerous situations, he had been scared before; he was only human after all. But he had never before felt the nervous terror those eyes had aroused in him. If he had had a crucifix handy, he would have pulled it out to ward the guy off.

He looked at Berman. “You know, Lou, you'd be surprised. This guy is a master of disguise. He can probably play enough roles to fill a Broadway musical. And by going it alone, he never has to worry about anyone turning snitch on him or trying to cut him out.”

Masters started speaking in low tones as he tried a different tack. “Remember, Matt, not so long ago, you were one of us. You might want to think about that. You've obviously gained Tyler's confidence. You bring her in, well, let's just say your government would be very grateful. No more sawing and hammering to make a living.”

“Let me think about that for a second, George.” Riggs closed his eyes, reopened them almost instantaneously, and said, “Go to hell.”

He and Masters locked eyes. “What do you say, George? Is it a deal? Or do I go and phone Oprah?”

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Masters nodded.

“I'd really love to hear you say it, George.”

Berman started to cut in, but Masters stared him into silence.

“Yes, it's a deal,” Masters said, “no jail.”

“Georgia too?”

“Georgia too.”

“You sure you can do that? I know your authority is limited there.” Riggs's tone was taunting.

“Mine is, but I don't think the president of the United States has that same problem. My instructions are to avoid public exposure at all costs. I guarantee that either he or the A.G. will make that phone call.”

“Good, now get the director and the attorney general in here, because I want to hear the same things from them. By the way, is the president busy today?”

“There's no way in hell the president is meeting with you.”

“Then get the director and the A.G. in here, George. Right now.”

“You don't trust my word?”

“Let's just say your track record hasn't inspired my confidence all that much. And I take comfort in numbers.” He nodded at the phone. “Make the call.”

Masters and Riggs stared across at each other for at least a minute. Then Masters slowly picked up the phone and spoke into it at length. It took some schedule-juggling, but within thirty minutes the director of the FBI and the attorney general of the United States were sitting across from Riggs. Riggs presented the same deal to them he had presented to Masters, and he extracted the same promises.

Riggs rose. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

Berman got up too. “All right, if we're working together now, bring Tyler in, we can wire her, get a team together, and go get this ‘one man crime wave.’ ”

“Uh-uh, Lou. The deal was I'd bring him in, not the FBI.”

Berman looked ready to explode. “Listen you—”

“Shut up, Lou!” The FBI director's eyes bored into him and then he turned to look at Riggs. “You really think you can pull this off?”

Riggs smiled. “Have I ever let you guys down before?” He glanced over at Masters.

Masters didn't return the smile, but just continued to study Riggs's face. “If you don't, all bets are off. For Tyler.” He paused and then added ominously, “And you. Your cover's blown. And I'm not sure how much incentive we'd have to reestablish it. And your enemies are still plenty active.”

Riggs walked across the room to the door, but then turned back. “Well, George, I never really expected anything less from you guys. Oh, and don't try to have me followed. That'll just piss me off and waste a lot of time. Okay?”

Masters nodded quickly. “Sure, don't sweat it.”

The big-voiced attorney general asked a final question. “Was the lottery fixed, Mr. Riggs?”

Riggs looked back at her. “You bet it was. And you want to know the kicker? It looks like the United States Lottery was used to finance the plans of one of the most dangerous psychopaths I've personally ever seen. I truly hope this never makes it onto the six o'clock news.” His eyes swept the room taking in the steadily rising panic in each of their faces. “Have a good day.” Riggs closed the door behind him.

The rest of the group looked around at each other. “Holy shit,” was all the director could say, his head swaying from side to side.

Masters picked up the phone and spoke into it. “He's leaving the building now. He'll know he's being followed. Make it a short leash, but give him some room. He's an expert at this stuff, so he'll take you for a waltz around the city and then try to lose you. Be alert! When he hooks up with Tyler, communicate with me immediately. Keep them under surveillance, but don't approach them.” He looked over at the A.G., who nodded her assent. Masters hung up the phone and took a deep breath.

“Do you believe Riggs's story that it's only one man behind all this?” the director asked, looking nervously at Masters.

“It sounds incredible, but I hope to God it's true,” said Masters. “I'd rather be dealing with one guy than some worldwide crime syndicate.” The A.G. and director both nodded in agreement.

Berman looked around with questioning eyes. “So what's the plan here?”

The director cleared his throat heavily and said, “We can't ever let this come out, you all know that. No matter what happens. No matter who gets hurt. Even if Riggs is successful and we are able to apprehend this person and any others involved in the scheme, then we still face a major problem.”

The A.G. folded her arms across her chest and picked up this line of thought. “Even if we can build a case against him on all the other activities this person will know he has ‘leverage,’ to use Riggs's term. And he'll use the same threat Riggs used. Deal with him or he goes public. I can just see his defense lawyer salivating over that one.” She involuntarily shuddered.

“So what you're saying is this thing can never go to trial,” Berman said. “What then?”

The A.G. ignored the question and instead asked Masters, “You think Riggs is playing straight with us?”

Masters shrugged. “He was one of the best at undercover operations. To do that you have to lie on a regular basis and appear not to be. Truth takes a backseat. Sometimes reality becomes blurred. And old habits die hard.”

“Meaning we can't completely trust him,” the A.G. said.

Masters looked thoughtful for a moment. “No more than he can trust us.”

“Well,” the director said, “there's the strong possibility that we won't bring this guy in alive.” He looked around the room. “Right?”

They all nodded. Masters ventured, “If he's half as dangerous as Riggs says he is, I'd shoot first and ask no questions later. Then maybe our problem goes away.”

“And what about Riggs and Tyler?” the A.G. asked.

Berman answered, “Well, if we're going to go that route, you never know who might get caught in the crossfire. I mean none of us wants that to happen, of course,” he quickly added, “but like Riggs's wife, you know, innocent people sometimes die.”

“Tyler is hardly innocent!” the director said angrily.

“That's right,” Masters said. “And if Riggs is tying his allegiances to her instead of us, well then he has to accept the consequences. Whatever they may be.”

All of them looked at each other uneasily. Under normal circumstances, none of them would have been remotely contemplating any of this. They had dedicated their lives to apprehending criminals and then seeing them receive a fair trial before a court of law for their offenses. They're now silently praying that justice wouldn't happen this time, that instead several human beings would die before a judge or jury ever heard their case, was not sitting well with any of them. However, in this present case, they were all confronted with something much larger than merely hunting down a criminal. Here the truth was far more dangerous.

“Whatever the consequences may be,” the director quietly repeated.

CHAPTER FIFTY

Walking down the street, Riggs looked at his watch. The clock housing was actually a sophisticated recording device; the tiny perforations in the leather strap were the speaker component. The day before, he had spent some time in a well-known “spy shop” four blocks from the FBI building. The technology had certainly gotten better over the years. At least his deal with the government was recorded somewhere other than in his memory. With operations like this, he shouldn't put too much faith in anyone, no matter which side he was on.

Riggs knew that the government could never allow the truth to come out. In this case capturing the criminal alive was just as bad as not capturing him, maybe worse. And anyone who knew the truth was in serious jeopardy, and not just from Jackson. Riggs knew that the FBI would never intentionally gun down an innocent person. But he knew the FBI hardly regarded LuAnn as innocent. And since Riggs had thrown his support her way, he was automatically lumped with her as the enemy. If it got dicey toward the end, which Riggs knew it would, and if LuAnn were anywhere near Jackson, well, the FBI might not be real careful about who they were firing at. Riggs didn't expect Jackson to go down quietly. He would take out as many agents as he could. Riggs had seen that in his eyes at the cottage. The man had no respect for human life. To him a person was merely a factor to be manipulated and eliminated if circumstances called for it. As an undercover agent, Riggs had dealt with people like that for years. People almost as dangerous as Jackson. Given those elements, the FBI would err on the side of killing the man rather than taking him alive; they wouldn't risk the life of an agent in order to ensure that the man would stand trial. Riggs was well aware that the government had no incentive to bring Jackson to trial and every incentive not to. So Riggs's job was to flush out Jackson and then the Feds could do what they wanted. If that was pumping the man full of lead, Riggs would be glad to help them do so. But he was going to keep LuAnn as far away from the man as humanly possible. She was not going to be caught in the crossfire. He had been through that once. History was not going to repeat itself.

Riggs didn't bother to look behind him. He knew he was already under surveillance. Despite Masters's assurances to the contrary, he would have immediately ordered a tail. Riggs would've done the same thing in his position. Now he had to beat the tail before meeting up with LuAnn. He smiled. Just like old times.

While Riggs had been dealing with the FBI, LuAnn had driven to another pay phone and dialed a certain phone number. It rang several times and LuAnn thought she would probably get the standard automated message. Then a voice answered. She could barely recognize it, the connection was so bad.

“Charlie?”

“LuAnn?”

“Where are you?”

“On the road. I can barely hear you. Hold on, I'm passing some power lines.”

In a moment, the connection was much clearer.

“That's better,” LuAnn said.

“Hang on, there's someone who wants to talk to you.”

“Mom?”

“Hello, baby.”

“Are you okay?”

“I'm fine, sweetie, I told you Mommy would be fine.”

“Uncle Charlie said you and Mr. Riggs saw each other.”

“That's right. He's helping me. With things.”

“I'm glad you're not alone. I miss you.”

“I miss you too, Lisa, I can't tell you how much.”

“Can we come home soon?”

Home? Where was home now? “I think so, baby. Mommy's working really hard on that right now.”

“I love you.”

“Oh, sweetie, I love you too.”

“Here's Uncle Charlie.”

“Lisa?”

“Yes?”

“I mean to keep my promise to you. I'm going to tell you everything. The truth. Okay?”

The voice was small, a little scared. “All right, Mom.”

When Charlie came back on the phone, LuAnn told him to just listen. She filled him in on the latest events including Riggs's plan and his real background.

Charlie could barely contain himself. “I'm pulling over at a rest stop in two minutes. Call me back.”

When LuAnn did so, Charlie's tone was heated. “Are you crazy?”

“Where's Lisa?”

“In the rest room.”

“Is it safe?”

“I'm right outside the door and the place is packed with families. Now answer my question.”

“No, I don't think I'm crazy.”

“You let Riggs, an ex—FBI agent, walk into the Hoover Building and cut a deal for you. How in the hell do you know he's not selling you down the river right now?”

“I trust him.”

“Trust him?” Charlie's face turned crimson. “You barely know him. LuAnn, this is a big mistake, darling. A damned big one.”

“I don't think so. Riggs is playing straight. I know he is. I've learned some things about him in the last few days.”

“Like he's an experienced undercover agent who's an expert at lying.”

LuAnn blinked for a second as these words sank in. A small seed of doubt suddenly grew, invading her confidence in Matthew Riggs.

“LuAnn, are you there?”

She gripped the phone hard. “Yes. Well, if he did sell me down the river, it won't be long before I find out.”

“You've got to get out of there. You said you've got the car. Get the hell out of there.”

“Charlie, he saved my life. Jackson almost killed him while he was trying to help me.”

Charlie was silent for a minute. He was having an internal conflict and was highly uncomfortable with it. From everything LuAnn had just told him, Riggs probably was going to bat for her. Charlie thought he knew why: The man was in love with her. Was LuAnn in love with him? Why shouldn't she be? And where did that leave him? The fact was, Charlie wanted Riggs to be lying. He wanted the man out of their lives. That thought was skewing his whole mental process. But Charlie did love LuAnn. And he loved Lisa too. He had always put his own interests behind theirs. And with that thought his inner conflict disappeared. “LuAnn, I'll go with your instincts. Riggs is probably okay, now that I think about it. Just keep your eyes open, will you?”

“I will, Charlie. Where are you?”

“We headed through West Virginia, then into Kentucky, skirted the edge of Tennessee, and now we're floating back toward Virginia.”

“I've gotta go now. I'll call later today and fill you in.”

“I hope the rest of today isn't as exciting as the last two were.”

“You and me both. Thanks, Charlie.”

“For what? I haven't done anything.”

“Now who's lying?”

“Take care of yourself.”

LuAnn hung up the phone. She would be meeting Riggs soon if everything went according to plan. As she walked back to the car, Charlie's initial reaction came back to her. Could she trust Riggs? She slid into the front seat of the Honda. She had left it running because she had no keys and didn't share Riggs's skills at hot-wiring automobiles. She was about to put the car in gear when her hand stopped. This was no time for doubts, and yet she was suddenly overwhelmed with them. Her hand refused to move.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Riggs walked slowly down Ninth Street, looking casually around, as if he had all the time in the world. A gust of freezing air hit him. He stopped, gingerly slipped off the sling, and put his injured arm in the sleeve of his overcoat, buttoning it all the way up. As the bitter wind continued to blow down the street, Riggs pulled up the collar of his overcoat, took a knit cap emblazoned with the Washington Redskins logo from his pocket, and pulled it tightly over his head so that only the lower part of his reddening face was visible. He entered a corner convenience store.

The two teams of agents that were following him, one on foot, the other in a gray Ford, swiftly moved into position. One team covered the front of the store, the other the rear. They knew Riggs was an experienced undercover agent and they weren't taking any chances.

Riggs appeared carrying a newspaper under his arm, walked down the street, and hailed a taxi. The agents quickly climbed into the sedan, and it followed the taxi.

Moments after the sedan disappeared, the real Matt Riggs, wearing a dark felt cap, emerged from the store and walked quickly in the opposite direction. The key had been the brightly colored knit cap. His pursuers would have focused on the burgundy and gold colors like a ship's beacon to pinpoint their man and would not notice the subtle differences in the overcoats, pants, and shoes. He had called in a favor last night from an old friend who had thought Riggs long dead. The FBI was now tailing that old friend to his job at a law firm near the White House. The man lived near the FBI building, so his being in the vicinity would not be difficult to explain. And a lot of Washingtonians wore Redskins knit caps this time of year. Finally, the FBI couldn't possibly know of the long ago connection between the two men. The agents would question him briefly, realize their mistake, report back to Masters and the director, and get their heads handed to them for their morning troubles.

Riggs climbed in a cab and gave an address. The car sped off. He ran a hand through his hair. He was glad to get that one under his belt. He and LuAnn were a long way from being home free, but it felt good to know he still had it, at least in small doses. As the cab stopped at a red light, Riggs opened the newspaper he had purchased at the store.

Staring back at him from the front page were two photos. One person he knew, the other was a stranger to him. He quickly read the story and then looked at the pictures again. With a press badge dangling around his neck and a small notepad and pen peeking out from his shirt pocket, a sleepy-eyed Thomas Donovan looked like he had just climbed off a plane from covering some major news event on the other side of the world.

The woman in the photo next to his could not have struck a greater contrast to the reporter's disheveled image. The dress was elegant, the hair and makeup obviously professionally done and thus impeccable, the background almost surreal in its abundant luxury: a charity event where the rich and famous caucused to raise money for the less fortunate. Roberta Reynolds had been a longtime participant in such events and the story said her brutal murder had robbed the Washington area's charitable community of a great benefactor. Only one line of the story recounted the source of Reynold's wealth: a sixty-five-million-dollar lottery win ten years earlier. She was apparently worth far more than that now. Or, at least, now her estate was.

She had been murdered—allegedly, the story reported, by one Thomas Donovan. He had been seen around the woman's home. A message from Donovan requesting an interview was on the dead woman's answering machine. Donovan's prints had been found on a carafe of water and a glass in Reynolds's home, which indicated the two had indeed met. And, finally, the pistol apparently used to slaughter Roberta Reynolds had been found in a wooded area about a mile from her home, along with her Mercedes, with Donovan's prints all over both of them. The murdered woman had been discovered lying on her bed. Evidence indicated she had been bound and held for some period of time, so that the crime was obviously premeditated, the paper said. There was an APB out on Donovan and the police were confident they would soon apprehend him.

Riggs finished reading the story and slowly folded up the newspaper. He knew the police were completely wrong. Donovan hadn't killed Reynolds. And it was highly likely that Donovan was dead as well. Riggs took a deep breath and thought about how he would break the news to LuAnn.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

The burly man looked around at the other pricey homes in the Georgetown neighborhood. Fiftyish with pale skin and a neatly trimmed mustache, the man hitched up his pants, tucked his shirt in, and rang the bell next to the front door.

Alicia Crane opened the door, looking anxious and tired.

“Yes?”

“Alicia Crane?”

“Yes.”

The man flashed his identification. “Hank Rollins, homicide detective, Fairfax County, Virginia.”

Alicia stared at the man's photo and the badge affixed to it. “I'm not sure—”

“Are you an acquaintance of Thomas Donovan?”

Alicia closed her eyes and bit her lip on the inside. When she reopened her eyes she said, “Yes.”

Rollins rubbed his hands together. “Ma'am, I've got some questions to ask you. We can either do it down at the station or you can ask me in before I freeze to death, it's your call.”

Alicia immediately opened the door. “Of course, I'm sorry.” She led him down the hallway to the living room. After settling him down on the sofa she asked him if he wanted coffee.

“That'd be great, yes, ma'am.”

As soon as she left the room, Rollins lurched to his feet and looked around the room. One item commanded his immediate attention. The photo of Donovan, his arm around Alicia Crane. It looked to be of recent vintage. They both looked extremely happy.

Rollins was holding the photo in his hands when Alicia walked back in carrying a tray with two cups of coffee and some creamer and two blue packets of Equal.

She lowered the tray to the coffee table. “I couldn't find the sugar. The housekeeper ran an errand. She'll be back in about an hour and I don't usually—” Her eyes caught the photo.

“May I have that?” she asked. She set down the tray and held out her hand.

Rollins quickly passed the photo over and returned to his seat. “I'll get to the point, Ms. Crane. You've read the newspaper, I assume?”

“You mean that pack of lies.” Her eyes flashed for an instant.

“Well, I'll agree that it's all largely speculation at this time; however, there's a lot of things pointing toward Thomas Donovan having killed Roberta Reynolds.”

“His fingerprints and his gun?”

“It's an active homicide investigation, Ms. Crane, so I can't really go into it with you, but, yes, things like that.”

“Thomas wouldn't hurt anyone.”

Rollins shifted his bulk around, picked up a cup of coffee, and stirred some cream into it. He tasted the result and then poured the contents of an Equal pack into the cup before he resumed speaking. “But he did go visit Roberta Reynolds.”

Alicia crossed her arms and glared at him. “Did he?”

“He never mentioned it to you, that he was going to meet with her?”

“He told me nothing.”

Rollins pondered this for a moment. “Ma'am, we got your name off Donovan's answering machine at his apartment. You sounded upset, said what he was working on was dangerous.” Alicia didn't take the bait. “Also his place had been ransacked, all his records, files, everything gone.”

Alicia started to shake, finally steadying herself by grasping the arm of the chair she was sitting in.

“Ms. Crane, you might want to have some of that coffee. You don't look too good.”

“I'm all right.” However, she did raise the cup and take several nervous sips.

“Well, if, as you say, someone went through Thomas's apartment, then there must be someone else involved. You should focus your efforts on apprehending that person.”

“I'm not arguing with you on that point, but I have to have something to go on. I guess I don't have to tell you that Ms. Reynolds was a very prominent member of the community and we're getting a lot of heat to find her killer, pronto. Now I've already talked to someone at the Trib. He told me Donovan was working on a story having to do with lottery winners. And Roberta Reynolds was one of those winners. Now, I'm not a reporter, but when you're talking that kind of money, maybe somebody would have a motive for murder.”

Alicia smiled for an instant.

“Something you want to tell me?”

Alicia returned to her prim manner and shook her head.

“Ms. Crane, I've been working homicide since my youngest was born and now he's got his own kids. Don't take this the wrong way, but you're holding out on me and I'd like to know why. Murder isn't something you want to screw around with.” He looked at the elegant room. “Murderers and those who assist murderers don't end up in places nearly as nice as this one.”

Alicia's eyes bulged at him. “What are you implying?”

“I'm not implying a damn thing. I came here looking for facts. I listened to your voice on Donovan's answering machine. That voice told me two things: First, you were scared for him; second, you knew exactly why you were scared for him.”

Alicia kneaded and kneaded her lap with her fisted hands. She closed and opened her eyes several times. Rollins waited patiently while she went through her decision-making process.

When she started speaking it was in quick bursts. Rollins whipped out his notebook and scribbled.

“Thomas had initially started investigating the lottery because he was convinced that several top money management firms were taking the winners' money and either losing it or charging such huge commissions, churning, he called it, that the winners were left with nothing. He also hated the government for, in essence, leaving these poor people exposed to all of that. And then so many of them not understanding how to handle their taxes, and then the IRS coming in and taking everything back. And more. Leaving them with nothing.”

“How did he arrive at that conclusion?”

“Bankruptcies,” she said simply. “All these people were winning all this money and then they were declaring bankruptcy.”

Rollins scratched his head. “Well, I've read about that from time to time. I always chalked it up to the winners' not being money savvy. You know, spend everything they get, forget to pay taxes, that kind of stuff, like you said. Pretty soon, you can work your way right through all those winnings. Hell, I'd probably do the same thing, just go nuts.”

“Well, Thomas didn't think that was all there was to it. But then he discovered something else.” She took another sip of coffee, her face coloring prettily as she recalled Thomas Donovan's cleverness.

“Which was?” Rollins prodded.

“Which was the fact that twelve lottery winners in a row didn't declare bankruptcy.”

“So?”

“So Thomas's research went back many years. In all that time the ratio of winners to bankrupt was completely consistent. Then, right in the middle of this consistency were twelve who didn't. Not only didn't they declare bankruptcy but they grew far wealthier.”

Rollins rubbed his chin, unconvinced. “I'm still not seeing a story here.”

“Thomas wasn't clear in his mind about that yet. But he was getting closer. He called me regularly from the road to let me know how things were going, what he had found out. That's why I was so worried when I hadn't heard from him.”

Rollins looked at his notebook. “Right. You mentioned danger in your phone message.”

“Thomas tracked down one of the twelve lottery winners.” Alicia paused and struggled to remember the name. “LuAnn somebody. Tyler, that's right, LuAnn Tyler. He said she was charged with murdering somebody right before she won the lottery and then she disappeared. He tracked her down, partly through her tax records. He went to visit her.”

“Now, where was this?” Rollins was again scribbling in his notebook.

“Charlottesville. Lovely country, some of the most beautiful estates. Have you ever been?”

“On my salary, I'm not really into estate shopping. What next?”

“He confronted the woman.”

“And?”

“And she cracked. Or almost did. Thomas said you can always tell by the eyes.”

“Uh-huh.” Rollins rolled his own eyes. “So what was Donovan's angle?”

“Excuse me?”

“His angle. What story was he going to write that you thought put him in danger?”

“Oh, well, the woman was a murderer. She had killed once, she could kill again.”

Rollins smiled lightly. “I see.”

“I don't think you're taking this seriously.”

“I take my work very seriously. I just don't see the connection. Are you suggesting that this LuAnn person killed Roberta Reynolds? Why would she do that? We don't even know if they knew each other. Are you suggesting that she may have threatened Donovan?”

“I'm not suggesting that LuAnn Tyler threatened or murdered anyone. I mean I have no proof of that.”

“Then what?” Rollins was struggling to maintain his patience.

Alicia looked away. “I . . . I don't know. I mean I'm not sure.”

Rollins stood up, closing his notebook. “Well, if I need any more information I'll be in touch.”

Alicia just sat there, her face pale, her eyes shut. Rollins was almost at the door when she spoke. “The lottery was fixed.”

Rollins slowly turned and walked back into the living room. “Fixed?”

“He called two days ago and told me that. Thomas made me promise not to breathe a word to anyone.” She clutched at the hem of her skirt in her anxiety. “That LuAnn Tyler person practically admitted that the lottery was fixed. Thomas sounded, well, he sounded a little frightened. And now, I'm just so worried about him. He was supposed to call again, but never did.”

Rollins parked his bulk on the sofa once more. “What else did he tell you?”

“That he had contacted the other eleven winners, but that only one had called him back.” Her lips trembled. “Roberta Reynolds.”

“So Donovan did meet with her.” His tone was accusatory.

Alicia rubbed a tear from her eye. She didn't speak but merely shook her head. Finally she said, “He had been working on this story for a long time, but he only recently confided in me. He was scared. I could tell in his voice.” She cleared her throat. “He had at least arranged to meet with Roberta Reynolds. The meeting was to take place yesterday morning. I haven't heard from him since that time, and he'd promised to call me right after it was over. Oh, God, I know something terrible has happened.”

“Did he tell you who fixed the lottery?”

“No, but LuAnn Tyler told him to watch out for somebody. A man. That this person would kill him, that he was on Thomas's trail and would find him. That he was very dangerous. I'm sure this person had something to do with that woman's death.”

Rollins sat back and stared sadly at her and took a big gulp of the hot coffee.

Alicia didn't look up. “I told Thomas to go to the police with what he knew.”

Rollins sat forward. “Did he?”

She shook her head fiercely. “Dammit no!” A huge breath escaped her lungs. “I pleaded with him to. If someone had fixed the lottery, all that money. I mean people would kill for that. You're a policeman, aren't I right about that?”

“I know people who'd cut your heart out for a couple of singles,” was Rollins's chilling reply. He looked down at his empty coffee cup. “Got any more?”

Alicia started. “What? Oh, yes, I just made a fresh pot.”

Rollins took out his notepad again. “Okay, when you get back, we'll have to go over every detail and then I'm calling in some reinforcements. I'm not afraid to admit that this one is looking like it's way over my head. You up for a trip to police headquarters?”

Alicia nodded without much enthusiasm and left the room. She came back a couple of minutes later balancing the wooden tray, her eyes focused on the filled coffee cups, trying not to spill them. When she looked up her eyes widened in utter disbelief and she dropped the entire tray on the floor.

“Peter?”

The remnants of Detective Rollins—wig, mustache, facial mask, and malleable rubber padding—were neatly positioned on the wingback chair. Jackson, or Peter Crane, Alicia Crane's elder brother, was looking back at her, his features infinitely troubled as his right cheek rested on his right palm.

Donovan's observation that Bobbie Jo Reynolds had looked a lot like Alicia Crane was right on the mark. However, it had been Peter Crane's alias, Jackson, disguised as Bobbie Jo Reynolds, who looked a lot like Alicia Crane. The family resemblance was remarkable.

“Hello, Alicia.”

She stared at the discarded disguise. “What are you doing? What is all this?”

“I think you should sit down. Would you like me to clean up that mess?”

“Don't touch it.” She put one hand against the doorjamb to steady herself.

“I didn't mean to upset you so,” said Jackson with sudden sincere remorse. “I . . . I guess when faced with confrontation, I'm just more comfortable not being myself.” He smiled weakly.

“I don't appreciate this at all. I almost had a heart attack.”

He rose quickly, encircled her waist with one of his arms, and guided her over to the sofa. He patted her hand kindly. “I'm sorry, Alicia, I really am.”

Alicia again stared over at the remains of the beefy homicide detective. “What is this all about, Peter? Why were you asking me all those questions?”

“Well, I needed to know how much you knew about everything. I needed to know what Donovan had told you.”

She jerked her hand from under his. “Thomas? How do you know about Thomas? I haven't seen or spoken to you in three years.”

“Has it been that long?” he said evasively. “You don't need anything, do you? You just had to ask.”

“Your checks come like clockwork,” she said, a bit bitterly. “I don't need any more money. It would have been nice to have seen you once in a while. I know you're very busy, but we are family.”

“I know.” He looked down for a moment. “I always said I would take care of you. And I always will. Family is family.”

“Speaking of, I spoke with Roger the other day.”

“And how is our decadent, undeserving younger brother?”

“He needed money, like always.”

“I hope you didn't send him any. I gave him enough to last a lifetime, even invested it for him. All he had to do was stay within a reasonable budget.”

“There's nothing reasonable about Roger, you know that.” She looked at him a little nervously. “I sent him some money.” Jackson started to say something, but she hurried on. “I know what you said all those years ago, but I just couldn't let him be thrown out on the street.”

“Why not? It might be the best thing that ever happened to him. He shouldn't live in New York. It's too expensive.”

“He wouldn't survive. He's not strong, not like Father.”

Jackson held his tongue at the mention of their father. The years had not cleared up his sister's blindness in that regard. “Forget it, I'm not going to waste my time discussing Roger.”

“I want you to tell me what's going on, Peter.”

“When did you meet Donovan?”

“Why?”

“Please just answer the question.”

“Almost a year ago. He did a lengthy piece on Father and his distinguished career in the senate. It was a wonderful, compelling testimonial.”

Jackson shook his head in disbelief. She would have viewed it that way: the exact opposite of the truth.

“So I called Thomas up to thank him. We had lunch and then dinner and, well, it's been wonderful. Extraordinarily wonderful. Thomas is a noble man with a noble purpose in life.”

“Like Father?” Jackson's mouth curled into a smirk.

“Very much like him,” she said indignantly.

“It's truly a small world.” He shook his head at the irony.

“Why do you say that?”

Jackson stood up and spread his arms to show the entire sweep of the room. “Alicia, where exactly do you think all of this came from?”

“Why, from the family money, of course.”

“The family money? That was gone. All of it. Has been for years.”

“What are you talking about? I know that Father ran into some financial difficulties along the way, but he recovered. He always did.”

Jackson looked at her with contempt. “He recovered shit, Alicia. He didn't earn a dime of it. It was all made long before he was around. All he did was blow it. My inheritance, your inheritance. He pissed it away on himself and his lousy dreams of greatness. He was a fake and a loser.”

She jumped up and slapped his face. “How dare you! Everything you have is because of him.”

Jackson slowly rubbed his skin where she had hit him. His real skin was pale, smooth as though he had lived his life in a temple like a Buddhist monk, which in one sense he had.

“Ten years ago, I fixed the national lottery,” he said quietly, his dark eyes glittery as he stared at her small, stunned face. “All that money, everything you have came from that money. From me. Not dear old Dad.”

“What do you mean? How could you—”

Jackson pushed her down on the sofa as he interrupted.

“I collected almost one billion dollars from twelve lottery winners, the very same ones Donovan was investigating. I took their winnings and I invested the money. You remember Grandfather's network of Wall Street elite? He actually earned his money. I maintained those contacts over the years for a very specific purpose. With the fortune I amassed from the lottery winners, which Wall Street assumed came from the ‘family money,’ I was one of their preferred customers. I negotiated the best deals, was given first choice of all the initial public offerings, the sure-fire winners. That's a well-kept secret of the rich, Alicia. They get first dibs on everything: A stock that I get at ten dollars a share right before it hits the market goes to seventy dollars a share in the twenty-four hours after it hits the market. I sell it to the ordinary folks, collect my six hundred percent return, and move on to the next windfall. It was like printing money; it's all in who you know and what you bring to the table. When you bring a billion dollars, believe me, everybody sits up and takes notice. The rich get richer and the poor never will.”

Alicia's lips had begun trembling halfway through her brother's explanation, as his speech and mannerisms grew more and more intense, more and more feverish. “Where is Thomas?” Her question was barely audible.

Jackson looked away and licked his dry lips. “He was no good for you, Alicia. No good at all. An opportunist. And I'm sure he loved all of this. All that you had. All that I had given you.”

“Was? Was no good?” Alicia stood up, her hands clamped so tightly together the skin looked boiled.

“Where is he? What have you done to him?”

Jackson stared at her, searching her features for something. It suddenly occurred to him that he was looking for some redeeming quality. From afar he had long held idyllic visions of his only sister, putting her perhaps on a pedestal. Face-to-face with her he found that image was unsustainable. The tone of his response was casual, his words far from casual, as he finally made up his mind.

“I killed him, Alicia.”

She stood there frozen for an instant and then started toppling to the floor. He grabbed her and laid her on the couch, this time not so gently. “Now don't be this way. There will be other men, I can assure you of that. You can walk the earth searching for Father. Donovan wasn't him, but I'm sure you'll keep trying.” He didn't try to hide the sarcasm.

She wasn't listening to him, however. The tears stained her cheeks.

He continued despite her tears, pacing in front of her, the professor in front of his class of one. “You'll have to leave the country, Alicia. I erased your phone message to Donovan, so the police won't have that to go on. However, since your relationship has endured for a year, it must be well known to others. The police will come calling at some point. I'll make all the arrangements. As I recall, you've always loved New Zealand. Or perhaps Austria. We had several lovely times there as children.”

“Stop it! Stop it, you animal.”

He turned to find her on her feet.

“Alicia—”

“I'm not going anywhere.”

“Let me be quite clear. You know too much. The police will ask questions. You have no experience in these matters. They will get the truth from you quite easily.”

“You're right about that. I intend to call them right now and tell them everything.”

She started for the phone, but he blocked her way. “Alicia, be reasonable.”

She hit him with her fists as violently as she could. They did no physical damage to him; however, the blows conjured up the memory of another violent confrontation with another family member. His father, back then, had been physically stronger than he, was able to dominate him in ways that Jackson had never let himself be dominated since.

“I loved him, damn you! I loved Thomas,” Alicia shrieked in his face.

Jackson focused a pair of watery eyes upon her. “I loved someone too,” he said. “Someone who should have loved me back, respected me, but who didn't.” Despite the years of pain, of guilt and embarrassment, Jack's son still held long-buried feelings for the old man. Feelings that he had never dwelt upon or vocalized until now. The resurgence of this emotional maelstrom had a violent impact on him.

He grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her roughly on the sofa.

“Peter—”

“Shut up, Alicia.” He sat down next to her. “You're leaving the country. You are not going to call the police. Do you understand?”

“You're crazy, you're insane. Oh, God, I don't believe this is happening.”

“Actually, right now, I'm absolutely certain I'm the most rational member in the family.” He stared into her eyes and repeated the words very slowly: “You're not talking to anyone, Alicia, do you understand?”

She looked at his eyes and suddenly shivered to the depths of her soul. For the first time during this confrontation, terror had suddenly replaced her anger. It had been a long time since she had seen her brother. The boy she had happily romped with, and whose maturity and intelligence she had been fascinated by, was now unrecognizable to her. The man across from her was not her brother. This manifestation was something else altogether.

She hastily changed course and spoke as calmly as she could. “Yes, Peter, I understand. I . . . I'll pack tonight.”

Jackson's face took on a level of despair that it had not carried for many years. He had read her thoughts, her fears; they were so plainly written on the thin parchment of her soft features. His fingers clutched the large throw pillow on the sofa between them.

“Where would you like to go, Alicia?”

“Anywhere, Peter, anywhere you say. New Zealand, you mentioned New Zealand. That would be fine.”

“It is a beautiful country. Or Austria, as I said, we had good times there, didn't we?” He tightened his grip on the pillow. “Didn't we?” he asked again.

“Yes we did.” Her eyes dipped to follow his movements and she tried to swallow but her throat was too dry. “Perhaps I could travel there first and then on to New Zealand.”

“And not a word to the police? You promise?” He lifted up the pillow.

Her chin trembled uncontrollably as she watched the pillow come toward her. “Peter. Please. Please don't.”

His words were stated very precisely. “My name is Jackson, Alicia. Peter Crane doesn't live here anymore.”

With a sudden pounce, he pushed her flat against the couch, the pillow completely covering her face. She fought hard, kicking, scratching, gyrating her body, but she was so small, so weak; he barely felt her fighting for her life. He had spent so many years making his body hard as rock; she had spent that time waiting for a precise replica of her father to stride gallantly into her life, her muscles and her mind growing soft in the process.

Soon, it was over. As he watched, the violent movements diminished quickly and then stopped altogether. Her pale right arm slid down to her side and then dangled off the couch. He removed the pillow and forced himself to look down at her. She at least deserved that. The mouth was partially open, the eyes wide and staring. He quickly closed them and sat there with her, patting her hand gently. He did not try to hold back his own tears. That would've done no good. He struggled to remember the last time he had cried but couldn't. How healthy was it when you couldn't even recall?

He placed her arms across her chest but then decided to have them clasped at her waist instead. He carefully lifted her legs up on the sofa and put the pillow he had used to kill her under her head, arranging her pretty hair so that it swept out evenly over the pillow. He thought she was very lovely in death despite the utter stillness. There was a peace there, a serenity that was at least heartening to him, as though what he had just done wasn't all that terrible.

He hesitated for a moment and then went ahead: He checked her pulse and laid her hand back down. If she'd still been alive, then he would've left the room, fled the country, and left it at that. He wouldn't have touched her like that again. She was family after all. But she was dead. He rose and looked down at her one last time.

It needn't have ended this way. Now all the family he had left was the useless Roger. He should go kill his brother right now. It should have been him lying there, not his cherished Alicia. However, Roger wasn't worth the effort. He froze for an instant as an idea occurred to him. Perhaps his brother could play a supporting role in this production. He would call Roger and make him an offer. An offer he knew his younger brother would be unable to resist as it would be all cash; the most potent drug in existence.

He gathered up the elements of his disguise, and methodically reapplied them, all the time making little darting glances at his dead sister. He had coated his hands with a lacquer-like substance, so he wasn't concerned about leaving fingerprints. He left by the back door. They would find her soon enough. Alicia had said her housekeeper had gone out to run an errand. It was a better than even chance that the police would think Thomas Donovan had continued his homicidal rampage by murdering his lady friend, Alicia Morgan Crane. Her obituary would be extensive, her family had been very important; there would be much to write about. And at some point, Jackson would have to come back, as himself once more, to bury her. Roger could hardly be trusted to do that. I am sorry, Alicia. It shouldn't have come to this. This unexpected turn of events had come closer than anything he could remember to completely immobilizing him. Above all else he cherished complete control and it suddenly had been stripped from him. He looked down at his hands, the instruments of his sister's death. His sister. Even now his legs felt rubbery, his body not in sync with his mind.

As he walked down the street, still reeling from what he had just done, Jackson's mental energies finally were able to focus on the one person he clearly saw as responsible for all of it.

LuAnn Tyler would experience the brunt of everything he was now feeling. The pain that slashed so viciously through him would be multiplied a hundredfold upon her until she would beg him to just finish her, make her stop breathing because every breath would be a hell, would be beyond what any person could endure. Even her.

And the grand part of it all was that he would not have to go looking for her. She would come to him. She would run to him with all the speed and strength her extraordinary physical specimen of a body could inspire. For he would have something that LuAnn would go anywhere, do anything for. He would hold something that LuAnn Tyler would die for. And so you will LuAnn Tyler slash Catherine Savage. As he disappeared down the street he swore this, over the mental image of a still-warm body whose dear face strongly resembled his own.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

For the tenth time Riggs looked around the Mall and then checked his watch. In cutting his deal with the FBI, he had just shimmied out onto the most fragile limb in the world and LuAnn was three hours late. If she never showed up, where did that leave him? Jackson was still out there, and Riggs doubted if the knife would miss its mark a second time. If he didn't produce Jackson, fulfill his deal with his former employer, and have his cover reestablished, the cartel members who had sworn to kill him five years ago would soon learn that he was alive and they would surely try again. He couldn't return to his house. His business was probably already going to hell, and to top it off, he had five bucks in his pocket and no car. If he could have screwed up his life to any greater degree he was at a loss as to how.

He slumped on a bench and stared up at the Washington Monument while the cold wind whipped up and down the flat, open space that stretched from the Lincoln Memorial to the United States Capitol. The sky was overcast; it would be raining again soon. You could smell it in the air. Just wonderful. And you're right between a rock and a hard place, Mr. Riggs, he said to himself. His emotional barometer had dropped to its lowest point since finding out his wife had perished in the gang attack five years ago. Had it really been less than one week ago that he had been leading a relatively normal life? Building things for wealthy people, reading books by his woodstove, attending a few night classes at the university, thinking seriously about taking a real vacation for a change?

He blew on his cold fingers and stuffed them in his pockets. His injured shoulder ached. He was just about to leave when the hand touched his neck.

“I'm sorry.”

As he turned his head, his spirits soared with such swiftness that he felt dizzy. But he couldn't help smiling. He needed desperately to smile.

“Sorry for what?”

He watched as LuAnn settled in beside him, slipping her arm through his. She didn't answer right away. After staring off for a minute and then taking a heavy breath, she turned to him, stroked his hand with hers.

“I had some misgivings.”

“About me?”

“I shouldn't have. After all you've done, I shouldn't have any doubts left.”

He looked at her kindly. “Sure you should. Everybody has doubts. After the last ten years, you should have more than most.” He patted her hand, looked into her eyes, noted their moist edges, and then said, “But you're here now. You came. So it must be okay, right? I passed the test?”

She simply nodded her head, unable to speak.

“I vote for finding a warm place where I can fill you in on developments and we can discuss our plan of attack. Sound good?”

“I'm all yours.” Her grip tightened on his hand as though she would never let go. And right now, that was just fine with him.

They ditched the Honda, which was acting up, and rented a sedan. Riggs was getting tired of hot-wiring the car anyway.

They drove to the outskirts of western Fairfax County and stopped for lunch at a nearly empty restaurant. On the drive out Riggs filled her in on the meeting at the Hoover Building. They walked past the bar area and sat at a table in the corner. LuAnn absently watched the bartender tinker with the TV to better the reception of a daytime soap he was watching. He slouched against the bar and pried between his teeth with a swizzle stick as he watched the small screen. It would be wonderful, she thought, to be that relaxed, that laid back.

They ordered their food and then Riggs pulled out the newspaper. He didn't say a word until LuAnn had read the entire story.

“Good Lord.”

“Donovan should have listened to you.”

“You think Jackson killed him?”

Riggs nodded grimly. “Probably set him up. Had Reynolds call him, say she was gonna spill her guts. Jackson is there and pops them both with the result that Donovan gets blamed for it all.”

LuAnn let her head rest in her hands.

Riggs gently touched her head. “Hey, LuAnn, you tried to warn the guy. There was nothing else you could do.”

“I could have said no to Jackson ten years ago. Then none of this would've happened.”

“Yeah, but I bet if you had, he would've done you right then and there.”

LuAnn wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “So now I've got this great deal with the FBI you negotiated for me, and in order to finalize it all we need to do is drop a net over Lucifer.” She sipped on her coffee. “Would you care to tell me how we're going to do that?”

Riggs put away the paper. “I've been giving it a lot of thought as you might have guessed. The problem is we can't be too simplistic or too complicated. Either way, he'll smell a trap.”

“I don't think he'll take another meeting with me.”

“No, I wasn't going to suggest that. He wouldn't show, but he'd send somebody to kill you. That's way too dangerous.”

“Didn't you know, I like danger, Matthew. If I wasn't constantly smothered in the stuff, I wouldn't know what to do with myself. Okay, no meeting, what else?”

“Like I said before, if we can find out who he really is, track him down, then we might be in business.” Riggs paused as their food came. After the waitress left he picked up his sandwich and started talking in between bites. “You don't remember anything about the guy? I mean anything that could start us in the right direction to finding out who he really is?”

“He was always disguised.”

“The financial documents he sent you?”

“They were from a firm in Switzerland. I've got some back at the house, which I guess I can't get to. Even with our deal?” She raised an eyebrow.

“I wouldn't advise that, LuAnn. The Feds run across you now, they might forget all about out little deal.”

“I've got some other documents at my bank in New York.”

“Still too risky.”

“I could write the firm in Switzerland, but I don't think they're going to know anything. And if they do, I don't think they're going to talk. I mean, that's why people bank in Switzerland, right?”

“Okay, okay. Anything else? There's gotta be something you remember about the guy. The way he dressed, smelled, talked, walked. Any particular interests? How about Charlie? Would he have any ideas?”

LuAnn hesitated. “We could ask him,” she said, wiping her hands on her napkin, “but I wouldn't bet on it. Charlie told me he'd never even met Jackson face-to-face. It was always over the phone.”

Riggs slumped back and touched his injured arm.

“I just don't see any way to get to him, Matthew.”

“There is a way, LuAnn. In fact I had already concluded it was the only way. I was just going through the motions with all those questions.”

“How?”

“You have a phone number where you can reach him?”

“Yes. So?”

“We set up a meeting.”

“But you just said—”

“The meeting will be with me, not you.”

LuAnn half stood up in her anger. “No way, Matthew, there is no way in hell I'm going to let you near that guy. Look what he did to you.” She pointed at his arm. “The next time will be worse. A lot worse.”

“It would've been a lot worse if you hadn't messed up his aim.” He smiled tenderly at her. “Look, I'll call him. I tell him that you're leaving the country and all these problems behind. You know Donovan is dead, so Jackson doesn't have that issue anymore. Everybody's home free.” LuAnn was vigorously shaking her head as she sat back down.

“Then I'll tell him,” Riggs continued, “that I'm not such a happy camper. I've got it all figured out: I'm a little tired of construction work, and I want my payoff.”

“No, Matthew, no!”

“Jackson figures I'm a criminal anyway. Trying to extort him wouldn't seem out of line at all. I'll tell him I bugged your bedroom, that I've got a recording of a conversation he had with you, that night at your house, where you both talked a lot about things.”

“Are you nuts?”

“I want money. Lots of it. Then he gets the tape.”

“He will kill you.”

Now Riggs's face darkened. “He'll do that anyway. I don't like sitting around waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'd rather go on the offensive. Make him sweat for a change. And I may not be the killing machine he is, but I'm no slouch either. I'm a veteran FBI agent. I've killed before, in the line of duty, and if you think I'd hesitate one second before blowing his brains out, then you really don't know me.”

Riggs looked down for a moment, trying to make himself calm down. His plan was risky, but what plan wouldn't be? When he looked back up at LuAnn, he was about to say something else but the look on her face froze the words in his mouth.

“LuAnn?”

“Oh, no!” Her voice was filled with panic.

“What is it? What's the matter?” Riggs grabbed her shoulder, which was quivering. She didn't answer him. She was looking at something over his shoulder. He whirled around, expecting to see Jackson coming for them, foot-long knives in either hand. He scanned the nearly empty restaurant and then his eyes settled on the TV where a special news report was being broadcast.

A woman's face spread across the screen. Two hours ago, Alicia Crane, prominent Washingtonian, had been found dead in her home by her housekeeper. The evidence collected so far suggested that she had been murdered. Riggs's eyes widened as he listened to the broadcaster mention that Thomas Donovan, prime suspect in the Roberta Reynolds murder, apparently had been dating Alicia Crane.

LuAnn could not pull her eyes away from that face. She had seen those features, those eyes staring at her from the front porch of the cottage. Jackson's eyes bored into her.

His real face.

She had shuddered when she had actually seen it, or realized what she was seeing. She had hoped to never lay eyes on those features again. Now she was staring at them. They were planted on the TV.

When Riggs looked back at her, she raised a shaky finger toward the screen. “That's Jackson,” she said, her voice breaking. “Dressed up like a woman.”

Riggs looked back at the screen. That couldn't be Jackson, he thought. He turned back to LuAnn. “How do you know? You said he was always in disguise.”

LuAnn could barely take her eyes away from the face on the screen. “At the cottage, when he and I went through the window. We fought and his face, plastic, rubber, whatever, came off. I saw his real face. That face.” She pointed to the screen.

Riggs's first thought was the correct one. Family? God, could it be? The connection to Donovan couldn't be a coincidence, could it? He raced to the phone.

“Sorry I lost your boys, George. Hope that didn't cost you any brownie points with the top brass.”

“Where the hell are you?” Masters demanded.

“Just listen.” Riggs recounted the news story he had just heard.

“You think he's related to Alicia Crane?” Masters asked, the excitement echoing in his voice, his anger at Riggs completely gone, for now.

“Could be. Ages are about right. Older or younger brother maybe, I don't know.”

“Thank God for strong genes.”

“What's your game plan?”

“We check her family. Shouldn't be too hard to do. Her father was a U.S. senator for years. Very prominent lineage. If she has brothers, cousins, whatever, we hit 'em fast. Bring them in for questioning. Hell, it can't hurt.”

“I don't think he's going to be waiting for you to knock on the front door.”

“They never do, do they?”

“If he is around, be careful, George.”

“Yeah. If you're right about all this—”

Riggs finished for him: “The guy just killed his own sister. I'd hate to see what he'd do to a nonfamily member.”

Riggs hung up. For the very first time he actually felt hopeful. He was under no delusions that Jackson would be around for the FBI to take into custody. He would be flushed out, cut off from his home base. He'd be pissed, full of revenge. Well, let him be. He'd have to cut Riggs's heart out before he'd get to LuAnn. And they wouldn't be sitting targets. Now was the time to keep on the move.

Ten minutes later they were in the car heading for points unknown.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

Jackson boarded the Delta shuttle for New York. He needed additional supplies and he was going to pick up Roger. He couldn't count on him to travel by himself and get to where he was supposed to be. Then they would head back south. During the short flight Jackson checked in with the man following Charlie and Lisa. They had made a rest stop. Charlie had talked on the phone. No doubt checking in with LuAnn. They had gone on and were now close to reentering Virginia on the southern side. It was all working out very well. An hour later, Jackson was in a cab threading its way through Manhattan toward his apartment.

Horace Parker looked around with intense curiosity. A doorman for over fifty years at a building where average apartments covered four thousand square feet and went for five million, and the penthouse that covered triple that space and went for twenty mil, he had never seen anything like this before. He watched as the small army of men in FBI windbreakers swept through the lobby and into the private elevator that went only to the penthouse. They looked deadly serious and had the weaponry to prove it.

He went back outside and looked up and down the street. A cab pulled up and out stepped Jackson. Parker immediately went over to him. The doorman had known him for most of his life. Years ago he had skipped pennies in the lobby's massive fountain with Jackson and his younger brother, Roger. To earn extra money he had baby-sat them and taken them to Central Park on the weekends; he had bought them their first beers when they were barely into puberty. Finally, he had watched them grow up and then leave the nest. The Cranes, he had heard, had fallen on hard times, and they had left New York. Peter Crane, though, had come back and bought the penthouse. Apparently, he had done awfully well for himself.

“Good evening, Horace,” Jackson said cordially.

“Evening, Mr. Crane,” Parker said and tipped his cap.

Jackson started past him.

“Mr. Crane, sir?”

Jackson turned to him. “What is it? I'm in a bit of a hurry, Horace.”

Parker looked upward. “There's some men come to the building, Mr. Crane. They went right up to your apartment. A bunch of them. FBI. Guns and everything, never seen nothing like it. They're up there right now. I think they're waiting for you to get home, sir.”

Jackson's reply was calm and immediate. “Thank you for the information, Horace. Simply a misunderstanding.”

Jackson put out his hand, which Parker took. Jackson immediately turned and walked away from the apartment building. When Parker opened his hand, there was a wad of hundred-dollar bills there. He looked around discreetly before stuffing the cash in his pocket and taking up his position by the door once more.

From the shadows of an alley across the street, Jackson turned and looked up at his apartment building. His eyes kept going up and up until they came to rest upon the windows of the penthouse. His penthouse. He could see the silhouettes move slowly across the windows, and his lips started to tremble at this outrageous invasion of his home. The possibility that they could have traced him to his personal residence had not occurred to him. How in the hell? He couldn't worry about it now, though. He went down the cross street and made a phone call. Twenty minutes later a limousine picked him up. He called his brother and told him to leave his apartment immediately—not even bothering to pack a bag—and meet Jackson in front of the St. James Theater. Jackson wasn't sure how the police had found out his identity, but he couldn't be sure they wouldn't wind up at Roger Crane's apartment at any minute. Then he made a quick stop to gather together some necessary supplies from another smaller apartment he kept under a phony name. Under the ownership of one of his myriad corporate shells he maintained a private jet and full-time crew at La Guardia. He called ahead so that the pilot on duty would be able to file his flight plan as quickly as possible. Jackson did not intend to spend time twiddling his thumbs in the waiting area. The limo would take them right to the plane. That accomplished, he collected his brother from in front of the theater.

Roger was two years younger and slimly built but wiry like his older brother. He also shared the same shock of dark hair and delicate facial features. He was certainly curious about his brother's abrupt return to his life. “I couldn't believe you called like that out of the blue. What's up, Peter?”

“Shut up, I need to think.” He suddenly turned to his younger brother. “Have you seen the news?”

He shook his head. “I don't usually watch TV. Why?”

He obviously didn't know of Alicia's death. That was good. Jackson didn't answer his brother; he settled back in the seat, his mind racing through a seemingly infinite number of scenarios.

In a half hour they were at La Guardia Airport. Soon they had left the Manhattan skyline behind on their way south.

The FBI did converge on Roger Crane's small apartment building, but a little too late. Yet they were far more intrigued by what they had discovered at Peter Crane's penthouse.

Masters and Berman, walking around the massive penthouse, came across Jackson's makeup and archives rooms and his computerized control center.

“Holy shit,” Berman said, his hands in his pockets as he stared at the masks, makeup bins, and racks of clothing.

Masters held the scrapbook gingerly in his gloved hands. FBI technicians roamed everywhere collecting evidence.

“Looks like Riggs was right. One guy. Maybe we can survive all this,” Masters said.

“So what's our next move?”

Masters answered immediately. “We focus on Peter Crane. Put a blanket on the airports and train and bus stations. I want road blocks posted on all the major arteries heading out of town. You're to instruct all the men that he's extremely dangerous and a master of disguise. Send out photos of the guy everywhere, fat lot of good that'll do us. We've cut off his home base, but he's obviously got enormous financial resources. If we do manage to track him down, I want no unnecessary chances. Tell the men that if there's the slightest threat, to shoot him down.”

“How about Riggs and Tyler?” Berman asked.

“So long as they don't get in the way, they'll be okay. If they get mixed up with Crane along the way, well, there's no guarantee. I'm not going to jeopardize my men to make sure they don't get hurt. As far as I'm concerned LuAnn Tyler belongs in jail. But that's why we've got some ammo with her. We can send her to jail or threaten to. I think she'll keep her mouth shut. Why don't you go oversee the rest of the evidence collection.”

While Berman did so, Masters sat down and read the background information on LuAnn that accompanied her photo.

He was finishing up when Berman returned.

“You think Crane's going to go after Tyler now?” Berman asked.

Masters didn't answer. Instead he looked down at the picture of LuAnn Tyler staring back at him from the photo album. He now understood why she had been picked as a lottery winner. Why they had all been picked. He now had a much clearer idea of who LuAnn Tyler was and why she had done what she had. She had been destitute, stuck in a cycle of poverty, with an infant daughter. No hope. All of the chosen winners had shared this common denominator: no hope. They were ripe for this man's scheme. Masters's features betrayed the emotions he was feeling. Right at that very moment, and for a number of reasons, George Masters was starting to feel immense guilt.

It was nearing midnight when Riggs and LuAnn stopped at a motel. After checking in, Riggs phoned George Masters. The FBI agent had just returned from New York and he detailed to Riggs what had happened since they had last spoken. After receiving this briefing Riggs hung up the phone and looked over at a very anxious LuAnn.

“What happened? What did they say?”

Riggs shook his head. “As expected. Jackson wasn't there, but they found enough evidence to keep him in prison for the rest of his life and then some. Including a scrapbook on all the lottery winners.”

“So he was related to Alicia Crane.”

Riggs nodded grimly. “Her older brother, Peter. Peter Crane is Jackson. Or at least everything points that way.”

LuAnn was wide-eyed. “Then he murdered his own sister.”

“Looks that way.”

“Because she knew too much? Because of Donovan?”

“Right. Jackson couldn't take a chance on that. Maybe he shows up disguised or maybe as his true self. He gets what he wants out of her, maybe he tells her he killed Donovan. Who knows. She apparently was dating the guy. She might have gone nuts, threatened to go to the police. At some point he murdered her, I feel sure of that.”

LuAnn shuddered. “Where do you think he is?”

Riggs shrugged. “The Feds got to his house, but from the looks of the place the man has money to burn, a million different places he could go, a dozen faces and identities he could go there under. It's not going to be easy to catch him.”

“To finish our deal?” LuAnn's tone was slightly sarcastic.

“We handed the Feds his friggin' identity. They're at his ‘world’ headquarters right now. When I said we'd deliver him, I didn't necessarily mean in a box with a ribbon on it, laid on the doorstep of the Hoover Building. As far as I'm concerned we've lived up to our end of the bargain.”

LuAnn let out a deep breath. “So does that mean everything's square? With the FBI? And Georgia?”

“We'll have some details to work out, but yeah, I think so. Unknown to them, I recorded the entire meeting at the Hoover Building. I've got Masters, the director of the FBI, and the attorney general of the United States herself, acting upon the authority of the president of the United States no less, all on tape agreeing to the deal I proposed. They've got to play straight with us now. But I've gotta be straight with you too. The IRS is going to put a big dent in your bank account. In fact after so many years of compounded penalties and interest, I'm not sure how much money you're going to have left, if any.”

“I don't care about that. I want to pay my taxes, even if it takes everything I've got. The truth is, I stole the money to begin with. I just want to know if I have to keep looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life.”

“You're not going to prison, if that's what you mean.” He touched her cheek with his hand. “You don't look too happy.”

She blushed and smiled at him. “I am.” Her smile quickly faded though.

“I know what you're thinking.”

She blurted out, “Until they catch Jackson, my life's not worth spit. Or yours. Or Charlie's.” Her lips trembled. “Or Lisa's.” She suddenly jumped up and grabbed the phone.

“What are you doing?” Riggs asked.

“I need to see my daughter. I need to know that she's safe.”

“Wait a minute, what are you going to tell them?”

“That we can meet up somewhere. I want her near me. Nothing's going to happen to her without it happening to me first.”

“LuAnn, look—”

“This subject isn't open for discussion.” Her tone was ferocious.

“All right, all right, I hear you. But where are we going to meet them?”

LuAnn passed a hand over her forehead. “I don't know. Does it matter?”

Riggs said, “Where are they now?”

“The last I heard, they were heading back into southern Virginia.”

He rubbed his chin. “What's Charlie driving?”

“The Range Rover.”

“Terrific. It'll hold all of us. We'll meet them wherever they are right now. We'll leave the rental and head out. Go somewhere and wait for the FBI to do its thing. So call them and I'll run up to that all-night burger place we saw on the way in and get us some food.”

“Good enough.”

When Riggs got back with two bags of food, LuAnn was no longer on the phone.

“You reach them?”

“They're at a motel on the outskirts of Danville, Virginia. But I need to call them back and let them know when we're going to be there.” She looked around. “Where the hell are we?”

“We're in Edgewood, Maryland, north of Baltimore. Danville is a little over a hundred miles south of Charlottesville, which means we're about five or six hours from Danville.”

“Okay, if we start right now—”

“LuAnn, it's after midnight. They're probably in bed, right?”

“So?”

“So, we can catch some sleep, which we both really need, get up early, and meet them tomorrow around noon.”

“I don't want to wait. I want Lisa safe with me.”

“LuAnn, driving when you're exhausted isn't real safe. Even if we start right now, we won't make it until five or six in the morning. Nothing's going to happen between now and then. Come on, I think we've had enough excitement for one day. And if Lisa knows you're coming tonight, she won't get a wink of sleep.”

“I don't care. I'd rather she'd be sleepy and safe.”

Riggs shook his head slowly. “LuAnn, there's another reason we might not want to hook up with them right now, and it has to do with keeping Lisa safe.”

“What are you talking about?”

Riggs put his hands in his pockets and leaned up against the wall. “Jackson is somewhere out there, that we know. Now, the last time we saw him he was running off into the woods. He could have easily come back and followed us.”

“But what about Donovan and Bobbie Jo Reynolds and Alicia Crane? He killed them.”

“We believe he killed them, or had someone kill them. Or he could've killed all of them personally and hired someone to follow us. That man has a deep pocketbook; there isn't much he can't buy.”

LuAnn reflected briefly on Anthony Romanello. Jackson had hired him to kill her. “So Jackson could know about your meeting with the FBI? He could know where we are right now?”

“And if we go running off to see Lisa, then we lead him right to her as well.”

LuAnn slumped down on the bed. “We can't do that, Matthew,” she said wearily.

He rubbed her shoulders. “I know.”

“But I want to see my little girl. Can't I do that?”

Riggs thought for a few minutes and then sat on the bed beside her and held her hands with his. “Okay, we'll stay here for the night. It would be a lot easier for someone to follow us at night and remain unseen. Tomorrow, we'll get an early start and head down to Danville. I'll keep an eagle eye out for anyone remotely suspicious. As an undercover agent, I got pretty good at that. We'll take secondary roads, make frequent stops, and occasionally take the interstate. It'll be impossible for anyone to tail us. We'll meet Charlie and Lisa at the motel and then we'll have Charlie take her directly to the local FBI office in Charlottesville. We'll follow in our car but we won't go in. I don't want them getting hold of you just yet. But since we struck a deal with the Feds, we might as well avail ourselves of some of their protection resources. How's that sound?”

She smiled. “So I'll see Lisa tomorrow?”

He cupped her chin in his hand. “Tomorrow.”

LuAnn called Charlie back, setting the meeting time at one o'clock the following day at the motel in Danville. With Charlie, Riggs, and herself around her little girl, Jackson could just come on and try something, because she liked their odds of survival under those circumstances.

They slid into bed and Riggs wrapped his good arm around her slim waist and snuggled against her. His 9-mm was under his pillow, a chair wedged tightly under the door lock. He had unscrewed a light bulb, broken it, and sprinkled the remains in front of the door. Although he didn't expect anything to happen, he wanted as much advance warning as he could get if it did.

As he lay next to her he was both confident and uneasy. She apparently sensed this and turned to face him, her hand gently stroking his face.

“Got something on your mind?”

“Anticipation, I guess. When I was with the FBI I had to work hard to keep my patience. I seem to have a natural aversion to delayed gratification.”

“That all?” Riggs slowly nodded. “You sure you're not sorry you got involved in all this?”

He pulled her closer to him. “Why in the world would I be?”

“Well, let me list some things for you. You've been stabbed, and came within an inch of dying. A madman is probably going to try his best to kill us. You stuck your neck out with the FBI for me and your cover is blown, with the result that the people who tried to kill you before may try again. You're running around the country with me trying to stay one step ahead of everybody and your business is going to hell and it doesn't look like I'll have two dimes to rub together to even begin to repay you for everything you've done. That cover it?”

Riggs stroked her hair and figured he might as well say it now. Who knew how things were going to go. He might not get another chance.

“You left out the part about me falling in love with you.”

Her breath caught as her eyes drifted over him, taking in every subtle quiver, trying to give them all simultaneous meaning. All the while his words echoed in her head. She tried to say something but couldn't.

He filled in the silence. “I know it's probably the world's worst timing, but I just wanted you to know.”

“Oh, Matthew,” she finally managed to say. Her voice was trembling, everything about her was.

“I'm sure you've heard those words before. Lots of times, from guys probably a lot better suited—”

She covered his mouth with her hand but she didn't say anything for a long minute. He gently kissed her fingers.

Her voice was husky as though she were reaching down deep in order to utter the words. “Other men have said them. But this is the first time I've really been listening.”

She stroked his hair and then her lips searched out and found his in the darkness and sunk in, slowly and deeply. They blindly undressed each other, their fingers probing and gently caressing. LuAnn began to softly cry as the unlikely twins of nervous fear and intense happiness fought for dominance. Finally, she just stopped thinking and gave herself over to what she had been looking for for so many years, across so many countries; from precious dreams that rudely dissolved into nightmares, which viciously framed realities that never came close to inspiring in her any more than an extreme ambivalence about her life. She clutched Matthew Riggs hard, as if realizing that this might be her last chance. Their bodies gripped each other for a long time before relaxing. They fell into an exhausted sleep safely in each other's arms.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

Charlie rubbed the sleep from his eyes and stared over at the phone. It had been a couple of hours since LuAnn had filled him in on all the recent developments and he still couldn't get to sleep. So Jackson was really Peter Crane. That information personally did him no good, but Charlie figured it would help immeasurably the authorities' efforts to track the man down. On the downside, if Jackson knew his identity had been discovered, Charlie figured he would be one pissed-off person. And Charlie wouldn't want anyone he cared for to be in the vicinity of the gentleman if that was the case.

He pulled himself up from the couch. His knees were aching more than usual. All the driving was getting to him. He was very much looking forward to seeing LuAnn. And Riggs too, he supposed. Sounded like the guy had really come through for LuAnn. If he could pull all this off, well, it would be a miracle.

He went into the adjoining room and checked on Lisa. She was still sleeping soundly. He looked at her delicate features, seeing so much of her mother in them. She was going to be tall too. The last ten years had gone by so fast. Where would they all be next week? Where would he be? Maybe with Riggs in the equation, his run was coming to an end. He had no doubt that LuAnn would take care of him financially, but it would never be the same. But what the hell, the whirlwind that represented the last ten years with her and Lisa had been far more than he deserved anyway.

The ringing phone startled him. He checked his watch. Almost two A.M. He snatched up the receiver.

“Charlie?”

Charlie didn't recognize the voice at first. “Who's this?”

“Matt Riggs.”

“Riggs? Where's LuAnn? Is she okay?”

“She's more than okay. They caught him. They caught Jackson.” His tone was one of unbridled joy.

“Christ Almighty. Hallelujah! Where?”

“In Charlottesville. The FBI had put a team of agents together at the airport and he and his brother walked right into it. I guess he was coming to pay LuAnn back.”

“His brother?”

“Roger. The FBI doesn't know if he's involved in all this, but I don't think they care. They've got Peter Crane. They want LuAnn to come to Washington in the morning to give a deposition.”

“Tomorrow? What about meeting us down here?”

“That's why I called. I want you and Lisa to get packed up right now and meet us in Washington. At the Hoover Building. Ninth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. They'll be expecting you. I set it all up. If you leave now, you can meet us for breakfast. I personally want to celebrate.”

“And the FBI? The murder charge?”

“All taken care of, Charlie. LuAnn's home free.”

“That's great, Riggs. That's the most wonderful news I've heard in I can't remember how long. Where's LuAnn?”

“She's on the other phone talking to the FBI. Tell Lisa that her mother loves her and can't wait to see her.”

“You got it.” He hung up and immediately started to pack. He would've loved to have seen Jackson's face when the FBI busted him. The prick. He figured he'd pack the car before waking Lisa. Might as well let her sleep as long as possible. When she heard the news about her mother Charlie was sure further sleep would not be possible for the little girl. It looked like Riggs had come through after all.

His heart lighter than it had been in years, Charlie, a bag under each arm, opened the front door.

He immediately froze. The man was standing in the doorway, his face covered by a black ski mask, a pistol in his hand. With a scream of rage, Charlie threw the bag at him, knocking the gun free. Next, Charlie grabbed the man by the mask and hurled him into the room, where he slammed against a wall and went down. Before the man could get up, Charlie was on top of him, hammering him with lefts and rights, his old boxing skills coming back as though he had never left the ring.

The piston-like battering took its toll as the man slumped down, groaning from the furious beating, and lay still. Charlie turned his head as he felt the second presence in the room.

“Hello, Charlie.” Jackson closed the door behind him.

As soon as he recognized the voice, Charlie leapt for him, surprising Jackson with his quickness. The twin darts from the stun gun hit Charlie in the chest, but not before his massive fist collided with Jackson's chin, knocking him back against the door. However, Jackson continued to squeeze the trigger, sending the massive electrical current into Charlie's body.

Charlie was on his knees using all of his strength to try to rise, to kick the shit out of the man, to beat him into oblivion where he could hurt no one else. He tried to propel himself forward, every mental impulse in his brain craving nothing less than the man's complete destruction. But his body refused to follow his orders. As he slowly sank to the floor, he stared at a terrified Lisa standing in the doorway leading into the bedroom.

He tried to say something, tried to scream to her to run, to run like hell, but all that came out was something that would hardly qualify as a whisper.

He watched in horror as Jackson staggered up, flew over to Lisa, and pressed something against her mouth. The girl struggled valiantly but it was no use. As her nostrils sucked in the chloroform she was soon on the floor next to Charlie.

Jackson wiped the blood from his face and roughly pulled his associate up. “Take her to the car and don't let anyone see you.”

The man nodded dully, his entire body one large hurt from Charlie's fists.

Charlie watched helplessly as the man carried the unconscious Lisa out. Then his eyes slid over to Jackson, who knelt down next to him, rubbing his chin gingerly.

Then, speaking in a voice that exactly impersonated Riggs, he said, “They caught Jackson. They caught him. I feel like celebrating.” Then Jackson laughed out loud.

Charlie didn't say anything. He just lay there, watching, waiting.

In his own voice, Jackson said, “I knew my phone call would make you drop your guard just enough. Opening the door without checking first, no gun ready. How lax. You were really very diligent about not being followed, though. I knew you would be. That's why on the very first night I was in Charlottesville, I entered the garage at Wicken's Hunt and placed a transmitter inside the wheel well of each vehicle there, including your Range Rover. This particular transmitter was originally designed for military use and employs satellite-tracking technology. I could have followed you around the globe. It was very expensive, but obviously was well worth it.

“I knew after I met with LuAnn that she would send Lisa off with you and I needed to know exactly where you were just in case I needed little Lisa for the final showdown. I love strategic thinking, don't you? It's so rare when someone does it correctly. As it turns out, I do need her. That's why I'm here.”

Charlie winced slightly when Jackson pulled the knife from his coat and he flinched again when Jackson pulled up the sleeve of Charlie's shirt.

“I really love this device,” Jackson said, looking at the stun gun. “It's one of the few instruments I'm aware of that allows one to have full control over another without seriously injuring them and still leaving them fully conscious.”

Jackson packed the stun gun away in his coat. He left the darts in Charlie. He wasn't worried about leaving any evidence behind this time.

“You sided with the wrong person.” As Jackson said this he ripped open the shirtsleeve up to Charlie's shoulder to give himself a clear space in which to work. “You were loyal to LuAnn and look where it got you.” Jackson shook his head sadly, but the smile on his face betrayed his true feelings of glee.

As slowly as he could, Charlie tried to flex his legs. He grimaced a little, but he could feel something down there. It hurt, but at least he could feel it. What Jackson didn't know was that one of the darts had hit Charlie's thick Crucifix, imbedding completely in it. The other dart had partially hit the medallion before entering his chest, with the result that the voltage that had rocked his body was far less than Jackson had counted on it to be.

“Now, the stun charge will last approximately fifteen minutes,” Jackson lectured him. “Unfortunately, the cut I'm about to inflict upon you will only take about ten minutes to cause you to bleed to death. However, you won't feel anything, physically. Mentally, well, it might be rather unnerving watching yourself bleed to death and being absolutely powerless to do anything about it. I could kill you quick, but this way seems far more gratifying to me personally.”

As he spoke, Jackson made a precise and deep gash in Charlie's upper arm. Charlie bit the inside of his jaw as he felt the sharp blade slice through his skin. As Charlie's blood started to pour out in a steady flow, Jackson rose.

“Good-bye, Charlie, I'll tell LuAnn you said hello. Right before I kill her.” Jackson snapped this last sentence out, his face a twisted mass of hatred. Then he smiled and closed the door.

Inch by agonizing inch, Charlie managed to roll over onto his back. Then, after an equally hard struggle, he brought his massive hands up, up until they closed around the darts. He was already dizzy from the blood loss. The sweat pouring off his brow, he pulled with all his strength and, little by little, the darts came loose and he tossed them aside. That didn't lessen the numbness of his body, but it felt good nonetheless. With what little control he had over his limbs, he slid over to the wall backward and inched his torso up to a sitting position by levering himself against this solid surface. His legs were on fire, the equivalent of a million burning needles stuck in them, and his body was covered in blood, but he managed to thrust himself upward as though he were squatting weights and his legs held, his knees locked in place. Ironically, the stun gun's impact had made his knees feel better than they had in years. Keeping himself pressed against the wall for support, he made it to the closet, which he managed to throw open. He pushed himself into the closet and gripped a wooden suit hanger with his teeth. All his limbs were on fire now, which was exhilarating because the slow return of his motor functions was becoming evident all over his body. He managed to grip the suit hanger in one hand and rip off the slender stem that normally kept trousers neatly in place. Dropping the rest of the hanger, he pushed off from the wall, propelling himself to the bed. Using his teeth and one of his hands, he shredded the bed sheet into strips. He worked more quickly now as his limbs returned to a semblance of normalcy. He was starting to feel nauseated; the blood loss was taking its toll. He was running out of time. As quickly as he could he wound a long strip directly above the cut and then used the thin piece of wood to torque down on it. The rude tourniquet worked its life-saving magic and the flow of blood finally halted. Charlie knocked the phone receiver off and punched in 911. After giving his location he sat back on the bed, sweat pouring off him, his entire body crimson from his own blood. He was still uncertain whether he was going to live or not, and yet all he could think about was the fact that Jackson had Lisa. He knew exactly what Jackson was going to do with her. The girl was bait. Bait to lure the mother. And when LuAnn went for that bait, Charlie knew exactly what would happen: Jackson would slaughter them both.

This terrifying thought was his last before he lost consciousness.

As the van moved down the highway, Jackson looked over at the unconscious Lisa, finally shining a penlight on her features so he could see them more clearly. “The spitting image of her mother,” he said to himself. “She has her fighting spirit too,” he added.

Jackson reached over and touched the young girl's face. “You were just an infant when I last saw you.” He paused for a moment and looked out into the darkness before returning his gaze to her. “I'm very sorry it had to come to this.”

He rubbed her cheek lightly, before slowly withdrawing his hand. Roberta, Donovan, his sister, Alicia, and now the little girl. How many more people was he going to have to kill? After this was all over, he told himself, he would go to the most remote location he possibly could find and do nothing for the next five years. When he had cleansed his mind of the events of this past week, he would go on with his life. But first he had to take care of LuAnn. That was one death he was not going to lose much sleep over.

“I'm coming, LuAnn,” he said to the darkness.

LuAnn sat bolt upright in bed feeling as if every nerve were on fire. Her breath came in big chunks, her heart pounding out of control.

“Sweetie, what is it?” Riggs sat up and wrapped an arm around her quivering shoulders.

“Oh, God, Matthew.”

“What? What is it?”

“Something's happened to Lisa.”

“What? LuAnn, you were dreaming. You had a bad dream, that's all.”

“He's got her. He's got my baby. Oh, God, he was touching her. I saw it.”

Riggs pulled her around to face him. Her eyes were careening all over the room. “LuAnn, there's nothing wrong with Lisa. You had a nightmare. Perfectly natural under the circumstances.” He tried to sound as calm as possible, although being wakened out of a dead sleep by this hysterical outburst had certainly unnerved him.

She pushed him off, jumped up, and started tossing things off the table next to the bed.

“Where's the phone?”

“What?”

“Where's the damned phone?” she screamed. As soon as she said it, she uncovered the phone.

“Who are you calling?”

She didn't answer. Her fingers flew across the face of the receiver as she punched in the cell phone number. She was almost vibrating off the ground as she waited for an answer. “They're not answering.”

“So? Charlie probably turned off the phone. Do you know what time it is?”

“He wouldn't turn off the phone. He never turns off the damned phone.” She redialed, with the same result.

“Well, if that's the case, maybe the battery's dead. If he didn't plug it in when he got to the motel.”

LuAnn was shaking her head. “Something's happened. Something's wrong.”

Riggs got up and went over to her. “LuAnn, listen to me.” He shook her to the extent his wound would allow him. “Will you listen for a minute?”

She finally calmed down a bit and managed to look at him.

“Lisa is fine. Charlie is fine. You had a nightmare and that's all.” He put his arm around her, squeezed her tightly to him. “We're going to see them tomorrow. And everything is going to be fine, okay? If we go tonight and we are being followed, we'll never know it. Don't let a nightmare make you do something that could end up really putting Lisa in danger.”

She stared at him, terror still in her eyes.

He continued to murmur in her ear and his soothing tones finally reached her. She let him draw her back over to the bed and they climbed in. As he settled back to sleep, however, LuAnn stared at the ceiling, silently praying that it really had only been a nightmare. Something deep within her kept telling her it wasn't. In the darkness she could see what looked to be a hand reaching out for her. Whether in a friendly gesture or not she couldn't tell, because it never fully formed and then it was gone. She put an arm around the sleeping Riggs, holding him protectively. She would have given anything to be doing the same for her daughter.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

The two FBI agents sipped hot coffee and enjoyed the late morning calm and beauty of the area. The winds were whipping up, however, as a storm system approached with the promise of even higher winds and a lot of rain, that night and into the next day. Stationed at the road leading up to LuAnn's home, the veteran agents had seen little activity, but they kept alert despite the tedium.

At eleven o'clock a car approached their checkpoint and stopped. The window came down on the driver's side.

Sally Beecham, LuAnn's housekeeper, looked expectantly at one of the agents and he quickly waved her through. She had gone out two hours before to run some errands. When she had passed the checkpoint earlier she had been very nervous. The FBI hadn't explained much to her, but they had made it clear that she wasn't in trouble. They wanted her to go about her normal duties, keep everything the same. They had given her a number to call in case she noticed anything suspicious.

As she passed through the checkpoint this time, she looked more comfortable, perhaps even a touch self-important with all of this official attention.

One of the agents commented to the other, “I don't think Tyler's going to be coming back to eat any of that food.” His colleague smirked knowingly.

The next vehicle that came down the road and stopped at the checkpoint drew some special attention. The older man driving the van explained that he was the groundskeeper. The younger man in the passenger seat was his assistant. They produced ID, which the agents checked thoroughly, then made some phone calls to verify. The agents opened the back of the van and it was indeed filled with tools, boxes, and old rolled-up tarps. Just to make sure, one of the agents followed the van up the road.

Sally Beecham's car was parked in front; a shrill beep emanated from the house. The front door was open and the agent could see her just inside the door deactivating the alarm system, he presumed. He was proven correct when the beep stopped. The agent watched the men get out of the van, pull some tools from the back of the vehicle, stack them in a wheelbarrow, and head around to the back of the house. Then the agent got in his car and drove back to the checkpoint.

LuAnn and Riggs were standing in the parking lot of the motel outside Danville, Virginia. Riggs had talked to the motel manager. The police had been summoned the night before. The man in Room 112 had been attacked and badly injured. Because of the severity of the wound, a medevac helicopter had been called to airlift out the man. The name the man had given was not Charlie's; however, that meant nothing. And the manager was not aware of a young girl being with the man.

“You're sure they were in room one twelve?”

LuAnn whirled around. “Of course I'm sure.”

She closed her eyes, stopped pacing, and rocked on her heels. She knew! She knew what had happened. The thought of Jackson touching Lisa, hurting her, all because of what LuAnn had done or hadn't done. It was numbing, absolutely and totally incapacitating.

“Look, how was I supposed to know you have some kind of psychic connection with this guy?” Riggs replied.

“Not him dammit. Her! My daughter.”

This statement stopped Riggs dead in his tracks. He looked down and then watched her resume her pacing.

“We need some information, Matthew. Right now.”

Riggs agreed, but he didn't want to go to the police. That would entail wasting a lot of time in explanations and the end result might very well be the local cops taking LuAnn into custody.

Finally, Riggs said, “Come on.”

They went into the motel office and Riggs walked over to a pay phone. Riggs phoned Masters. The FBI still had no leads on Jackson and Roger Crane still had not surfaced, Riggs was told.

Riggs briefly explained the situation at the motel the night before to Masters.

“Hold on,” Masters said.

While Riggs did so he looked over at LuAnn staring at him. She was silently waiting for the worst news she could possibly receive, of that he was certain. He tried to smile reassuringly at her, but then stopped. The last thing he could be right now was reassuring, particularly since he had nothing to base it upon. Why set her up even further for the long fall.

When Masters came back on, his tone was low and nervous. Riggs turned away from LuAnn while he listened.

Masters said, “I just checked with the local police in Danville. Your information is correct, a man was stabbed at that motel on the outskirts of town. The ID found on him gave his name as Robert Charles Thomas.”

Charlie? Riggs licked his lips, gripped the phone. “His ID? He couldn't tell the police?”

“He was unconscious. Lost a lot of blood. Damn miracle he's even alive, they tell me. The wound was professionally administered, designed to slow-bleed the person. They found darts from a stun gun in the room. Guess that was how he was incapacitated. As of early this morning, they weren't sure if he was going to make it.”

“What's he look like?” Riggs heard some paper rustling over the line. He was almost certain it was Charlie, but he needed to be absolutely sure.

Masters started speaking again. “Over six feet, in his sixties, strongly built, must be strong as an ox to have survived to this point.”

Riggs breathed deeply. No doubt now. It was Charlie. “Where is he now?”

“The medevac took him to the UVA trauma center in Charlottesville.”

Riggs felt the presence next to him. He turned to find LuAnn staring at him; the look in her eyes was scary.

“George, was there any mention of a ten-year-old girl being with him?”

“I asked. The report said that the man came to for a few seconds and started shouting a name.”

“Lisa?”

Riggs heard Masters clear his throat. “Yes.” Riggs remained silent. “It was her daughter, wasn't it? This guy's got her, doesn't he?” Masters asked.

“Looks like it,” Riggs managed to get out.

“Where are you?”

“Look, George, I don't think I'm ready to give you that information yet.”

Masters started speaking more forcefully. “He's got the little girl. You two could be next, Matt. Think about it. We can protect you both. You have got to come in.”

“I don't know.”

“Look, you can go back to her house. I've got the entrance under twenty-four-hour guard. If she agrees to go there, I'll fill the place up with agents.”

“Hold on, George.” Riggs held the phone against his chest and looked at LuAnn. His eyes told her all she needed to know.

“Charlie?”

“Unconscious. They don't know if he's going to make it. The good news is that a medevac helicopter flew him to the trauma center at UVA hospital.”

“He's in Charlottesville?” she asked.

Riggs nodded. “It's only a short hop from Danville by air, and the trauma unit there is top-notch. He'll get the best care.”

She continued to stare at him, waiting. And he knew exactly what for.

“Jackson probably has Lisa.” He moved on quickly. “LuAnn, the FBI wants us to come in. So they can protect us. We can go to Wicken's Hunt if you want. Agents are already guarding the entrance. They think—”

She snatched the phone out of his hand.

She screamed into it. “I don't want protection. I don't need your damned protection. He's got my daughter. And the only thing I'm going to do is find her. I'm going to get her back. You hear me?”

“Ms. Tyler, I'm assuming this is LuAnn Tyler—” Masters started to say.

“You just stay out of the way. He'll kill her sure as hell if he even thinks you're around.”

Masters tried to remain calm even as he said the awful words. “Ms. Tyler, you can't be sure he hasn't already done something to her.”

Her reply was surprising, both for its content and its intensity. “I know he hasn't hurt her. Not yet.”

“The man's a psycho. You can't be sure—”

“The hell I can't. I know exactly what he wants. And it's not Lisa. You just stay out of the way, FBI man. If my daughter dies because you got in the way, there won't be any place on this earth that I won't find you.”

Sitting at his desk in the heavily guarded Hoover Building, with twenty-five years of high-level criminal detection work behind him, during which he'd confronted more than his share of evil, now surrounded by a thousand superbly trained, hardened FBI special agents, George Masters actually shivered as he listened to those words.

The next sound he heard was the phone slamming down.

Riggs raced after LuAnn as she stormed to the car.

“LuAnn, will you wait a damned minute?” She whirled around, waiting for him to speak. “Look, what George said makes a lot of sense.”

LuAnn threw up her hands and started to get in the car.

“LuAnn, you go in to the FBI. Let them protect you from this guy. Let me stay on the outside. Let me track him down.”

“Lisa is my daughter. I'm the reason she's in this danger and I'm the one who's going to get her out. Just me. Nobody else. Charlie's almost dead. You were almost killed. Three other people have been slaughtered. I'm not involving anybody else in my screwed up, miserable, sonofabitchin' excuse for a life.” She screamed the words at him; when she stopped, both their chests were heaving.

“LuAnn, I'm not letting you go after him alone. If you don't want to go to the FBI, fine. I won't go either. But you're not, repeat not, going after him alone. That way you both die.”

“Matthew, did you hear me? Just get out of this. Go to your buddies at the FBI and let them get you a new life somewhere the hell away from all of this. The hell away from me. Do you want to die? Because if you hang around me, you're going to, sure as I'm looking at you.” The polished facade had fallen away, shed like a snake's skin in autumn. She was one long, raw muscle standing alone.

“He'll come after me, regardless, LuAnn,” Riggs said quietly. “He'll find me and he'll kill me whether I go to the FBI or not.” She didn't respond so he continued. “And to tell you the truth, I'm too old, too tired of running and hiding to start it up again. I'd rather go down the cobra's hole and meet him head-on. I'll take my chances with you next to me. I'd rather have you than every agent at the Bureau, than every cop in the country. We're probably only going to have one shot at this, and I'll take that shot with you.” He paused for a moment as she stared at him, her eyes wild, her long hair billowing in the wind, her strong hands balling up into fists and then uncurling. Then he said, “If you'll take that shot with me.”

The wind was really picking up now. They each stood barely two feet apart from the other. The gap would either swell or diminish with LuAnn's answer. Despite the chill, cold sweat clung to each of their faces. She finally broke the silence.

“Get in.”

The room was completely dark. Outside the rain was pouring down and had been for most of the day. Sitting in the very center of the space, her body bound tightly to a chair, Lisa was trying, without much success, to use her nose to inch up the mask that covered her eyes. The intense darkness—being totally and completely blind—was unnerving to her. She had the impression that perilous things were lurking very near her. In that regard she was completely right.

“Are you hungry?” The voice was right at her elbow and her heart nearly stopped.

“Who is it? Who are you?” Her voice quavered.

“I'm an old friend of your mother's.” Jackson knelt beside her. “These bindings aren't too tight, are they?”

“Where's Uncle Charlie? What did you do to him?” Lisa's courage suddenly resurfaced.

Jackson quietly chuckled. “Uncle, is it?” He stood back up. “That's good, very good.”

“Where is he?”

“Not relevant,” Jackson snapped. “If you're hungry, tell me so.”

“I'm not.”

“Something to drink then?”

Lisa hesitated. “Maybe some water.”

She heard some tinkling of glass in the background and then she felt a coldness against her lips and jerked back.

“It's only water. I'm not going to poison you.” Jackson said this in such a commanding fashion that Lisa quickly opened her mouth and drank deeply. Jackson patiently held the cup until she was finished.

“If you need anything else, to use the bathroom for instance, then just say so. I'll be right here.”

“Where are we?” When Jackson didn't answer, she asked, “Why are you doing this?”

Standing there in the darkness, Jackson considered the question carefully before answering. “Your mother and I have some unfinished business. It has to do with things that occurred a long time ago, although there have been repercussions of a very recent vintage that are motivating me.”

“I bet my mom didn't do anything to you.”

“On the contrary, while she owes her entire life to me, she has done everything in her power to hurt me.”

“I don't believe that,” Lisa said hotly.

“I don't expect you to,” Jackson said. “You're loyal to your mother, as you should be. Family ties are very important.” He crossed his arms and thought for a moment on the status of his own family, of Alicia's sweet, peaceful face. Sweet and peaceful in death. With an effort he shrugged the vision off.

“My mom will come and get me.”

“I certainly expect her to.”

Lisa blinked rapidly as his meaning suddenly dawned upon her. “You're going to hurt her, aren't you? You're going to try and hurt my mom when she comes to get me.” Her voice had risen.

“Call if you need anything. I don't intend to make you suffer unduly.”

“Don't hurt my mom, please.” The tears materialized behind the mask.

Jackson did his best to ignore the pleas. Finally, the crying turned to bawling and then dissolved into exhausted whimpering. He had first seen Lisa as an eight-month-old infant. She had certainly grown up into a lovely child. Had LuAnn not accepted his offer, the orphaned Lisa would probably be in a foster home somewhere. He looked over at her, suffering terribly inside, her head slumped onto her chest in her private agony. A lot for a ten-year-old to handle. Maybe she would have been better off in that foster home, without ever really having known her mother. The woman Jackson was going to now eliminate from her life. He had no desire to cause pain to the daughter, but such was life. It wasn't fair. He had told LuAnn that the very first day they had met: Life was not fair. If you wanted something you had to take it. Before someone else took from you. Neatly dissected down to its essence, life was one long series of lily pad hoppings. The quick and the resourceful were able to adapt and survive; all others were simply crushed as a more nimble creature landed on the lily pad they had occupied for too long.

He stood completely motionless as though conserving all his energies for what lay ahead. He stared off into the darkness. Very soon it would all begin. And very soon it would all end.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

The medical facility at the University of Virginia was a teaching component of the medical school as well as a highly regarded public hospital with a level-one trauma center. LuAnn raced down the corridor. Riggs was parking the car and then would follow her in. She reflected briefly on the fact that she had never before been in a hospital. She quickly concluded that she didn't care for either the smell or atmosphere. A lot of that was probably due to the reason she was here: to see Charlie.

He was in a private room. A member of the Charlottesville police force stood guard outside his door. LuAnn shot right past him and started to enter the room.

“Whoa, there, ma'am. No visitors,” said the police officer, a solidly built man in his early thirties, holding out a beefy arm for emphasis.

LuAnn had whirled around ready for a fight when Riggs hustled up.

“Hey, Billy.”

The officer turned around. “Hey, Matt, how you doing?”

“Not so good. Won't be playing basketball at the Y with you for a while.”

Billy looked at his sling. “How'd you do that?”

“Long story. The guy in there is her uncle.” He nodded at LuAnn.

Billy looked embarrassed. “I'm sorry, ma'am, I didn't know. They told me no visitors, but I know they didn't mean family. You go on in.”

“Thanks, Billy,” Riggs said.

LuAnn pushed open the door and went in. Riggs was right behind her.

LuAnn stared across at Charlie lying in the bed. As if he sensed her presence, he looked over and a smile spread across his face. He looked pale but his eyes were quick and active.

“Damn, now that's a real pleasant sight,” he said.

LuAnn was next to him in an instant, taking his big hand in hers. “Thank God, you're okay.”

Charlie was about to say something when the door opened and a middle-aged man in a white coat popped his head in. “Just making rounds, folks.” He opened the door all the way and came in. He carried a clipboard.

“Dr. Reese,” he said, introducing himself.

“Matt Riggs. This is Charlie's niece, Catherine.” Riggs pointed at LuAnn, who shook the doctor's hand.

Dr. Reese checked Charlie's vital signs while he spoke. “Well, it's very lucky Charlie was so good with a tourniquet. Stopped the blood loss before things got really nasty.”

“So he's going to be okay?” LuAnn asked anxiously.

Reese peered at her over his glasses. “Oh, yes. He's in no danger. We replaced the blood he lost, the wound is all stitched up. All he needs is some rest, get his strength back.” Reese noted his findings on Charlie's record log.

Charlie half-sat up. “I feel fine. When can I check out?”

“I think we'll give you a couple of more days to get back on your feet.”

Charlie was clearly not pleased with that answer.

“I'll be back in the morning,” Reese said. “Don't stay too long, folks, let him get some rest.”

As soon as Reese was gone, Charlie sat all the way up. “Any word on Lisa?”

LuAnn closed her eyes and looked down. Thick tears slid out from under her eyelids. Charlie looked over at Riggs for the first time.

“We think he has her, Charlie,” said Riggs.

“I know he has her. I told the cops everything I knew as soon as I came to.”

“I'm sure they're working on it,” Riggs said lamely.

Charlie banged his fist against the metal sides of the bed. “Dammit, they're not going to catch him. He's long gone. We've got to do something. He hasn't tried to contact you?”

“I'm going to contact him,” LuAnn said, opening her eyes. “But I had to come see you first. They said—they said you might not make it.” Her voice shook and her hand gripped his tighter.

“It'd take a lot more than one cut to send yours truly into oblivion.” He paused, struggling with what he was about to say. “I'm sorry, LuAnn. That bastard's got her and it's my fault. He called in the middle of the night, impersonated Riggs's voice. Said that the FBI had Jackson. That I was to come up to Washington and rendezvous with you at the FBI building. I dropped my guard. I walked right into his trap.” Charlie shook his head. “God, I should've suspected something, but he sounded just like Riggs.”

LuAnn leaned over and hugged him. “Damn you, Charlie, you almost got yourself killed for her. And for me.”

Charlie wrapped his big arms around her while Riggs watched in respectful silence as the two shook and swayed together.

“Lisa will be okay, Charlie.” She sounded a lot more confident than she actually felt. However, it would do Lisa no good if LuAnn allowed herself to become hysterical and thus useless.

“LuAnn, you know that guy. He could do anything to her.”

“He wants me, Charlie. His whole world is falling apart. The Feds are on to him, he killed Donovan and Bobbie Jo Reynolds and probably his own sister as well. And I know he thinks I'm the cause for all of it.”

“That's nuts.”

“It's not nuts if he believes it.”

“Well, you can't just walk in there and give yourself to him.”

Riggs piped in, “My sentiments exactly. You can't just call the guy up and say ‘Don't worry, I'll be right over so you can kill me.’ ”

LuAnn didn't answer him.

“He's right, LuAnn,” Charlie said. He started to get up.

“What the hell are you doing?” she said sharply.

“Getting dressed.”

“Excuse me, didn't you hear the doctor?”

“I'm old, my hearing's going. And so am I. Going, that is.”

“Charlie—”

“Look,” he said angrily as he stumbled trying to get his pants on. LuAnn gripped his good arm, while Riggs steadied him on the other side. “I'm not going to lie here in this bed while that son of a bitch has Lisa. If you don't understand that, I really don't care.”

LuAnn nodded in understanding and helped him get his pants on. “You're a big old ornery bear, you know that?”

“I've got one good arm, and just let me get it around that guy's neck.”

Riggs held up his own injured arm. “Well, between us we have two good arms. I owe the guy too.”

LuAnn put her hands on her hips and looked around. “There's a cop outside.”

“I can take care of him,” Riggs said.

LuAnn picked up the rest of Charlie's belongings, including the portable cell phone, and put them in a plastic hospital bag.

When Charlie was finished dressing, Riggs stepped out the door and spoke to Billy.

“Billy, you mind going down to the cafeteria and getting a couple of coffees and maybe some stuff to munch on? I'd go but I can't carry anything with this bum arm.” He jerked his head toward the room. “And she's pretty hysterical right now. I don't want to leave her.”

“I'm really not supposed to leave my post, Matt.”

“I'll hang out here, Billy, it'll be okay.” Riggs held up some money. “Here, get yourself something too. Last time we played hoops I remember you eating a whole pizza by yourself afterward.” He eyed Billy's healthy dimensions. “I don't want you to wilt away to nothing.”

Billy took the money and laughed. “You sure know the way to a fella's heart.”

As soon as Billy got into the elevator and the doors closed, Charlie, LuAnn, and Riggs left the room and made their way out by the back stairs. With LuAnn and Riggs supporting Charlie, they quickly walked through the pouring rain to the car. With the thick clouds, it was already dark and the visibility was getting worse every minute.

Shortly, the three of them were in the car heading down Route 29. Charlie used the opportunity to tell them everything that had happened at the motel, including the fact that Jackson had had another man with him. After he finished, Charlie leaned forward from the back seat. “So what's the plan?” He winced as the car bounced over a pothole and jostled his arm.

LuAnn pulled into a gas station. She pulled out a slip of paper from her pocket. “I'm going to call him.”

“And then what?” Riggs asked.

“I'll let him tell me,” she replied.

“You know what the hell he's going to say,” Charlie rejoined. “He's going to set up a meeting, just you and him. And if you go, he's going to kill you.”

“And if I don't go, he's going to kill Lisa.”

“He'll kill her anyway,” Riggs said hotly.

LuAnn looked over at him. “Not if I get him first.” She thought back to her last encounter with Jackson, at the cottage. She was stronger than he was. Not by much, but she had the clear advantage there. However, he knew that too. She had seen that in his eyes. That meant he would not go toe-to-toe with her again, at least not physically. She would have to remember that. If he could adapt, so could she.

“LuAnn, I have a lot of confidence in you,” Riggs said, “but this guy is something else again.”

“He's right, LuAnn,” Charlie added.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, guys.” She didn't wait for them to answer. She pulled the portable phone out of the bag and punched in the number. Before it started ringing, she looked at both of them. “But remember, I've got two good arms.”

Riggs slid his hand down into his coat until it touched the reassuring metal of his pistol. His aim would have to be a lot better this time around. He hoped to not have the painful distraction of a knife sticking out of his arm.

He and Charlie watched as LuAnn spoke into the receiver, leaving the number of the cell phone. She hung up and waited, still not looking at them. Barely three minutes had passed before the phone rang.

Before LuAnn could say anything, Jackson said, “Please know that I have a device attached to my phone that will indicate whether this call is being traced, just in case you happen to be sitting at police headquarters. It will tell me in about five seconds if that is occurring. If you are, I will immediately hang up and slit your daughter's throat.”

“I'm not at the police and I'm not tracing your call.”

He didn't say anything for five seconds. She could envision him eyeing his device, perhaps hoping she was lying to him. “I applaud you for avoiding the obvious,” he finally said quite pleasantly.

“When and where?” LuAnn said.

“No greeting? No small talk? Where are your manners? Has the expensively constructed princess deteriorated that suddenly? Like a flower without water? Without sunshine?”

“I want to talk to Lisa. Right now.”

“Sorry about Uncle Charlie,” Jackson said. He was sitting on the floor almost in total darkness. He held the phone close to his mouth, speaking slowly and in as casual a tone as he could muster. He wanted her panic level to rise steadily, he wanted her to feel his absolute control of the situation. When the time came he wanted her to come obediently forward to receive her punishment. He wanted her to come meekly to confront her executioner.

She wasn't about to tell Jackson that Charlie was sitting right behind her wanting nothing more than to wring the life out of him. “I want to talk to Lisa!”

“How can you be sure I haven't killed her already?”

“What?” she gasped.

“You can talk to her, but how will you know it's not me mimicking her voice? ‘Mommy, Mommy,’ I could say. ‘Come help me.’ I could say all those things. So if you want to talk to her, you can, but it will prove nothing.”

“You son of a bitch!”

“Would you still like to talk to her?”

“Yes,” LuAnn said pleadingly.

“Manners now. Yes, what?”

She hesitated for an instant, taking a deep breath, trying to keep her wits and her nerves together. “Yes, please,” she said.

“Just a minute. Now where have I put that child?”

Riggs was doing his best to listen in. Exasperated, LuAnn finally opened the door and got out of the car.

She strained to hear any sound in the background.

“Mom, Mom, is that you?”

“Honey, baby, it's Mom. Oh, God, sweetie, I'm so sorry.”

“Oh, excuse me, LuAnn, that's still me,” Jackson said. “Oh, Mom, Mommy, are you there?” he said again, mimicking Lisa's voice precisely.

LuAnn was too stunned to say anything.

The next voice she heard was Jackson's real one. His tone almost bit into her ear it was said with such forcefulness. “I'll let you talk to her, really talk to her. You can have your mother—daughter emotional exchange. But when you're done I will tell you exactly what you will do. If you deviate in any way from my instructions . . .”

He didn't finish. He didn't have to. They both sat there on the phone, not saying anything, simply listening to each other's breathing, two trains careening out of control, about to slam into each other across the wireless void. LuAnn tried with all her might to hold back the thick gush of air that was ramming against her throat. She knew what he was doing. What he was doing to her mind. But she was equally aware that she could do nothing about it. At least not right now.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes.” As soon as she said the word, she heard it. She heard the sound in the background that made her both smile and grimace simultaneously. She looked at her watch. Five o'clock. The smile increased at the same time her eyes took on a gleam. A gleam of hope.

The next minute she was talking to Lisa, quickly asking her questions that only her little girl would know the answer to. They both desperately wanted to reach through the darkness that separated them.

And then Jackson came back on the line and gave her the instructions, the where and the when. None of it surprised her as she focused again on the sounds occurring in the background on his end. He ended the call by saying, with daunting finality, “See you soon.”

She clicked off the phone and got back in the car. She spoke with a calmness that astonished the two men, particularly under the circumstances.

“I'm to call him tomorrow at ten A.M. He'll give me the meeting place then. He'll let Lisa go if I come alone. If he even thinks anyone else is around, he'll kill her.”

“So it's you for Lisa,” Riggs said.

She looked at both of them. “That's the way it's going to be.”

“LuAnn—”

“That's the way it's going to be,” she said more forcefully.

“How do you know he'll let her go? You can't trust him,” Charlie implored.

“On this I can. He just wants me.”

“There's got to be another way,” Riggs exclaimed.

“There's only one way, Matthew, and you know it.” She looked at him sadly before putting the car in gear and driving off.

She had one more card to play. But Charlie and Riggs weren't going to be invited to the game. They had already sacrificed too much for her. Jackson had nearly killed both men, and she wasn't about to give the man another try on either. If Jackson were given an extra shot, she knew what the outcome would be. It was now up to her. It was up to her to save her daughter, and that, she felt, was the way it should be. She had been self-reliant for most of her life, and truth be known, that was the way she liked it. That knowledge was reassuring. And she knew something else.

She knew where Jackson and Lisa were.

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

The rain had finally slackened off but the spring showers were far from over. LuAnn had tacked up a blanket over the shattered window of the cottage. Riggs had turned the heat fully on and it was comfortable enough. The remnants of a meal rested on the kitchen sink. Riggs eyed the stains on the dining room floor. His blood. Charlie and Riggs had pulled mattresses down from the upstairs bedroom and laid them out on the floor. They had decided the cottage was the best place to spend the night. Charlie and Riggs had argued with LuAnn for hours trying to change her mind. Finally, she said they could call the FBI in the morning before she called Jackson. It was possible the FBI could trace the call. That had appeased the men enough that they agreed to let LuAnn keep the first watch. Riggs would relieve her in two hours.

Exhausted, both men soon began snoring deeply. LuAnn stood with her back to the window and silently observed them. She looked at her watch; it was after midnight. She made sure her gun was loaded, then she knelt next to Charlie and gave him a light kiss on the cheek. He barely moved.

She moved over to Riggs and watched the even rise and fall of his chest. Brushing the hair out of his eyes, she watched him a while longer. She knew the odds were not good that she would ever see either man again. She kissed him gently on the lips and then rose. For one long moment she leaned back against the wall, taking deep breaths as everything she was confronted with threatened to simply overwhelm her.

Then she was on the move again, climbing through the window to avoid the squeaky front door. She put up her hood against the fine rain falling. Ignoring the car and the unavoidable noise it would make, she went to the shed and opened the door. Joy was still there. LuAnn had forgotten to call anyone to come get the horse; however, the shed was dry and warm and there was still water and hay left. She quickly saddled the animal and swung onto Joy's back. Easing her out of the shed, they made it to the woods with scarcely any noise.

When she reached the edge of her property, she dismounted and led Joy back to the horse barn. She hesitated for a moment and then she took the binoculars off the wall, edged through the thick brush, and set up surveillance in a narrow break in the tree line, exactly where Riggs had earlier. She scanned the rear of the house. She jerked back as a car's headlights glinted off the binoculars. The car pulled around to the garage side, but the garage doors didn't budge. As LuAnn watched, a man got out of the car and walked around the rear of the house as if on patrol. Under the rear floods, LuAnn could see the FBI insignia emblazoned on his windbreaker. Then the man got back in the car and it pulled off.

LuAnn broke from the trees and raced across the open ground. She made it to the side of the house in time to see the car head back down the private drive toward the main road, the one where she had fled from Donovan, the encounter that had started this whole nightmare. The FBI was guarding the entrance to her home. She suddenly remembered that Riggs had mentioned that to her during his conversation with Masters. She would have dearly loved to have enlisted the agents' very able assistance, but they no doubt would have arrested her on the spot. Yet fear of arrest wasn't the chief factor. She simply refused to involve anyone else in her problems. No one else was going to be stabbed or killed because of her. Jackson wanted her and only her. She knew he expected her to walk meekly to him, to receive her punishment in exchange for her daughter's release. Well, in this case, he was going to get more than he wanted. A lot more. She and Lisa were going to survive this. He wasn't.

As she started to head back to the rear of the house, she noticed something else. Sally Beecham's car out front. That puzzled her. She shrugged and went around to the rear door.

The sound she had heard in the background during Jackson's call to her was what had brought her here. The absolutely unique sounds of the old clock, the family heirloom, passed down to her from her mother, the very same one LuAnn had diligently refused ever to part with. It had proved to be the most valuable possession she had because she had heard it in the background during her phone conversation with Jackson.

Jackson had been in her house, had called from her house. And LuAnn was absolutely convinced that Lisa was there now. Jackson was here too, she knew. LuAnn had to admire the man's nerve, to come here, with the FBI waiting just down the road. In a very few minutes, she would come face-to-face with her worst nightmare.

She pressed herself flat against the brick wall and peered in the side door, squinting hard through the pane of glass to see if the alarm light that was visible from this point was red or green. She breathed a quiet sigh of relief when she saw the friendly green. She knew the code to disarm it of course, but disarming it would produce one shrill beep that might jeopardize everything.

LuAnn inserted her key in the lock and slowly opened the door. She paused for a minute; the gun she held made quick, darting movements all around. She heard nothing. It was well past midnight now so that wasn't so surprising. Something was bothering her, however.

Being back in her own house should have brought some comfort to her, but it didn't. If anything it was close to unnerving. Letting her guard down now, letting herself be lulled by the familiarity of the surroundings, could easily result in her and Lisa's not being around to see the sun come up.

She continued down the hallway and then froze. She heard voices clearly. Several people; she recognized none of them. She slowly let out her breath as the music from a commercial came on. Someone was watching TV. A glint of light came from a doorway at the end of the hallway. LuAnn quietly moved forward, stopping right before her shadow would pass across the small opening between door and wall. She listened for a few seconds more. Then she edged open the door with her left hand as she pointed her gun through the opening with her right. The door swung silently inward and LuAnn leaned in. The room was dark, the only light coming from the TV. What she saw next made her freeze once again. The dark hair, cut short around the neck and built high up in the form of a modified beehive, was directly in front of her. Sally Beecham was in her bedroom watching TV. Or was she? She was sitting so still that LuAnn couldn't tell if she was alive or not.

For an instant: the image of LuAnn threading her way through that trailer ten years ago, spotting Duane on the couch. Going toward him, walking right up to him. And seeing him turn, turn so slowly toward her, the blood all over his chest, his face as gray as a Navy ship. And watching him fall off that couch, dying. And then the hand clamping over her mouth from behind. From behind!

She whirled but there was no one there; however, her abrupt movements had made some noise. When she looked back Sally Beecham was staring at her with horror in her eyes. When she recognized LuAnn she seemed to catch her breath. A hand fluttered up to her chest, which was heaving.

She started to say something, but LuAnn put a finger up to her lips and whispered, “Shh.”

“There's someone here,” LuAnn said. Sally looked confused. “Have you seen anyone here?” Sally shook her head and pointed to herself, the worry lines sprouting all over her ghastly pale face.

And that's when it hit LuAnn, and her own face went pale.

Sally Beecham never parked in front of the house. She always parked in the garage which led directly into the kitchen. LuAnn's hand tightened on the gun. She looked at the face again. It was hard to tell in the dark light, but she wasn't taking any chances. “I'll tell you what, Sally. I want you to get in the kitchen pantry and I'm going to lock you in. Just to be safe.”

LuAnn watched as the eyes darted over her face. Then one of the hands started to move behind the woman's back.

LuAnn thrust the gun forward. “And we're going to do it right now or I'll shoot you right here. And pull out the gun, butt-first.”

When the pistol emerged, LuAnn motioned to the floor. The gun clunked when it hit the hardwood.

When the person moved in front of LuAnn, LuAnn quickly reached out and jerked the wig off, revealing the man. He had short, dark hair. He jerked around for an instant, but LuAnn shoved the gun in his ear.

“Move, Mr. Jackson! Or should I say, Mr. Crane?” She had no false hopes as to the fate of Sally Beecham, but with everything else confronting her, LuAnn did not have the opportunity to dwell on it. She hoped she would have the chance to grieve for the woman.

When they reached the kitchen, LuAnn shoved him inside the pantry and locked the door from the outside. The door was an original from the house, solid oak, three inches thick with a deadbolt. It would hold him. At least for a while. She didn't need long.

She raced to the end of the hallway and flew up the carpeted stairs. LuAnn made her way from door to door. She was fairly certain that Lisa was in her mother's bedroom but she couldn't take any chances. Her eyes had adjusted well to the darkness and she quickly surveyed room after room. All empty. She went on. There was only one more bedroom left: hers. LuAnn willed her hearing to the highest possible acuity. All she wanted to hear was Lisa sighing, mumbling, breathing, anything to let her mother know she was okay. She couldn't call out, that was too dangerous. She recalled that Jackson now had someone with him. Where was that person?

She reached the door, slid her hand around the doorknob, took a deep breath, and turned it.

A long bolt of lightning cut across the sky, followed by a deafening clap of thunder. At the same instant, the blanket was blown off the window and rain started coming in. The combination of these events finally woke Riggs. He sat up, disoriented for a moment, and then looked around. He saw the open window, the wind and rain coming through. He glanced over at Charlie, who was still sleeping. Then it hit him.

He staggered up. “LuAnn? LuAnn?” His cries roused Charlie.

“What the hell?” he said.

In a minute they had searched the small cottage.

“She's not here,” he screamed to Charlie.

They both raced outside. The car was still there. Riggs looked around bewildered.

“LuAnn,” Charlie screamed over the sounds of the storm.

Riggs looked over at the shed. The doors were open. It hit him. He raced over and looked in the empty shed. He looked down at the mud in front of the shed. Even in the darkness, he could make out the hoof prints. He followed the tracks to the edge of the woods. Charlie ran up beside him.

“Joy was in the shed,” he told Charlie. “It looks like she's gone back to the house.”

“Why would she do that?”

Riggs thought hard for a minute. “Were you surprised she agreed to finally calling the FBI tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Charlie said, “but I was too damn tired and too relieved to think much about it.”

“Why would she go to the house?” Riggs repeated Charlie's question. “The FBI is guarding the place. What would be there that she'd take that sort of risk?”

Charlie went pale and he staggered slightly.

“What is it, Charlie?”

“LuAnn once told me something Jackson had told her. A rule he lived by.”

“What was it?” Riggs demanded.

“If you want to hide something, put it out in plain sight because no one would see it.”

Now it was Riggs's turn to go pale as the truth hit him. “Lisa's at the house.”

“And so is Jackson.”

They raced to the car.

As the sedan flew down the road Riggs picked up the portable phone. He dialed the police and then the local FBI. He was shocked to hear Masters's voice come on the line.

“He's here, George. Crane's at Wicken's Hunt. Bring everything you got.” Riggs heard the phone drop to the desk and footsteps running off. Then he clicked off the phone and floored the car.

As the door swung open, LuAnn darted into the room. Smack in the center was a chair and in that chair was Lisa, slumped over, exhausted. The next sound LuAnn heard was the labored ticking of that clock, that wonderful, beautiful clock. She closed the door behind her and ran to her daughter, hugged her. Her face dissolved into a big smile when her daughter's eyes met her mother's.

And then a loop of thick cord was around LuAnn's neck, was pulled tight, and LuAnn's breath was suddenly gone; her gun fell to the floor.

Lisa screamed and screamed in agonizing silence, the tape still tightly across her mouth. She kicked at her chair, trying to topple it over, trying to reach her mother, help her in some way before this man killed her.

Jackson was fully behind LuAnn now. He had watched from the darkness next to the dresser as LuAnn had sailed toward Lisa, oblivious to his presence in the room. Then he had struck. The cord had a piece of wood attached to it and Jackson was winding it tighter and tighter. LuAnn's face was turning blue, her senses were slipping away as the cord dug deeply into the skin of her neck. She tried to punch him but it was too awkward, her fists flailed helplessly, sapping away what remaining strength she had. She kicked at him, but he was too quick and dodged those blows as well. She dug at the rope with her strong fingers but it was so imbedded in her skin that there was no space left to get a grip.

He whispered into her ear. “Tick-tock, LuAnn. Tick-tock of the little clock. Like a magnet, it led you right to me. I held the phone right next to it so you couldn't help but hear it. I told you I find out everything about someone I do business with. I visited your trailer in good old Rikersville. I listened to the rather unique sounds of that timepiece several times. And then seeing it on the wall of the bedroom the night I first visited you. Your little, cheap family heirloom.” He laughed. “I would have loved to have seen your face when you thought you had outsmarted me. Was it a happy face, LuAnn? Was it?”

Jackson's smile deepened as he felt her giving way, her vaunted strength almost gone. “Now don't forget your daughter. There she is.” He hit a light switch and swung her around violently so that she could see Lisa reaching for her. “She'll watch you die, LuAnn. And then it will be her turn. You cost me a family member. Someone I loved. How does it feel to be responsible for her death?” He yanked on the cord harder and harder. “Die, LuAnn. Just give in to it. Close your eyes and just stop breathing. Just do it. It's so easy. Just do it. Do it for me. You know you want to,” he hissed.

LuAnn's eyes were close to erupting out of their sockets now, her lungs almost dead. She felt like she was deep under water; she would give anything to take one breath, just one long drink of air. As LuAnn listened to those taunting words she was swept back to a graveyard, to a plot of dirt, to a small brass marker in the ground many years ago. Exactly where she was heading. Do it for Big Daddy, LuAnn. It's so easy. Come and see Big Daddy. You know you want to.

From the corner of her blood-filled right eye she could barely see Lisa silently screaming for her mother, reaching for her across a chasm that was barely seconds from becoming eternal. At that very moment and from a place so deep that LuAnn never even knew she possessed it, there came a rush of strength so unbelievably powerful that it almost knocked her over. With a shriek, LuAnn jerked upright and then bent forward, lifting an astonished Jackson completely off the floor in the process. She clamped her arms around his legs so that she was carrying him piggyback style. Then she exploded backward, her legs pumping like a long jumper about to erupt into flight until she slammed Jackson violently into the heavy dresser against the wall. The sharp wooden edge caught him dead on the spine.

He screamed in pain but hung on to the cord. LuAnn reached up and dug her fingernails right into the recent wound on his hand—the one from the fight at the cottage—tearing the cut wide open. Jackson screamed again and this time he let go of the cord. Feeling the rope go lax, LuAnn whipped her torso forward and Jackson went flying over her shoulders and crashing into a mirror hanging on the wall.

LuAnn staggered drunkenly around in the middle of the room sucking in huge amounts of air. She reached up to her throat and pulled off the cord. Then her eyes settled dead center on the man.

Jackson grabbed at his injured back and struggled to stand up. It was too little too late, as with a guttural scream LuAnn pounced. She flattened him to the floor and pinned him there. Her legs clamped against his, immobilizing them. Her hands encircled his throat and now his face started to turn blue. The grip he felt against his throat was ten times as strong as the one he had battled on the cottage porch. He looked into her blood-filled eyes, red with burst capillaries from her near strangling, and he knew there was no way he could ever break her choke hold. His hands groped the floor as she continued to squeeze the life out of him. A series of visions proceeded across his mind, but there was no rush of strength to accompany it. His body started to go limp. His eyes rolled in their sockets, his neck constricted to the breaking point under the ever increasing pressure. His fingers finally closed around a bit of glass from the shattered mirror and held. He swung it upward, catching her in the arm and cutting through her clothing and into her skin. She didn't release her grip. He cut her again and then again but to no avail. She was beyond pain; she would simply not let go.

Finally, with the last bit of strength he had left, his fingers felt under her arm and he pressed as hard as he could. Suddenly, LuAnn's arms went dead as Jackson found the pressure point and her grip was abruptly broken. In an instant he had pushed her off and sprinted across the room, gasping for breath.

LuAnn watched in horror as he grabbed Lisa's chair and dragged it across the room to the window. She got to her feet, flying toward them. She knew exactly what he was going to do, but damn if she was going to let him do it. He was lifting the chair and Lisa with it, and LuAnn dove for it, her hand closing around her daughter's leg as the chair smashed against the window that overlooked the brick patio almost thirty feet below. LuAnn and Lisa crashed to the floor amid the shattered glass.

Jackson tried to snatch up her gun but LuAnn was one step ahead of him. LuAnn's leg flew up and caught Jackson, who had strayed a little too close, directly in the crotch. He bent down, groaning. She jumped up and landed a powerful right hand squarely against Jackson's chin. He went down to the floor.

In the distance they all heard the police sirens coming. Jackson swore under his breath, picked himself up, and, clutching his privates, raced through the doorway.

LuAnn let him go, slamming and locking the door behind him. Screaming and crying in relief, she gently pulled off the tape and undid the ropes holding Lisa. Mother and daughter held each other tightly. LuAnn clutched at Lisa's body, she pushed her face in Lisa's hair, her nose drank in every wonderful smell of her little girl. Then LuAnn stood and picked up her gun and fired two shots out the window.

Riggs and Charlie and the FBI agents were engaged in an animated discussion at the entrance to the private road when they heard the shots. Riggs threw the car in gear and roared up the road. The FBI agents ran to their car.

Jackson bolted down the hallway, suddenly stopped, and looked in Sally Beecham's bedroom. Empty. He spied the gun on the floor and snatched it up. Then he heard the pounding. He raced to the kitchen and unlocked and threw open the pantry door. Roger Crane, squinting and quivering, stumbled out.

“Thank God, Peter. She had a gun. She put me in here. I . . . I did exactly as you told me.”

“Thank you, Roger.” He lifted up the pistol. “Tell Alicia I said hello.” Then he fired point blank into his brother's face. The next instant he was out the door and racing across the lawn for the woods.

As they jumped out of their car Riggs saw Jackson first and sprinted after him. Charlie, despite his weakened state, was right behind. When the lawmen pulled up seconds later, they ran to the house.

LuAnn met them on the stairs. “Where are Matthew and Charlie?”

The men looked at each other. “I saw somebody running into the woods,” one of them answered.

They all ran out onto the front lawn. That's when they heard it, the drone of the helicopter as the blades cut through the rain and wind. It landed on the front lawn. They all saw the FBI insignia on the side. The group raced over; LuAnn and Lisa reached it first.

Several police cars pulled up next to the fountain and a small army of officers poured out.

George Masters climbed out of the helicopter followed by a team of FBI agents. He looked at her. “LuAnn Tyler?” She nodded. Masters looked at Lisa. “Your daughter?”

“Yes,” LuAnn said.

“Thank God.” He let out a deep sigh of relief and held out his hand. “George Masters, FBI. I came into town to interview Charlie Thomas. When I got to the hospital he was gone.”

“We've got to go after Jackson, I mean Peter Crane. He went into the woods,” LuAnn said. “Matthew and Charlie went after him. But I want Lisa safe. I can't leave her without knowing she'll be completely safe.”

Masters looked between mother and daughter, spitting images of each other. Then he looked at the helicopter.

“We'll transport her to the FBI office here in Charlottesville in this helicopter. I'll put her smack in the center of a room with a half dozen heavily armed FBI agents. That good enough?” He smiled weakly.

A grateful look crossed her face. “Yes. Thanks for understanding.”

“I've got children too, LuAnn.”

While Masters gave instructions to the pilot, LuAnn gave Lisa one more hug and kiss and then turned and raced for the woods, a swarm of FBI agents and police officers right behind her. As fleet of foot as she was, and knowing the terrain as well as she did, she soon left them far behind.

Riggs could hear the feet flying in front of him. Charlie had dropped back a bit, but Riggs could hear his heavy breathing not far behind. The woods were wreathed in almost complete darkness and the rain continued to pour down. Riggs blinked his eyes rapidly to gain some degree of night vision. He pulled his gun, slipped the safety off with a quick punch of his finger. Then he halted abruptly as the sounds ahead of him stopped. He crouched and swept the area with his eyes, his gun making wide arcs. He heard the sound behind him an instant too late as the foot slammed into his back, sending him lunging forward and then down. He hit the wet ground hard, his face sliding painfully across the grass and dirt, and he ended up slamming against a tree, his gun smacking hard against the trunk. The impact caused his wounded arm to start bleeding again. When he flipped over on his back, he saw the man flying at him, the foot poised to deliver another crunching blow. Then Charlie blindsided Jackson and the two men went sprawling.

An incensed Charlie pounded Jackson with his fists and then cocked his arm back to deliver a knock-out punch. Quick as an eel, Jackson made a direct hit on Charlie's wound, a blow that made him scream and double over. Then, with the same motion employed in striking a cymbal, Jackson smashed both palms against Charlie's ears, forcing a sudden, painful rush of air into his ear canals and rupturing an eardrum. Nauseated and dizzy from the combined blows, Charlie fell off Jackson and lay on the ground groaning.

“I should've slit your throat at the motel,” Jackson spat down at him. Jackson was about to deliver a crushing kick to Charlie's head when he heard Riggs scream at him.

“Get the hell away from him before I blow your damn head off.”

When Jackson looked over, Riggs's gun was pointed directly at him. Jackson stepped away from Charlie.

“Finally, we meet. Riggs the criminal. How about discussing a financial arrangement that will make you very rich?” Jackson said. His voice was hoarse and weak from his near strangling by LuAnn. He clutched at his torn hand; his face was bleeding from Charlie's blows.

“I'm not a criminal, asshole. I was an FBI agent who testified against a cartel. That's why I was in Witness Protection.”

Jackson circled closer to Riggs. “Ex-FBI? Well, then at least I'm certain you won't shoot me down in cold blood.” He pointed a warning finger at Riggs. “Understand though, if I go down, so does LuAnn. I'll tell your former employers that she was in on everything, even helped me plan it. I'll paint a picture so dark that she'll be grateful for a life sentence. My attorneys will see to that. But don't worry, I understand you can have yearly conjugal visits in some prisons now.”

“You're going to rot in jail.”

“I hardly think that. I can only imagine what sort of deal I can cut with the Feds. I would think they'd do anything to avoid public disclosure of all this. When this is all over, I'm sure I'll be seeing you again. In fact, I look forward to it.”

Jackson's mocking tones burned through every fiber of Riggs's body. What was even more maddening was the fact that everything Jackson had predicted could very well happen. But it wouldn't, Riggs swore to himself. “That's where you're wrong,” Riggs said.

“About what?”

“About killing you in cold blood.” Riggs pulled the trigger. The sound that didn't occur seemed to drive all the blood from Riggs's body. The gun didn't fire; the impact with the tree had jammed it. He pulled the trigger again with the same sickening result.

Jackson instantly drew his own gun and pointed it at Riggs.

Riggs dropped the useless pistol and backed up as Jackson advanced. He finally stopped retreating when his foot felt nothing but air. He looked behind him: a sheer drop. Down below, the fast-moving water. He looked back at Jackson, who smiled and then fired.

The bullet hit right in front of Riggs's feet and he stepped back a half inch, teetering on the edge.

“Let's see how well you swim with no arms.” The next shot hit Riggs's good arm. He grunted in pain and doubled over, clutching it, trying to maintain his balance. Then he looked up at the sneering face of Jackson.

“Take the bullet or the jump, it's your choice. But do it quick, I don't have much time.”

Riggs had only an instant. As he crouched over, the arm that had just been hit slid up the length of his sling—a very natural movement under the circumstances. Jackson had underestimated his resourcefulness. Jackson wasn't the only one who had lived by his wits, who had gotten himself out of tight spots by acting nimbly. What Riggs was about to do had saved his life while working undercover during a drug deal that had gone sour. It would not save his life this time. But it would save several others, including one that he cared more about than his own: LuAnn's.

He locked eyes with Jackson. His anger was so intense that it blocked out the pain in both arms. His hand closed around the butt of the compact gun taped inside his sling, the one he had originally had in his ankle holster. Its muzzle was pointed right at Jackson. Wounded arm and all, his aim was as sharp as ever. And Jackson was only a few feet away. But Riggs had to make the first shot count.

“Riggs!” Charlie screamed.

Jackson didn't take his eyes off Riggs. “You're next, Uncle Charlie.”

Matt Riggs would never forget the look on Jackson's face as the first shot Riggs fired erupted through the sling and hit the man flush in the face, tearing first through the powder, putty, and spirit gum, and then slamming a microsecond later into real flesh and bone. The gun fell from an astonished Jackson's hand.

Riggs kept pulling the trigger, sending bullet after bullet slamming into Jackson. Head, torso, leg, arm—there wasn't a piece of him Riggs missed until the firing pin banged empty twelve shots later. And all the time Jackson's countenance held a look of supreme disbelief as blood mixed with fake hair and skin; creams and powders mutated into a dull crimson. The total effect was eerie, as though the man were dissolving. Then Jackson dropped to his knees, blood pouring from a dozen wounds, and then he fell face forward to the ground and did not move again. His last performance.

That's when Riggs went fully over the edge. The multiple kicks from the pistol were enough to completely unsettle his balance, and his feet were unable to counter the slippery red clay. But as he went over, a look of grim satisfaction came over his face even as he stared down at the abyss he was plummeting toward. Two useless arms, both bleeding him to death, deep, fast, icy water, nothing to grab. It was over.

He heard Charlie scream his name one more time, and then he heard nothing else. He felt no pain now, only peace. He hit the water awkwardly and went under.

Charlie scrambled over and was just about to plunge in when a body hurtled by him and went over the edge.

LuAnn broke the surface of the water cleanly and almost instantly reappeared. She scanned the surface of the rapidly moving water that was already pulling her downstream.

From the bank, Charlie stumbled along through the thick trees and heavy underbrush, trying to keep up. The shouts of the FBI agents and police officers were getting louder, but it didn't look as though their help would arrive in time.

“Matthew!” LuAnn screamed. Nothing. She dove under, methodically pushing off from bank to bank searching for him. Twenty seconds later she resurfaced, sucking in air.

“LuAnn!” Charlie yelled at her.

She ignored his cries. As the cold rain pelted her, she sucked in another lungful of air and went under again. Charlie stopped, his eyes darting everywhere, trying to pinpoint where she would come up. He wasn't about to lose both of them.

When LuAnn broke the surface again she wasn't alone. She gripped Riggs tightly around the chest as the current swept them along. He gagged and spit up water as his lungs struggled to function again. She tried to swim cross-current but was making little progress. She was freezing. In another minute hypothermia could well incapacitate her. Riggs was sheer dead weight, and she felt her strength fading. She scissored her legs around his upper torso, angling just enough that his face was above the water's surface. She kept putting pressure on his stomach, making his diaphragm kick up and down, helping him clear his lungs.

She looked desperately behind her, searching for some way out. Her eyes fell upon a fallen tree, and, more important, the thick branch that was suspended partially out over the water. It would be close. She readied herself, gauging the distance and height. She tensed her legs around Riggs and then made her lunge. Her hands closed around the branch and held. She raised herself up. She and Riggs were now partially out of the water. She tried to pull herself up more, but couldn't; Riggs was too heavy. She looked down and saw him staring at her, his breath coming in short gasps. Then she watched horrified as he started to unwrap her legs from around him.

“Matthew, don't! Please!”

Through blue lips that moved in a painfully slow manner he said, “We're not going to both die, LuAnn.” He pushed her legs again and she was now fighting him and the current and the weary ache in her limbs as the numbing cold settled deeply within her. Her lips were trembling with both rage and helplessness. She looked down at him again as he tried desperately to free himself, to rid her of the burden. She could simply let go, fall with him, but what about Lisa? She had seconds to make a choice, but then she didn't have to. For the first time in her life, her strength failed, and her grip was broken. She started to plummet downward.

The thick arm that clamped around her body ended her fall and the next thing she felt was herself and Riggs being lifted completely out of the water.

She cocked her head back and her eyes fell upon his face.

Straddling the tree trunk, Charlie, bad arm and all, grunted and grimaced and finally pulled them safely to a narrow dirt bank where they all three collapsed, the water inches from them. LuAnn's legs were still locked in a death grip around Riggs. She lay back, her head on Charlie's chest, which was heaving mightily from his efforts. LuAnn slid her right hand down to Riggs, who took it, laying it against his cheek. Her left hand went up and gripped Charlie's shoulder. He covered her hand with his. None of them said a word.

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

“Well, it's all done,” Riggs said, gingerly hanging up the phone. They were in his home office, LuAnn, Charlie, and Lisa. A gentle snow was falling outside. Christmas was rapidly closing in.

“So what's the bottom line?” LuAnn asked.

LuAnn and Charlie were healed. Riggs was out of his sling, and the cast he had had to wear to mend the bone Jackson's bullet had broken had recently been removed as well. He still moved slowly, though.

“Not great. The IRS finished its calculations of the back taxes you owed, penalties and interest all compounded for the last eight or so years.”

“And?”

“And it came to all the cash you had, all the investments you had, and all the property you had, including Wicken's Hunt.” He managed a grin, trying to ease the impact of the depressing news. “You were actually short sixty-five cents so I threw it in for you, no charge.”

Charlie snorted. “What a Christmas present. And the other lottery winners get to keep all their money. That's not fair.”

“They paid their taxes, Charlie,” Riggs replied.

“She's paid taxes.”

“Only since coming back to this country and only under the name Catherine Savage.”

“Well, she couldn't before. Not without probably going to prison for a crime she didn't commit.”

“Well, gee, that's a real winning argument.”

“Yeah, but they all won by cheating too,” Charlie retorted.

“Well, the government isn't about to announce that to the world. They make billions off the lottery. Telling the truth might just mess that up, don't you think?”

“How about all the millions she gave to charity, doesn't that count for something?” Charlie said angrily.

“The IRS applauded LuAnn's generosity but said they really couldn't help on that because she had never filed a return. I'm telling you it's not a bad deal. She could have gone to prison for a long time over this. Except for that fact, she probably could have kept some of the money. But that was a very real threat over her head. Sheriff Harvey didn't go away very easily.”

“I can't believe this crap. After all she's been through. She broke up Crane's worldwide criminal syndicate, the FBI looks like heroes, they confiscated all his property, billions of bucks into the Treasury, and she winds up with nothing. Not even a pat on the back. It's not fair!”

LuAnn put a hand on a seething Charlie's shoulder. “It's okay, Charlie. I didn't deserve any of that money. And I wanted to pay what I owed. I just want to be LuAnn Tyler again. I told Matthew that. But I didn't murder anyone. All the charges against me are gone, right?” She looked at Riggs for confirmation.

“That's right. Federal, state, everything. Free as a bird.”

“Yeah, and poor as a church mouse,” Charlie added angrily.

“Is that it, Matthew? They can't come back on me later? The IRS, I mean? For more money?”

“All the papers are signed. They dropped everything. It's over. They confiscated all your accounts, they foreclosed on the house. Anyway, even if they came after you, which they can't, you don't have any more money.”

Lisa looked at him. “Maybe we can move in here, Mom.” She added quickly, “I mean for a little while.” She looked between LuAnn and Riggs nervously. LuAnn smiled at Lisa. Telling her daughter the entire truth had been the hardest thing she had ever had to do. But the second she had finished, she had never felt greater relief. Lisa had taken the news admirably. Now at least their relationship could take on a semblance of normalcy.

Riggs looked at LuAnn, a little nervous himself. “I was thinking along those lines myself.” He swallowed hard. “Can you excuse us for a minute?” he asked Charlie and Lisa.

He took LuAnn by the arm and they left the room. Charlie and Lisa watched them go and then exchanged smiles.

Riggs sat LuAnn down by the fireplace and stood in front of her. “I'd love for all of you to move in here. There's plenty of room. But—” He looked down.

“But what?” she asked.

“I was thinking about a more permanent arrangement.”

“I see.”

“I mean, I earn a good living and, well, now that you don't have all that money.” She cocked her head at him as he blew out a deep breath. “I just never wanted you to think I was after you because of your wealth. It would've driven me crazy. It was like this big roadblock I couldn't get around. I don't want you to think that I'm happy you're not rich anymore. If there had been some way for you to keep the money, that would've been great. But, now that you don't have it, I just want you to know . . .” Here he stumbled again, unable to continue, suddenly terrified at the deep waters he had ventured into.

“I love you, Matthew,” LuAnn said simply.

Riggs's features fully relaxed. He didn't look terrified anymore. In fact, he couldn't remember ever being this happy before. “I love you too, LuAnn Tyler.”

“Have you ever been to Switzerland?” she asked.

He looked surprised. “No. Why?”

“I always thought about honeymooning there. It's so romantic, so beautiful. Especially at Christmas time.”

Riggs looked troubled. “Well, sweetie, I work hard, but small-town, one-man-shop general contractors don't make enough money to do those sorts of things. I'm sorry.” He licked his lips nervously. “I'll understand if you can't accept that, after all these years of being so rich.”

In response, LuAnn opened her purse and took out a slip of paper. On it was an account number at a bank in Switzerland. The account had been opened with one hundred million dollars: Jackson's return of her principal. It was all there, just waiting. It cranked out six million a year in interest alone. She would retain her lottery prize after all. And she wasn't feeling any guilt about it this time around. Right now in fact, it seemed like she had earned it. She had spent the last ten years trying to be someone she wasn't. It had been a life of great wealth and great misery. Now she was going to spend the rest of her life being who she really was and enjoying it. She had a beautiful, healthy daughter and two men who loved her. No more running, no more hiding for LuAnn Tyler. She was truly blessed.

She smiled at him, stroked his face.

“You know what, Matthew?”

“What?”

Right before she kissed him she said, “I think we'll be just fine.”

The End