It was all Maddie could do not to suck in telltale air.
“I don’t have anything to tell you.” She forced a little laugh. Her only hope was that it didn’t sound as fake to him as it did to her. “What could I possibly have to tell you? And, just for the record, Jon’s not my boyfriend. He’s my employee. We work together, and we’re friends. We don’t sleep together.”
McCabe smiled. If he hadn’t been an FBI agent, Maddie realized with some surprise, she might actually be feeling kind of attracted to him about now.
“Duly noted.”
His smile deepened. Oh, God, he had dimples. Deep ones on either side of his mouth. Maddie looked, blinked, then realized that she really, really didn’t want to go there. Brows twitching together, she glanced pointedly down at his hand wrapped around her wrist. “Would you mind letting me go now?”
“What?” He looked down at their linked hands, too, and then let go. “Oh, sure.”
“Is there anything else?” Maddie was already reaching for the door handle. “Because I have a plane to catch.”
“Just one more thing.” He was leaning back in his seat, his hands resting casually on the bottom of the steering wheel, his head turned slightly toward her. Her whole side was pressed against the door now. Her hand curled around the handle, and it was all she could do not to simply release it, open the door, and bolt. “Even if the attack on you was a mistake, even if you were not the intended victim, that doesn’t let you off the hook, you realize. This guy, whoever he is, attacked you, and you escaped. You lived. You’re a witness. He may believe that you can identify him. It’s very possible that he might be coming after you to finish the job.”
Maddie’s eyes widened. That aspect of the situation hadn’t occurred to her. In other words, even if she hadn’t been the intended victim originally, now she was? What was this, 101 reasons for someone to want to kill her?
“I can offer you protection. Someone to stay with you twenty-four hours a day until we get this creep.”
Maddie’s breath caught. Like she was going to accept protection from the FBI? On any other day, in any other mood, she would have laughed.
“No,” she said. “No, no, no. I just want to forget all about this. I just want to go home.”
And with that she opened the door and stepped out into the enervating heat. Something—rising too swiftly, the lack of sleep and food, the multiple traumas she’d suffered over the course of the last twenty-four hours, who knew?—made her suddenly light-headed. The world seemed to tilt, and she had to steady herself with a hand on the car roof. The metal was hot and faintly gritty from dust. The sun bouncing off the pavement was blinding. The smell of melting asphalt was strong.
“Forgot your briefcase,” McCabe called after her, and Maddie stiffened. Then she sucked it up one more time, turned, and dragged her briefcase out of the footwell. The last words he said to her as she slammed the door shut were, “You take care of yourself, Miz Fitzgerald.”
NINE
What the hell were you thinking?” Smolski swiveled in his chair, his eyes almost bugging out of his head as they fixed on Sam. His scream was loud enough to make Gardner jump, and it wasn’t even directed at her. Sam, at whom it was directed, grimaced. Wynne, who was only a secondary target, took a step back. “That thing made us look like the fucking Keystone Cops!”
It was just before six p.m., and they were standing like a trio of schoolkids who had been called before the principal in the uber-luxurious cabin of a private jet that had touched down on the tarmac at New Orleans some twenty minutes earlier. Smolski was seated in a bone leather chair that seconds before had been facing a wide-screen plasma TV. A video clip of the morning incident with Gene Markham of WGMB had just ended with a close-up of Sam’s middle finger riding high.
“It was a quick-response kind of situation. We just happened to have read it wrong,” Sam said by way of an explanation. It was lame, and he knew it. The whole situation had been farcical, and he’d made it ten times worse by flipping the news guy the bird. It was juvenile, and he should have known better.
“We thought he was coming after her with a weapon,” Wynne added. Big mistake. It sounded like an excuse, and if there was anything Smolski hated more than screwups, it was excuses.
“You thought he was coming after her with a weapon,” Smolski mimicked in a savage falsetto. “It was a fucking microphone, you morons. You drew on a TV reporter in the middle of a crowded city street. And they got it all on TV.”
There wasn’t much to say to that except “Sorry, my bad,” and Sam refrained. One thing he’d learned in the six years he’d spent working under Smolski in the Violent Crimes division was that being an FBI agent meant never venturing to say you were sorry—because if you did, Smolski would wipe the floor with you. Smolski put no more stock in apologies than he did in excuses. He wanted it done right the first time, and he wanted it done yesterday. The head of Violent Crimes was a former Marine who’d once been muscular but had now gone to flabby seed, and despite the thousand-dollar suit he wore, there was no hiding the roll of pudge that hung over his belt. He had a Mediterranean complexion and thinning black hair. His nose was big; his eyes and mouth were small. His temper was legendary.
Fortunately, at least as far as Sam was concerned, Smolski’s bark was worse than his bite.
“I thought we agreed to keep this thing on the down-low? All we need is the media on our asses, telling the whole world how people are being knocked off like ducks in a shooting gallery while you guys make like the Three Stooges. To say nothing of the fact that if the public finds out that the UNSUB’s calling you on your cell phone, we might as well throw the damned thing out the window because everybody and his mother will start calling that number and the killer will never be able to get through.” Smolski was still yelling loud enough to cause Melody, his longtime administrative assistant, to make a sympathetic face at Sam behind her boss’s back. A plumpish, blue-eyed brunette in a navy pantsuit, she was a nice girl—well, a nice woman now, thirty-three years old, married with a couple of kids. She’d once been a babe, and when she’d first come to work at headquarters, Sam had taken her out a few times. The fling had fizzled when it had become obvious that Melody wanted forever while Sam was allergic to same. But she still retained a soft spot for him, which Sam from time to time took shameless advantage of.
Now, while Smolski spread the love by glaring at Wynne again, Sam seized the moment to nod significantly at the white telephone on the console behind Smolski.
She looked shocked, and then the corners of her lips quivered. Good girl, Melody.
Melody disappeared from view, and Smolski redirected his vitriol toward Sam. “You got anything? Huh? You got anything? Hell, no, you don’t got anything, because if you did, I’d already know about it. You’ve been chasing around the country after this guy for a month now. You’ve been spending money like you think you’re the fucking Sultan of Brunei. And you got what to show for it? A TV clip that’s an embarrassment to the Bureau, and that’s it. The vice president got a call from his sister, who lives here in New Orleans, complaining about my guys pulling weapons on a streetful of innocent civilians. ‘Deal with it,’ he says to me, so I have to interrupt my trip to L.A., make a big detour to stop here, and for what? I’ll tell you for what: to kick your guys’ asses from here to Sunday. What were you thinking? You ...”
The telephone rang, cutting Smolski off in full spiel. Melody reappeared to answer the phone, and Smolski turned his head to listen while Melody had a brief conversation with whomever was on the other end. Melody then held the phone out to her boss.
“Your wife,” she said to Smolski, who took the receiver with obvious reluctance.
“Cripes,” he said, one hand covering the mouthpiece. “Why didn’t you tell her I’m in a meeting? She’s been badgering me to go to some damned fund-raiser for PETA or something. I’ve had my cell phone turned off all day. How the hell did she know where to reach me?”
Smolski spent much of his life
doing his best to avoid his wife, who spent much of hers tracking him down. Sam was willing to bet that Melody, a kindhearted sort, had just alerted Mrs. Smolski to her errant hubby’s availability to take a call.
Smolski uncovered the mouthpiece, said, “Hang on a minute, honey, I’m dealing with a situation here,” listened, winced, said, “Of course I’m not trying to avoid you. I promise, just one minute,” and covered the mouthpiece again.
“You guys get the hell out of here.” He dismissed them with an angry wave of his hand. “I see any more dumb moves like you pulled today, and I’ll bust you down to file clerks. You understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
Acting on the dismissal with alacrity, Gardner was already on the steps that led down to the tarmac, Wynne was in the doorway right behind her, and Sam was bringing up the rear by the time Smolski had the phone to his ear again.
“Thanks, Mel,” Sam whispered to Melody, who had followed them to the door.
“Anytime.” She smiled at him, and for a moment he had a bad pang of the might-have-beens. But there were a lot of might-have-beens littering his life, and so he shrugged this particular one off, clasped the metal handrail, and headed down the steps. It was overcast and drizzling now—no more than a light mist, really—but enough to make steam come up off the pavement, so it looked as though they were stepping down into a cloud. Sam wasn’t bothered by the fine drops that beaded on his face and dampened his clothes, but the moisture caused Wynne’s hair to frizz even more than usual and wilted Gardner’s short-and-spiky look, which, by way of a change, this week she had dyed fire-engine red.
“And, by the way, you guys look like shit!” Smolski’s voice followed them. The bellow was muffled, but neither Sam nor Wynne nor Gardner nor the half-dozen mechanics and luggage handlers in the vicinity had any trouble hearing it. “Shave! Put on some decent clothes! Do something about your hair! Quit embarrassing me!”
“The sad thing is, that’s the most excitement I’ve had today,” Gardner said pensively as they dodged an orange luggage cart and headed toward the terminal. A commercial jet raced toward takeoff in the background, the roar of its engines blunted by distance. “Do you think he’ll really be named head of the Bureau?”
“I heard it’s a done deal,” Wynne said.
“They’re waiting to announce it until after Mosley”—Ed Mosley was the current FBI director—“announces his retirement. That won’t be till after the election.” As he spoke, Sam absentmindedly watched the jet that had just taken off do a graceful U-turn and head north, rising until it disappeared within the lowering bank of iron-gray clouds that covered the sky.
“So, who’s going to replace Smolski?” Gardner wondered aloud.
Sam shrugged. They had reached the terminal by this time. Wynne pulled open the glass door that led to the escalator that would take them up to the main level, then stood back to let Gardner precede him. She walked in, swinging her butt provocatively. It was a J.Lo butt, big and curvy in a clingy black skirt, and Wynne could hardly tear his eyes from it. Her equally generous breasts jiggled like water balloons beneath a pink silk blouse. Her waist was cinched by a wide black belt pulled so tight that Sam wondered how she could breathe. He also wondered, just in passing, where she was carrying her gun. Did they have bra holsters now? Deciding he really didn’t want to go there, Sam followed them inside, only half listening to their conversation. Wynne’s face was turning shades of puce as Gardner continued to do her high-heeled strut in front of him all the way to the escalator. As the three of them rode it up, Sam, still bringing up the rear, shook his head. Poor guy had it bad for Gardner, and the sad thing was that, knowing Wynne, he was never going to do anything about it. As far as he himself was concerned, Gardner had all the right equipment even if it was a little abundant for his taste, and she was attractive enough with her bright blue eyes and big, bold features that matched her five-foot-ten, big-boned frame, but he was not going there. No way, no how.
As his grandma told him nearly every time he saw her, it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that zing.
“You drive,” Sam said to Wynne, tossing him the keys as they reached the Saturn, which they’d left in short-term parking. He’d already punched the button to unlock the car, and Gardner was already sliding into the front passenger seat. Sam had no doubt that she would spend the drive back to the hotel, where they’d set up shop, crossing and uncrossing her legs at him, just like she’d done on the drive out to the airport. She was going to so much trouble to be provocative, Sam thought, that the least he could do was provide her with an appreciative audience.
Namely, Wynne.
“Don’t wreck us,” Sam added as an afterthought, only then considering the possible consequences of Gardner’s come-hither act on Wynne, but it was too late. Wynne was already making himself at home behind the wheel, and, anyway, Sam personally was just too damned tired to drive. The headlights coming at them as they pulled around the spiral exit ramp were blurry, and his head pounded like the bass on a teenager’s stereo. Plus, the interior of the car smelled of cheap vinyl, stale cigarettes, and Wynne’s everlasting gum. The combination didn’t do a thing for his stomach, which was quivering on the verge of nausea.
God, just how long had it been now since he’d had any sleep? He didn’t even want to think about it.
In the front seat, Gardner crossed and uncrossed her legs at Wynne for at least the third time, with a predictably deleterious effect on his driving. It was rush hour, and traffic on the interstate heading back into the city was heavy. The rain was coming down more steadily now, and the roads were slick. The windshield wipers swished back and forth with the mind-numbing rhythm of a metronome.
Wynne, distracted, was one scary-ass driver. There was only one thing to do, Sam decided, if he wished to preserve life and limb, and that was distract Gardner from distracting Wynne.
“So tell us about Madeline Fitzgerald. The live one,” Sam said to her.
“Anybody ever tell you you’re a slave driver, McCabe?” Gardner protested good-naturedly, despite tugging her briefcase onto her lap and rooting some papers out of one of the pockets. Glancing down at them, she turned in the seat to look at him. “What do you want to know?”
“Why don’t you start all over again?”
Gardner had been in the process of filling them in on their survivor when Smolski’s call had come in, ordering them to meet him at the airport. A fresh start without worrying about how hard Smolski was getting ready to come down on them would probably be a good thing. Especially since all three of them were so tired that their brains were sputtering along like a car getting down to its last few drops of gas.
Gardner looked down at the papers again. “Madeline Elaine Fitzgerald, twenty-nine years old, owner of Creative Partners advertising agency, which she purchased nineteen months ago from the previous owner, who sold because of poor health. Previous to that she was an employee of said advertising agency for two years. Previous to that she was an independent contractor for an outfit selling advertising space in various local publications. A BA in business administration from Western Illinois University. Parents, John and Elaine Fitzgerald, deceased. He was a dentist, she was a homemaker. No siblings. Never married. Pays her bills on time. No arrest record.”
“Any history of gambling?” Wynne asked, easing into the slow lane as an eighteen-wheeler shot past on the left with a tooth-rattling roar.
“Nothing showed up.”
A vision of Maddie as he had last seen her rose in Sam’s mind’s eye. Big brown eyes, lush mouth, luxuriant hair, slender, alluring body, legs that went on forever. Tons of sex appeal, as he personally could testify, and a lot of class besides. Business owner. College degree. Should ooze self-confidence. But there’d been insecurity there. And hostility, too. In fact, he’d almost gotten the impression that she was afraid of something. Afraid of him.
“What about boyfriends? How’s her romantic history?” he asked.
“We don’t have any
thing on that yet. This is just a preliminary report. I haven’t had time to really dig down deep.”
“Keep working on it.”
“You have Gomez picking her up on the other end?” Wynne cut back into the middle lane again. Sam couldn’t help glancing around warily. There was a minivan to the left, a compact car to the right....
“Yeah,” Sam said. Pete Gomez was an agent in the St. Louis field office. “He’ll be with her from the time she steps off the plane.”
Wynne chuckled. “She won’t like that.”
“She won’t know about it. Unless she needs to.” Sam’s meaning was clear: Maddie would only find out about Gomez if he had to step in and save her ass.
“Still think our UNSUB’s going to go after her?” Gardner asked.
Sam was so sure of it that, barring an act of God, he planned to have them all in St. Louis within the next twenty-four hours. “Wouldn’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Gardner said, frowning. “It depends on a couple of things. Number one, if she was the intended target—and the other Madeline Fitzgerald has a lot more red flags in her background, so it seems unlikely at this point—then he will definitely go after her. Number two, if he thinks she can identify him, then he will go after her. But barring either of those circumstances, I ...
Sam’s cell phone rang.
He jumped. Gardner’s eyes widened. Wynne almost drove off the damned road.
“Watch where the hell you’re going,” Sam growled at Wynne, digging in his pocket for his phone, which continued to ring. As Wynne straightened the car out with a muttered “sorry,” Sam dragged the phone free and squinted to read the number in the ID box. Because of the rain, the street-lights were on, and the bright beams of cars going in the opposite direction slashed through the Saturn’s interior. If it hadn’t been for that, Sam wasn’t sure he would have been able to make out what was written in the little box.
Error, it said.
“Jesus. I think it might be him.” His pulse shot into instant overdrive as he flipped open the phone and spoke into it. “McCabe.”
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