I thought about the case. So I’d been summoned. Of course I was going to go. There were way too many unanswered questions not to. I knew Gina was most likely safe and that she was less than an hour away in Port Townsend. I will admit, realizing that she knew that I knew her whereabouts was a little odd. Maybe I’d been chasing her bread crumbs that she’d left for me all along. As if I was supposed to find these things. Gina had it all figured out, even down to the timing. Was she that good?
In the end, though, I’m not certain it mattered whether I found her, or whether she allowed herself to be discovered. Either way, I could make a visual determination that she was okay. If she wanted me to, I could escort her safely home. If she didn’t want that, at least I could report back to her parents that I’d found her and that she was safe. However it turned out, the job would be done, and we’d earn our pay. I was satisfied. Move on.
Still, despite feeling that I was fast approaching a resolution that should lead to at least a semi-positive result, I couldn’t escape the nagging feeling that comes when you realize that you don’t know everything, you’re not in control of the unfolding events, and things can still go horribly wrong. Of course, you’re never in total control, but at least you’d like to feel that you had an edge. That’s pretty much what Sun Tzu was all about, how to capture that edge by having the control. Fight the battles according to your strengths, not your opponent’s. Attack your opponent where he was weak, not where he was strong.
In my case, though, I had the uneasy feeling that I had only the knowledge that Gina wanted me to have. I wasn’t certain where this left me. I didn’t know her game. I didn’t know her motive. I didn’t know what was driving her. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. The way she was messing with me, I wasn’t even sure if we were on the same side anymore.
~~~~
The ferry docked at Kingston, on the west side of Puget Sound, at a quarter after two. Ten minutes later, I drove off the boat and was on my way. The first thing I did was grab my cell phone and call Toni at her home.
“I just tried your place,” she said. “I was just about to try your cell.”
“And here I am, just like magic,” I said. “Must be psychic.”
“Must be,” she agreed. “Where are you?”
“I just got off the ferry in Kingston.”
I must have surprised her because the line was silent for a few seconds. “The hell are you doing in Kingston?” she asked. Before I could answer, she said, “Wait a minute—you’re going to Port Townsend, aren’t you?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Don’t be coy with me,” she said. “You talked to Robbie, and he told you something, didn’t he?”
Did I mention the fact that Toni’s quick?
“I talked to him this morning,” I admitted. “And yes, he confirmed that Gina does, in fact, call him every other night. He told me she was in Port Townsend.”
“So after you interviewed him without me, you decided to drive on up to Port Townsend, again without me. Why?” she asked. “Oh, wait. I know. You’re thinking you’re going to see your mystery woman up there, aren’t you. I’d be in the way, and nature might not be able to take its proper course, so best that I remain behind. Don’t want to fuck with nature taking its proper course and all.”
This was starting to spin out of control. “It’s not like that,” I said. “Let’s be professional—” The word had no sooner escaped my lips than I immediately wished I could grab it and put it back before she heard it. No such luck.
“Professional?” she asked, slowly, quietly. “Professional, like you running off this morning to do an interview with a prime suspect without calling your partner? That kind of professional?” Louder now. “Professional, like you driving off to Port Townsend to potentially find our primary target—who conveniently just happens to be an old lover of yours—again without calling your partner? That kind of professional?” She raised her voice again. “You act like this case is all over, but you’re ignoring the fact that a Chicago hit man has been imported here, presumably for the purpose of protecting the very person you’re trying to find—a person, I might add, who, at least up to now, has not wanted to be found. That kind of professional?” Crescendo nearly complete. “Who’ll be watching your back? Who’s being professional? Excuse me, Mr. Professional, but you’re a jackass.” Very loud, this last part.
Ouch. Had that one coming, I suppose. My drill instructors in basic could dress you down by yelling and screaming and cussing in such a manner that could blister paint. But in your mind you always knew that it was a put-on for the benefit of the group. You rolled with it. But this was the real deal. Toni’d just made the DIs look like Cub Scouts, and she’d made me feel like a complete shit-heel—again—all in less than fifteen seconds. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Poor choice of words.”
“Poor choice of words. Sure,” Toni said.
The line was silent for a full thirty seconds. “I didn’t call you to get into an argument with you,” I said, hoping to defuse the disagreement.
“No, I don’t imagine you did.”
It was quiet on the line, and then something changed. “I’m sorry, Danny,” she said, softly, demurely. “I was out of line. You own this company. You’re the boss. You can run it any way you like. I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”
Whoa! What had she just done? What did this mean? The Toni I know doesn’t roll over and give up. This was bad. I think she’d somehow just ratcheted up the level of our disagreement by claiming to agree with me, if that was possible. She’d somehow raised the stakes by reminding me that we were not attached. She’d identified a whole new level of risk and grabbed it. This was an unfair, world-class tactic for which I had no handy response.
“Who are you, and what did you do with Toni?” I said. Cheesy, but it’s all I could come up with.
She stuck with the theme. “Look,” she said, very calmly, “I’m just an employee. I have no right to come down on you like I just did.”
“Where’s this coming from?” I said. “You know you’re not just an employee. My name’s on the door, but we’re basically partners.”
“We are not partners,” she said emphatically. “I’m just an employee here. You can run the cases however you like. And if you don’t like the way I do things, you can get rid of me. If I don’t like the way things are run around here, I can leave. That’s the way it is. No strings. No partners. No attachments.”
She had me. I was screwed. The line was quiet for a second.
“Well Toni, for the record, that’s not the way I feel,” I said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
“You didn’t,” she said. “Call me if you need anything, Danny. Bye.” She hung up.
Oh, shit. Nice move, Logan. Way to go, dumbass. You’ve just jeopardized the most valuable relationship you have with the one person in the world, other than your parents, who would fall on her sword for you. Why?
What’s worse, she was absolutely right. I was sneaking off to Port Townsend alone, by myself, because I wanted to see Gina. Risk be damned, Chicago hit man be damned. I didn’t seem to care about any of that. I had a serious case of tunnel vision. I remembered the thrill of hooking up with Gina five years ago. I remembered the beautiful face, the killer body, the magnetic personality. I was drawn to that vision as if caught in a riptide. The fact that swimming in riptides is dangerous and doesn’t always end well didn’t even seem to register.
~~~~
I have a bad habit that I’ll confess to. Sometimes when I’m driving, my mind will be busy rolling over a problem, and the actual act of driving gets kicked into an autopilot mode apparently controlled by something hidden within my subconscious. Some time later, I’ll arrive at my destination not remembering anything about the ride. So far, this hasn’t gotten me in trouble, but a couple of times, I’ve thought Holy shit! when I arrived. The idea of what I’d just done scared the hell out of me. Good thing I didn’t hit anybody. I re
solved to try to correct this by concentrating solely on the driving, but I wasn’t always successful.
Such was the case now. I drove toward Port Townsend in a sort of numb silence. As I rolled over recent events, three things were obvious. First, I had some visceral need to see Gina. I wanted to see her face-to-face, to talk to her, to find out what she was up to. More than that, it was possible I wanted to see if now, five years gone, there was anything left of the sparks that had burst into a brief flame while I was still in the army. I had no preconceived notions, no expectation of any particular outcome. But I couldn’t leave the question unanswered.
The second thing that was obvious was that at best, Toni had just fired a screaming cannon shell six inches over my bow. At best. At worst, she’d be gone when I got back. By pointing out the fact that our relationship had no strings, no attachments, she implied that she could—and she might—leave at anytime. The thought of Toni leaving filled me full of a cold dread, centered right in the middle of my chest. Something was going on there—not necessarily with her, but with me. I needed to sort things out and get my shit together on this, pretty damn quick before somebody got hurt. Like her. Or me.
Of course, the last thing that was obvious was that I was no match for Toni in an argument. No way, no how. It was clear that she could kick my ass without even looking up. A heavyweight against a flyweight. I’d best not forget the beating that she’d just given me.
My mind considered all this as the scenery passed by. I hardly noticed the forest. I hardly noticed the ocean. I didn’t notice crossing the bridge at the Hood Canal—and it’s a mile and a half long. Worse, I almost didn’t notice the silver Ford hanging on my tail about four hundred yards back. Only when I crossed the bridge did I realize that I’d also noticed the same silver Ford on the ferry—and that it’d been right behind me ever since. In and of itself, silver Fords were no cause for concern. But I’m not a big believer in coincidence. Why was this guy stuck four hundred yards behind me all the way from Kingston halfway to Port Townsend?
Who was this guy, and what did he want—those were the two questions that immediately sprang to mind. I was armed, of course. But if he really was tailing me, then he was probably packing as well. And most likely, there was more than one of him. No sense picking a fight when you’re outnumbered going in. It would have been nice to have Toni here. She was a dead shot, and she’d have evened out the odds. Oh well.
I was doing fifty-five, so I decided to pick up the pace and see how they reacted. I accelerated to sixty-five and watched. At first, I appeared to pull away from them. Their reflection shrank in the rearview mirror. Then they quickly recovered and moved back into position, four hundred yards back. I tried it again, accelerating to almost eighty. Same result. I swerved sharply to pass a slower-moving car. They followed suit. I was driving northwest on Highway 104, about five miles past the Hood Canal Bridge. If you keep going straight on 104, you’ll bump into Highway 101 in about eight miles. Highway 101 is the main highway around the north end of the Olympic Peninsula that takes you all the way out to Port Angeles and beyond. Instead of taking 101, though, I turned north on Highway 19—it’s a much straighter shot into Port Townsend. As soon as I made the turn, I downshifted and floored it to try and make distance on the silver Ford in the event that they, too, turned onto 19. Ten seconds later, they did. I could see that they also picked up the pace.
I hadn’t driven on Highway 19 in several years, and I’d never driven while being pursued. It didn’t take too long to realize that all the advantages on Highway 19 went to the powerful sedan behind me. The road was long, straight, and flat. Soon, I was fairly hurtling along at eighty-five, near the Jeep’s top speed. I swerved to pass a car and when I swerved back, the Jeep’s tires squealed in protest. The top-heavy Jeep leaned to the left so much that I thought I was going to roll. My pulse was as redlined as the Jeep’s tach. The Jeep had great ground clearance and fabulous low-end torque. Two things the Jeepster did not have were impressive straight-line top-end speed and the ability to maneuver around high-speed turns and swerves, the kind you’d need to pass cars. In other words, there’s no way the Jeepster outruns a sedan on a road like this. The silver Ford was rapidly closing the distance. If I wanted to lose them, then I needed to get off the main road.
It pissed me off that they were following me. If they were Gina’s guys, she probably already knew that I was almost to Port Townsend. I knew Gina was expecting me, but I’d hoped to arrive undetected so I could scout out the area before our meeting. If they weren’t Gina’s guys, then who the hell were they? Eddie Salazar was dead. Did these guys have something to do with him?
I continued driving north. To the west was a valley in which were located a number of small, picturesque farms. The valley floor where they were situated was flat, but it was ten feet or so below the level of Highway 19, which meant that I couldn’t just hang a quick left anywhere and go tearing across an open field. I’d have to wait for a crossroad, but if I did that, I’d not gain anything over the sedan.
To my right was a steep, heavily forested embankment. The embankment ran up to a ridgeline that paralleled the highway and was nearly as long. The valley where I was driving was on the west side of the ridge. The east side led back downhill all the way to Oak Bay Road, which ran along the shoreline of the Puget Sound.
Right after I’d bought my truck in high school, I used to drive this area with my friends looking for places to camp. I knew that the heavily forested ridgeline was laced with logging roads, some of which actually went up the hill and crossed all the way over to Oak Bay Road on the other side. I started noticing small, unpaved roads bump into the highway periodically. This was my ticket. If I could get onto one of these, there’d be no way the sedan could follow the jeep over rough terrain like that. As long as I got lucky and picked the right dirt road, I’d be able to follow it all the way over and down the other side. The Ford would lose me, and I’d regain the element of surprise.
Then again, I could accidentally pick someone’s driveway instead and find that it dead-ended fifty yards into the forest. The trees were so thick you couldn’t see fifteen feet straight through them. Then, instead of losing my pursuers, I’d have allowed them to pin me into a dead end with no way out.
The sedan continued to accelerate and close the gap between us. When it reached a point about one hundred yards behind me, I noticed a small, unpaved road ahead. For better or worse, that would have to do. I slammed on the brakes of the Jeep, and the tires locked up on me. No ABS on this baby. I started my turn and downshifted while the Jeep was still sliding. She leaned precariously before drifting to a stop, perfectly aligned with the side road. Every once in a while, I do get lucky. I immediately punched it. The Jeep jumped forward onto the dirt road, tires spinning wildly as it blew out a shower of rocks and dirt before we got any traction. Then, it catapulted itself up the small, rocky road. Now we were talking!
I wasn’t sure if the sedan followed or not, because I never saw them after I made the turn. The road I was on turned out not to be a driveway, thank God. On the other hand, it didn’t cross the ridgeline, either. Instead, after heading uphill for a mile, the road swung north and paralleled the highway for about five miles before turning west and eventually, dumping me right back onto Highway 19 again!
Fortunately, there was no sign of the silver Ford. I hoped that they were convinced I’d cross the ridgeline and were now speeding north to intercept me.
Chapter 21
I SLOWED TO twenty-five as I entered Port Townsend. There was no sign of the silver Ford, but it didn’t matter anyway now. I was looking for a parking place no matter what. If they were tailing me, they could just come on up and introduce themselves, for all I cared.
The town’s commercial district is located along the waterfront on Water Street. It was built at the beginning of the twentieth century. Today, many of the historic brick buildings have been restored to like-new condition. They house an eclectic mix of trendy shops, bou
tiques, and specialty restaurants that attract tourists by the horde, especially in the summer. The Washington State Ferry system has a port directly on Water Street. The ferry completes a round trip to Keystone on Whidbey Island every ninety minutes or so. Each time the ferry lands, dozens of cars are dumped onto Water Street, some belonging to locals, but most to tourists. They mill about and clog things up for fifteen minutes or so, and then they either park or move on their way. Traffic on Water Street surges like the tide with ferry traffic all day long.
The heart of Water Street is just under a mile long and extends from the southwest, where I approached, to its northeastern end, where you had to turn left or else drive off into the Puget Sound. The PT Croissant bakery was located about three-fourths of the way up Water Street near the corner of Water and Taylor. The bakery was on the landward side of the street. The speed limit on pedestrian-heavy Water Street is twenty-five miles per hour, so I hoped I might have been able to scope the place out as I drove past. Unfortunately, there were too many people on the sidewalk to see inside. So I kept driving, looking for a parking spot. I drove another three blocks northeast, made a quick illegal U-turn in the middle of the street, and pulled into a parking space in front of the Jefferson County Historical Museum. I was fifteen minutes early.
Before I got out, I looked around carefully, making sure there was no tail. I wanted to see if anyone was paying an unusual amount of attention to me. No one seemed to notice or care. Good.
I parked on the same side of the street as PT Croissant. I wanted to approach from across the street on the seaward side so I could have a better chance to scope out the bakery from across the street before someone inside noticed me. My strategy was to blend into the crowd, so I figured I needed to look the part. I put on a Mariners’ cap I keep in the glove box. I wanted to carry a backpack, but my light nylon day pack was completely empty. It would look pretty stupid carrying a completely empty backpack. Fortunately, I remembered that I always keep a RON (Remain Over Night) kit under the seat of the Jeep—a habit from my military days. The bag contains a clean set of underwear and socks, a T-shirt, a pair of jeans, a polo shirt, a razor, and some basic toiletries. Rolled up tightly, it fits into a small bag not much bigger than a shaving kit. I grabbed the RON kit and tossed it into the pack, which filled up nicely. I slipped the pack on. Now I looked like any other tourist here. I waited for a break in the traffic, jaywalked across the street, and started walking back toward the bakery.
Angel Dance (Danny Logan Mystery #1) Page 25