Lucy lay hidden in the underbrush long after the dirt bikes had pulled away, long after Fisher had run back down the trail. She wasn't sure exactly where she'd be next year at this time, but she knew one thing for certain. R. W. Fisher and Frank Redfield and Travis Southeby and anyone else involved in Gerry's murder were going to be in jail.
Even if she had to put them there herself.
Chapter 15
Lucy ran back toward Sarah's car, faster even than she'd run while following R. W. Fisher.
According to her watch, it was nearly six forty-five. She had to get up to Northgate by ten-thirty for morning visiting hours to warn Blue that he was in danger. It was about an hour's drive, but that was okay. She could make it.
Of course, once she got there, there was no guarantee that Blue would see her.
She was drenched with sweat and covered with burrs and dirt as she climbed into the car. She started the engine with a roar and headed quickly for home.
She had to call someone. Say what she'd overheard—what she'd gotten on tape.
She couldn't call the local police. They were involved. She knew that for sure. How about the state troopers? Hell, there was no guarantee they weren't in on the deal. And the local federal agents? Shoot, she was so paranoid now she was afraid to call anyone.
Lucy pulled into her driveway with a spray of gravel. She ran up her porch steps and quickly unlocked her kitchen door, then closed it behind her.
Think. She had to think.
She picked up the phone, then hung it back up. Then, with a sudden burst of inspiration, she picked the phone back up and pushed the redial button. She closed her eyes and prayed that Blue had been the last person to use the phone and that the last call he'd made had been to Seal Team Ten's headquarters in California.
It was ringing. Wherever she'd dialed, it was ringing. She could only hope it wasn't ringing in the local pizzeria.
"Night shift," said a deep voice on the other end of the phone.
My God, of course, it was three hours earlier in California. Out there, it was five o'clock in the morning.
"Who's this?" she asked.
There was a pause. "Who's this?" came the wary reply.
Lucy took a deep breath and a big chance. "My name is Lucy Tait, and I'm a friend of Blue McCoy's," she said. "He's in big trouble, and I need to speak to Joe Cat right away."
Another pause, then, "Where are you calling from, ma'am?" the voice asked.
"Hatboro Creek, South Carolina," she said.
"Can you be more specific about this 'trouble' you say Lieutenant McCoy is in?"
"Who is this, please? I can't say more until I know who I'm talking to."
There was another brief silence, then, "My name is Daryl Becker," the voice said. "Blue calls me 'Harvard,'"
Harvard. She'd heard that name before. "You went through BUDS with Blue and Joe Cat," she said.
"How do you know that?" he asked suspiciously.
"Blue told me."
"We talking about the same Blue McCoy?" Harvard asked. "The Blue McCoy who hasn't said more than three full sentences in his entire life?"
"He talks to me," Lucy said. "Please, you've got to help. I need to speak with Joe Cat."
"It's 0500 here on the West Coast," Harvard said. "We just got back last night after several weeks away. Joe is with his lady tonight."
"Veronica," Lucy said, Harvard laughed. "If you know about her, Blue has been yapping his mouth off. You must be special, Lucy Tait."
"No, just a friend."
"I'm his friend, too," Harvard said. "So tell me what's going on."
Lucy did, telling him everything from the money-laundering scheme to Gerry's murder, the charges against Blue and the impending murder attempt at Northgate prison. Afterward, Harvard was silent.
"Damn," he said. "When that redneck white boy gets in trouble, he gets in big trouble, doesn't he?"
"I need help," Lucy said. "I can't do this on my own, but I don't know who to call. I need to know who I can trust."
"Okay, Lucy Tait," Harvard said. "This one is too big for me, too. Lay your telephone number on me. I'll risk certain death by calling Cat and waking him from his blissful slumber. He'll know what to do. I'll have him call you right back."
"Thank you," Lucy said, giving him her number.
She hung up the phone and opened the refrigerator, pouring herself a glass of orange juice as she tried not to watch the clock. God, she was a mess. She was soaked with sweat and dirt, her hair straggly and stringy, her knee still bleeding through the hole in her torn jeans.
Three minutes and forty seconds after she hung up from Harvard, the telephone rang.
Lucy scooped it up. "Yes?"
"Lucy? This is Joe Catalanotto from Alpha Squad."
Lucy closed her eyes. "Thank God."
"Look, Lucy, Harvard filled me in on what's happening out there. I've already called the admiral and arranged for emergency leave. I'm on my way, but it's going to take too long to get there, you hear what I'm saying?" Joe Cat's voice was pure urban New York. It was deep and rich and filled with the confidence of a Navy SEAL commander.
"Ronnie is gonna get in touch with Kevin Laughton, a FInCOM—Federal Intelligence Commission—agent I trust... works out of D.C. He'll send someone out to Hat-boro Creek—someone you can trust with that tape of yours."
Ronnie? Veronica. Of course. His wife.
"What I want you to do," Joe continued, "is go out to wherever Blue is being held and tell him about this noon assassination attempt. Do whatever you need to do, Lucy, to get him out of that prison."
Lucy took a deep breath. "You want me to tunnel him out of there?"
Joe laughed. He had a deep, husky laugh. "If you have to, yeah. Do whatever it takes. Just don't get Blue or yourself killed."
Before Joe hung up, he gave her his home phone number, the SEAL Team Ten headquarters number, and Kevin Laughton's, the FInCOM agent's, number. Just in case.
Lucy hung up the phone.
Do whatever it takes. Whatever it takes. Whatever.
She picked up the phone and dialed Sarah's number. She knew she was going to wake her friend up.
" ‘Lo?" Sarah answered sleepily.
"It's me," Lucy said. "How much money do you have in your savings account?"
Lucy worked quickly. She dug out the files for both her house and her business from her home office. She found the title for her truck. She gathered her savings-deposit passbooks and uncovered her checkbook from her dresser.
She searched the Charleston Yellow Pages, making phone call after phone call until she found exactly the right type of entrepreneur she needed. She gave him directions to Hat-boro Creek and made him promise to arrive no later than 9:00 a.m., when the local bank opened.
She made a copy of the microcassette, using her telephone answering machine to play the miniature tape and holding the microcassette recorder above the speaker. The quality of the tape was going to stink, but she didn't care.
As long as the words were faintly audible and the voices were identifiable. She stashed one of the tapes in the kitchen utensil drawer for safekeeping.
At 8:57 a.m. she climbed into Sarah's car and headed downtown.
Sarah was standing on the sidewalk in front of the bank. Lucy parked and got out of the car: "I can't believe I let you talk me into this," Sarah said worriedly. "It's the thirty-thousand dollars Richard was intending to spend to modernize his office."
"You'll get it back," Lucy said, hoping she was telling her friend the truth. "I can't tell you how much I appreciate this. Your money pushes me over the top."
"I had no idea you had that much," Sarah said.
"It's mostly tied up in the business," Lucy said. "Look, before I forget, I hid a tape in my kitchen, in the utensil drawer. If anything happens to me—"
"Oh, God, don't say that."
"It's important," Lucy said. "On my bulletin board is a phone number of a federal agent named Kevin Laughto
n. Make sure he gets the tape."
"The tape from the utensil drawer." Sarah nodded. "Why the utensil drawer?"
"I was going to hide it in the toaster, but then I thought, what if someone comes in and wants some toast—"
Lucy looked up as a heavy man in a business suit and an incredibly obvious toupee approached them. It had to be Benjamin Robinson, the man she'd found in the Yellow Pages. It had to be.
"Ms. Tait?" the. man said, looking questioningly from Sarah to Lucy.
Lucy held out her hand. "Mr. Robinson," she said. "I'm Lucy Tait. Shall we go into the bank and get down to business?"
A skinny man stopped near Blue in the prison courtyard during the morning exercise period. He lit a cigarette with hands that shook and stared up at the sky.
"You gonna be snuffed, "
It took a moment before Blue realized the man was talking to him. He looked away from the man, down at the ground at his uncomfortable sneakers, as the meaning of what he'd said sank in. Snuffed. Killed. "When?"
"Lunch," the man replied.
That soon. Blue felt the familiar surge of adrenaline as his tody prepared for a fight. "How many?"
"Too many. Even if you fight back, they gonna get you. If you don't show up at lunch, they do you at dinner."
"How many?" Blue asked again. There was no such thing as too many. He just had to know in advance so he could plan, strategize against an attack.
"There's thirty of 'em, bubba. All hard timers."
Thirty. God. Not impossible, but not good odds, either.
"They gonna get you," the man said.
Thirty. This was gonna be a tough one. This guy was quite possibly right. "Why tell me about it, then?"
"I'm telling you because if it was me gonna die, I'd want to know." The man flicked ash from his cigarette, still not looking at Blue. "Write a will," he said. "Make peace with whichever God it is you believe in. Or get on line for the telephone—call your girl and tell her you love her." He started to walk away. "Tie up loose ends."
Get on line for the telephone. Lord, if only he could. But Blue didn't have telephone privileges yet. Not for another week. And according to the skinny inmate, Blue wasn't going to live that long.
Blue went inside the main building to the library.
"I'd like a pen and a piece of paper, please," Blue said to the burly inmate who was acting as librarian.
Silently the man laid both on the counter. Blue could see reflections of his imminent death in the silence of the man's eyes.
"Thanks," Blue told him, but the inmate said nothing, as if Blue were already dead. The pen was attached to the counter by a chain so no one could steal it and turn it into some kind of weapon. He stood there, lifted the pen and held it poised over the paper.
Damn. This was going to be harder to write than he'd thought.
He started it off easily enough: "Dear Lucy." But after that it got much harder.
He didn't have time for it to be hard. He didn't have time for it to come out perfectly. He knew what he wanted to say,, so he just had to say it. He wrote, trying hard to print legibly.
I've had a lot of time to think over the past twenty-four hours, and every time I try to fit you into this puzzle of who killed Gerry, the picture comes out looking all wrong. Whenever I think of you going to the police station, intending to deliver information that would strengthen their case against me, I just can't believe it.
I've been thinking about Travis Southeby, about the way he stood up against me at the Grill, about the way he took such pleasure in telling me you had turned me in. At first I accused him of playing head games with me, and now I can't help but believe that he was in-dead messing with my mind. I believed Tom Harper when he said you'd been to the police station, but what if he was lying, too? Or what if you'd been there, but for some other reason entirely?
I guess it all boils down to the fact that I don't want to believe them. I won't believe them. But I'm afraid it's too late. I'm afraid they already won.
It kills me I didn't see you when I had the chance. I'm not sure I'll have that chance again, because someone in here wants me dead—probably so that I won't be able to prove my innocence and open up the question of who really killed Gerry.
Maybe I'm a fool, and maybe you're involved with these murderers. But I don't want to believe that. I'm not going to believe that. If I'm going to die, I'd rather die loving you.
Blue took a deep breath, then plunged on.
I've never said these words to anyone ever in my life, let alone written them down, but somehow over the past few days, I fell in love with you, Yankee. I thought you should know.
He started to sign the letter "Carter," but crossed it out and wrote in "Blue."
He folded the letter in thirds and pushed the pen back toward the librarian, who again said nothing. He asked for an envelope and a stamp, and the librarian pointed silently down the hall toward the tiny room that served as the mail drop-off and pick-up point.
While Blue was there, several guards came in. They rattled off a series of numbers. It took him a moment to realize they were ID numbers—his ID numbers. They were looking for him.
"You're wanted in the warden's office," they said as he dropped his letter into the mail slot.
Was it possible the warden had somehow found out about the death threat? Was he going to put Blue into solitary until the danger passed? It was a long walk to the warden's office near the front gate of the prison, and Blue had plenty of time to speculate.
But when the guard opened the office door and Blue walked inside, the warden's words surprised him.
"Your bail has been made," the man said. "Sign the pa-perwork, change your clothes and you're free to go."
His bail had been made. Half a million dollars. Who the hell had come up with half a million dollars just like that? And just in time, too.
The clock on the warden's wall read 11:10. In twenty minutes, the inmates would be lining up to go in for lunch. In twenty minutes thirty men would be looking for him, ready to snuff out his life. But he wouldn't be there. He wasn't going to be forced to fight with thirty-to-one odds. Relief flooded through him, hot and thick. He wasn't going to die today. At least not before lunch.
"Who posted bail?" he asked.
"Does it really matter?"
Blue shook his head. "No."
He quickly changed his clothes, strapping his belt back on. They hadn't found the knife hidden inside the buckle. That was good. Maybe his luck was starting to change.
The guards led him down the hallway to a locked gate. He went through it, then down another corridor toward another locked gate. He could see someone standing on the other side of the thick security wire. As he got closer, he realized exactly who was standing there, waiting for him.
Lucy. God, it was Lucy. His luck was definitely changing.
Her face was wary, as if she wasn't sure of her reception. She held his gaze, though, searching his eyes as the guard unlocked this final barrier.
And then he was free. He was outside the prison, in the visitors' waiting area.
"You paid my bail?" he asked. It wasn't what he really wanted to say to her, but it was better than just standing there, staring.
She nodded.
"Where the hell did you get half a million dollars?"
Lucy nervously moistened her lips and shrugged, giving him only a ghost of her regular smile. "Remember that computer software business I own?" she said. "Business has been extremely good lately."
"But you couldn't have had that much cash…"
She shook her head. "No, it's almost all tied up in the working capital. I used the business as collateral, alone with some other things and some borrowed money, and... She shrugged again. "I didn't have anything to do with your arrest, Blue," she said, her voice fast and low. "I mean, I was there at the station, getting my gun from my locker, and Bradley asked me a question, and I answered it as best as I could and all of a sudden Travis Southeby had a w
arrant for your arrest. I didn't... I wasn't..." There were tears in her eyes, but still she held his gaze, silently begging him to believe her.
"It's required by law that I escort you to the front gate," the guard told Blue.
He ignored the guard and took a step toward Lucy. "I know," he said.
She wiped at her tears with the heels of her hands, refusing to cry. "You do?"
"Yeah," he said. He wanted to pull her into his arms, but he was oddly nervous. He was in love with this woman. Somehow knowing that changed everything. He was afraid to touch her, afraid of giving himself away. Sure, he'd just written his deepest feelings in a letter, but there was no way he could say any of that aloud. "It took me a while, but I finally figured it out. Lucy, I'm sorry—"
"Come on, folks," the guard said impatiently. "Save the teary reunion for outside the gate."
Lucy turned to face the guard, her chin held high, her eyes blazing. "I just paid half a million dollars so this man could walk out of here with me—and we're going to walk out of here on our own good time, when we want to, and not one minute before. Thank you very much."
Blue felt himself smile for the first time in what seemed like centuries. "I think I'm ready to leave," he told her.
The guard escorted them to the door, and then they were out in the humid air and finally outside the gate.
Freedom.
"Was it awful?" Lucy asked quietly.
"It's over," Blue said.
Their eyes met, but only briefly, only for an instant, before Lucy looked down, and Blue knew with a deadly certainty that if he reached for her, she would pull away.
When he'd first seen her standing and waiting for him on the other side of that gate, when he'd realized that she was the one who'd paid his bail, he thought for a moment that it had to be proof that she loved him. What woman would risk everything she owned for a man she didn't love?
But then he remembered her friend Edgar. Lucy had only been friends with Edgar, yet she had sacrificed much to be with him in his last few months.
Her loyalty to her friends was clearly unswerving. But Blue didn't want to be only her friend any longer. He wanted more, God help him. He wanted more, but the fact that he'd lost his faith in her just might have destroyed whatever fragile love she was starting to feel for him.
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