“Too bad you weren’t on our team earlier,” he said. “It took Nicole and me a long time to figure that one out.”
August 28 was the opening day of the conference. The date of her speech. The date that had been grouped with the number 14 and the anniversary of Waco and Oklahoma City. The locusts seemed to reverberate inside of her skull instead of singing from the trees. “There must be close to a hundred people on this list.”
“Exactly one hundred. There were references to a hundred points of light in some e-mails. B probably stands for branch; we’ve been calling them cells. This appears to be a coordinated event, scheduled to happen on the same day all over the country.”
Unbelievable. She was holding a domestic terrorist hit list. And her initials were on it. She slid the sheet of paper onto the dashboard and wiped her sweaty palms on the front of her dress. Thank God the FBI had figured it out before it happened. “But now you know, so you can stop it. You have your robbers, right?”
“Not yet.” He took her hand and looked deep into her eyes. It might have been a romantic gesture except for the grim set of his mouth. “We know who they are, and now we know what they’re funding. It looks like each branch that pulls off a hit will get fifty thousand dollars. We’ve identified most of the intended victims on this list.”
Most? She swallowed hard.
“We’ve got agents all over the country working on this. We’ll know all the targets by the twenty-eighth.”
“Good,” she said. “You’ll have everyone rounded up before then.”
“Here’s the hard part.” His grip tightened on her fingers. “We’ll know the targets—and they will have protection—but we don’t know all the perps. We’re not arresting anyone until the twenty-eighth.”
She turned to him, incredulous.
“This is our big chance, Summer. We’ve never had an opportunity like this to expose a nationwide terrorist network in one sweep.” His eyes gleamed with excitement. “We can’t afford to alarm anyone. We need to catch them in the act so we can put them all away for good. Otherwise a bunch of them will get only a slap on the hand for weapons charges and they’ll go underground again.”
Her lips were dry, and she had to lick them before she could speak. “So all of us—targets—we have to do whatever we’re scheduled to do on August twenty-eighth.” She had a sudden ridiculous thought of forming a support group for terrorist targets. It would be nice to meet Robert and Natalie and Ralph. Before the twenty-eighth. Just in case.
“That’s why you won’t be at the conference. We’re searching for a lookalike stand-in now.”
“To give my speech?” She thought about it. “That won’t work. Where are you going to find a gorgeous five-foot-two blond, buff woman like me?” She held up her arms and flexed her biceps.
“Summer…” He shook his head. “I can’t…”
“They know me. You have no choice. They picked me.” She smiled stiffly. “I feel so special. I bet the others do, too.”
He didn’t smile back. “We’re pretty sure that we know who is after you, Summer—at least, we know two of them: Jack Winner and Philip King.”
How long had they been watching her? Had they been the shooters at Marmot Lake? “I have to do it,” she said. “The odds are they know me on sight. You’ll keep me safe. Right?”
He nodded, his face grim now. “We’ll do our best. But I’m still looking for that stand-in.”
“No. If I don’t show up, they might choose another target.”
He didn’t disagree.
“Why did they pick me? Just because I gave Winner’s truck license to the rangers?”
Two cows stood near the passenger door now, chewing their endless green gum, waiting to see what the denouement of this drama might be. Another stood not far away from Chase’s door. Several had quietly moved in front of the car, down to the water’s edge.
“You’ve been on television in NPS uniform, you’re going to stand up in front of a big government audience and talk about endangered species, another sore point with the antigovernment crowd. This whole project is designed to make a statement—I don’t think there’s anything personal involved.”
“Well, that makes me feel a lot better.” She frowned. “Philip King—Joe told me that he has a record of violence.”
Chase nodded. “We found his fingerprint on Caitlin Knight’s belt buckle.”
A chill prickled across the back of her neck. King’s print on the murdered game warden’s belt buckle most likely meant that he’d raped her before he shot her. Or after. Sam struggled unsuccessfully to wipe the awful image from her imagination. “So you have enough evidence to put him away?” Please tell me he’s already behind bars.
He nodded again. “We have the evidence but we don’t want to grab him yet. That might cancel their big plans.”
Their big plans to kill her. The new knowledge that the FBI let known murderers wander around free gave her chills. Sam listened to the cows slurping water and stared beyond them at the shimmering lake, wondering what else her government was pretending ignorance of.
Chase raised an eyebrow and jerked his thumb over his shoulder, calling her attention to the cows that crowded his door.
“Ignore them,” she told him. “They’re just being cows.”
“Weird.” He twisted in his seat to stare back at them. With a flurry of hoof clops, they backed up.
She thought about the unkind stares she’d received in Forks. “How many people in Washington State belong to this Patriot Order?” she asked.
Lili’s “club” must have some sort of link to it, but it couldn’t be too overt or Lili would never have fallen for it. Were the other government employees safe? She couldn’t stand the thought of anything happening to Joe. Or Mack. Jodi. Peter Hoyle. Even Arnie Cole. “Why didn’t you and Joe tell me?”
“We didn’t piece it all together until two days ago. And like I said, we want them to think they’re getting away with it.”
What else hadn’t he told her? “So how are they planning to get me?” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word kill. “The C-4?”
He winced. “Maybe, but that was Allyson’s plan, so it might be something else. We’re still working on that.”
We’re still working on that? The words didn’t exactly inspire confidence. And sure, the FBI knew Winner and King, but how many others were out there? The Bureau had figured out the Oklahoma City bombing only after the fact. Then there was 9/11. She swallowed hard. How had her throat become so dry? She believed that Chase would do his utmost to keep her safe, but her trust in the efficiency of government organizations was near zero.
Two heifers still stood beside her door, their liquid eyes fixed on her and Chase. They belched fermented grass, their constant chewing interrupted only by an occasional tail swish. Sam Westin, an underemployed nature writer, the target of a group of antigovernment terrorists? It seemed too far-fetched to be true. She was pretty sure that was the cows’ opinion, too.
“I’ll be there, mi corazón. And there’ll be others. We won’t let anything happen to you.”
He’d given in pretty quickly to her demand to speak at the conference. They both knew it was the only strategy that made sense. She pulled one of her hands free from his and put it on his cheek. “Can you make them like my speech?”
“Want us to wave our guns and demand applause?”
“I’ll let you know.” She sighed. “And now, I suppose, we have to go back and pretend that none of this is happening.”
“Right.” Putting his hand on the car key, he gazed at the herd surrounding the car, and then gave her a questioning look.
She rolled her eyes. “Move it!” she yelled, banging the side of the car with her open palm. The cattle snorted, wheeled around, and disappeared into the darkness. She wanted to disappear with them.
28
THE church was almost exactly as she remembered it. The same oak pews, polished to a smooth gloss by decades of skirts and pants. The s
ame three stained glass windows up front, depicting the wise men visiting Jesus in the manger, Jesus healing the sick, and her favorite, Jesus surrounded by children and animals. She’d spent hours staring at that one, wishing she could get animals to come to her by raising her hand that way.
She was glad to have Chase’s hand to hold, to feel his strength sitting beside her. The flooring, she realized as she studied its pattern beneath her taupe pumps, had been replaced since her last visit. And she couldn’t recall the pulpit behind which her father now stood. It was a lovely honey-hued oak with a cross on the front and carved tendrils of leaves and grapes twining up the sides, and the book rest at just the right height for him.
Her father looked confident and handsome this morning, his silver hair still bearing the marks of his comb, his tanned face beaming at the crowd. His congregation. The organ music died down and the crowd hushed, expectant.
“Today,” he said, “we’re going to have a wedding. My wedding. I’m so happy to have you all here to celebrate with Zola and me, and I’m thrilled that my good friend, Reverend Martin Heath from First Methodist in Clear Lake, will officiate.” He nodded toward a suited man in the front row.
“But first, my thoughts for the day, otherwise known as the sermon. Today’s will be short.” He looked down at his notes on the pulpit, waited for a beat, and then asked, “Why did God give Man dominion over the Earth?”
Oh no. Chase glanced her way. Had the words actually come out of her mouth? She leaned toward him and whispered, “If smoke pours out of my ears, please drag me outside before my head explodes.”
He nodded solemnly, but she could see a glint of amusement in his dark eyes.
“Today’s scripture reading is from the book of Genesis,” her father said. “‘So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.’”
“In Psalms, it says, ‘The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.’ And God says, ‘every animal of the forest is mine…I know every bird in the mountains, and the creatures of the field are mine…the world is mine, and all that is in it.’”
He looked up at the congregation. “Sounds to me like God has staked a claim to wildlife, doesn’t it?”
A murmur ran around the sanctuary. Sam waited for a Biblical verse that could be interpreted as divine permission to flatten opossums with shovels.
“What, then, are we to make of this next passage from Genesis? ‘God said to them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ And another from Psalms: ‘You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.’”
“‘Under his feet,’” he reiterated, “meaning under humanity’s feet. So, we are the rulers over the creatures of the Earth.”
Sam cringed inside. She’d often been accused of caring more about animals than people, and for the most part, that was true.
“We have the power of life and death over all other living things on this planet. But why did God create all this beauty and entrust it to our care? Did He want us to use it only for our own benefit?”
Reverend Mark Westin knew how to use silence. He paused a long minute to let the audience ponder the question. Sam was surprised at the direction the sermon was taking. She’d grown up among a lot of farmers who thought uncultivated land was wasted land and all wild animals were varmints.
“In Revelation, there is a promise of destruction for those who destroy the earth. We would do well to remember that promise.”
“We live in a wondrous universe, on a beautiful planet. Let us not forget that as well as flowers and trees and fruit and human beings, God created hummingbirds and grizzly bears and wolves and blue whales…”
And opossums, Sam added in her head.
“And God called all His living creatures ‘good.’ God gave us the gift of love. So let us celebrate His works by appreciating the beauty and the worth of the living world around us; by loving and caring for each other and loving and caring for all His creations, each and every day. Let us pray.”
As her father raised his head after the short prayer, he caught Sam’s gaze, and they exchanged a smile. The sermon was his gift to her. “And now,” he said, “let’s have that loving wedding so we can start caring for some of Stephanie Faber’s incredible fried chicken.”
The congregation laughed and clapped as Mark Westin gestured for his colleague to take his place and stepped down from the pulpit. He pulled off his robe, revealing a white tuxedo, and took his place on the right side of the aisle, gesturing for his close friend Gavin to stand beside him as best man.
Sam stood up. “Break a leg,” Chase whispered.
She grimaced. “Gee, thanks. I probably will.”
“You look wonderful. And the shoes are perfect.”
She made a face at him, then walked quickly up the side aisle to the back of the church. Peeking through the sanctuary doorway, she saw Zola, in a lovely ivory linen suit, waiting in the reception hall, flanked by her twin daughters, Jane and Julie, who wore dresses identical to Sam’s turquoise sheath, except that Jane’s was a shade lighter, and Julie’s paler still.
Jane handed Sam her small bouquet of yellow and white roses.
“Ready?” Sam asked.
All three nodded. She centered herself in the doorway, took a deep breath, and signaled the organist to begin.
As she slow-stepped down the aisle in time to the music, Sam felt like a trick pony in a show. Why did people do this to themselves? She felt a slick of self-conscious perspiration forming between her skin and the dress. She raised her chin and focused on her father waiting up front, but she could feel the burning gaze of the entire community assessing her.
How was she going to give a speech in front of hundreds of people? Or would it be thousands? Would she know that she was safe by then, or would she be waiting to see the glint of a weapon in the audience? By the time she reached the front of the church, she was wondering where she could score some Valium before Friday. She turned to watch Julie and Jane and Zola finish their march.
The ceremony was simple but heartfelt, statements of love by people who’d known each other for decades. Sam’s mother had died twenty-eight years ago. Her father had known Zola forever, along with her husband, Bill, who had died seven years ago. Mark Westin had waited a long time to find happiness with another woman.
When Sam joined the crowd outside in the heat, Jane and Julie swooped down on her, giving her hugs and introducing her to their children, who had been absent from dinner the night before. “We’re sisters now,” Julie told her.
At age thirty-seven, Sam hadn’t imagined that her father’s marriage would expand her circle of relationships, and she certainly had never dreamed that anyone would consider her a sibling. She found herself inviting them to visit her at home.
“We wish we could be there for your big speech,” Jane said.
Sam scoffed in surprise. “No, you don’t. It’ll be pretty boring.” Oh, and there is a chance that I’ll be killed.
Zola pressed a small flat box into Sam’s hands. “Bridesmaid’s gift. Open it later.”
Sam blushed. “I believe I’m supposed to give you gifts.”
“And you have, dear, just by being here.” She gave Sam a hug. “I’m thrilled to have another daughter.”
“Everyone really likes Chase,” Jane said.
&
nbsp; Sam followed her gaze and spied Chase chatting with Julie’s husband, the visiting minister. She knew they hoped for an explanation about who Chase was to her, or—God forbid—some sort of announcement about their future together. That was as much a mystery to her as it was to her new relatives.
29
ON the plane home, Sam opened Zola’s gift and immediately burst into tears, much to the consternation of the plump woman in the next seat.
“Why are you crying, honey? I think it’s beautiful.” She gently touched a painted fingernail to the embroidered quilt block on Sam’s lap. “Is that a mountain lion?”
“Yes,” Sam said. “I think it’s beautiful, too.” Zola had stitched a scene of a woman carrying a small child through a canyon. On the cliff above was the silhouette of a cougar against the setting sun.
“There must be a story behind this.” Her neighbor studied Sam for a few seconds, and then grabbed her forearm. “I saw you on TV, a few weeks ago! You’re that woman who went after that kid in Utah, when everyone else was saying that the cougars killed him.”
Sam nodded. If she hadn’t been belted in, she might have hugged the woman for saying it that way. Some people remembered little Zack Fischer disappearing, and others remembered that she’d protested shooting the cougars, but not many remembered that it had all happened in the same incident.
She hoped that her conference speech would not also make the headline news.
THE day before her speech, Sam approached the conference center, her nerves on fire. Was this what death row inmates felt like on their way to the electric chair? Her skin felt crawly, like someone was watching her. Her instincts were not wrong. Clearly, someone observed her approach from the parking lot, because Nicole Boudreaux arrived at the entrance door at the same time she did. Sam was surprised to see Chase’s auburn-haired partner instead of him, and even more surprised to see Nicole wearing a badge that said FACILITIES COORDINATOR. Following Nicole’s lead, she shook hands and they introduced themselves as if they were meeting for the first time.
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