by KG MacGregor
"You called your friend and the line just happened to go dead when you started to tell her about it?" Ruth knew now that the woman was making this up as she went.
"Yeah. Look, I know how that sounds. I don’t think I’d believe me either, so I know exactly why you’re looking at me like that." The look was one of complete incredulity. "But I swear to god, it’s the truth. Or at least it’s the truth as I know it. The woman I called is an agent with the IRS, an investigative agent. She’s law enforcement, just like these guys. I lost my cell phone when I crashed the bike, so if they found it, they’d know I call her all the time. Outside of Henry and Elena, I really don’t have any other friends. Probably the last twenty calls on my log were to one or the other. And these guys had to be listening in when I called. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have gotten to me so fast."
"Let me tell you how I see it," the blonde woman started. "You say that you saw your friend dead. Your boss was there and so was this other guy. Maybe they found him like that and they saw you run away. The reason they’re trying to catch you is because they think you’re the killer."
Spencer drew a deep breath and blew it out.
"Henry was my best friend," she said simply. "We’ve worked three feet away from each other for the last six years. We pushed each other; we challenged each other. That’s why he stayed late on Friday. We found a problem and he wanted to find the answer because it was all this great big puzzle to him. He loved that, and so did I. I’d have been there too if I hadn’t made plans for Friday night. It was our code and it had this big ass glitch in it and we both wanted it fixed. That’s why I dropped what I was doing and came back to the office when he called me."
Again, her eyes clouded with tears as she shook her head sadly. "You have no idea how unreal it is that somebody would kill a person like Henry. He never hurt a soul, even when people gave him a reason to."
"What do you mean?"
"Henry was Albino. People made fun of him a lot, but it just rolled off his back. He was one of the nicest people I ever knew."
As Ruth listened to the woman talk about her friend, and as she heard and saw the sadness in her story, she became wholly convinced that the woman in her house was not Henry’s murderer. But she just couldn’t buy that federal agents had done such a deplorable deed.
"You need to tell them that, just like you’ve told me. If they could hear how you talk about him, they’d have to believe you."
"It isn’t a matter of believing me. Those assholes already know I didn’t do it, because they’re the ones that did." she said angrily.
"Can’t you hear how bizarre that sounds? It’s like something right out of a spy novel or something. Why would federal agents kill your friend?" Ruth could see the growing frustration, but maybe the programmer was too close to everything to look at it all objectively.
"Because he found something in the code!" Spencer said with exasperation. She never really grasped that others didn’t understand programming the way she did.
"I don’t know what that means," Ruth groaned. She too was growing frustrated.
The dark haired woman blew out another deep breath.
"It’s like this. We have these programs to keep track of production. Margadon makes pharmaceuticals…drugs. You need certain amounts of A, B, and C to make D. We track everything by lot number so we not only know how much A goes in, but what box it came out of, and where it ends up. You ever hear those stories about products being taken of the shelves because there’s something wrong?"
Ruth nodded.
"Well, that’s how we know which lot numbers are affected when something like that happens. We might find out that there was something wrong with a shipment of B, so we have to recall all of D that was put together with that shipment. You with me?"
"I think so. You wrote some sort of accounting program to track what went into pharmaceutical products and then you found a glitch in it."
"Exactly! But what we found — what Henry found — was that we weren’t putting enough of one of the active ingredients into the batches of Kryfex that we’re making for a government contract. But then, somebody fucked with our program so they could cover it up. That way, they’re billing the government the full amount, but they’re shorting the key ingredient, which also just happened to be the most expensive ingredient. And somebody is pocketing the difference."
Spencer was seeing it better herself now that she was saying it all out loud. Could the government contract have anything to do with why the feds were involved in this?
"I’m confused. You mean you were shorting the shipments but charging the same thing?"
"More or less, that’s right."
"So maybe that’s why the feds were there, because they found out about it and were investigating."
Spencer shook her head. "No, the feds were there because James must have called them when Henry told him what he’d found. Something was going down in the office when I got up there. They were fucking around with Henry’s computer and neither one of them acted like they gave a shit that there was a guy lying there with a goddamned power cord tied around his neck." Again, her eyes filled with tears as she thought of the terror Henry had known in his last minutes.
After a few long quiet minutes, Ruth stood up to get the plate from the kitchen. "Here, you need to eat."
"Thank you." She’d had a single bite of a sweet roll in the last two days. "I guess I should also say thanks for taking care of me these last couple of days and for not just calling the cops."
Ruth chuckled at the irony. "Fat chance of that," she mumbled.
Spencer heard it, but let it go.
"Look, I don’t mean to be unsympathetic, but you can’t stay here. I can take you somewhere, to a friend’s house or something, but I really don’t want to be in the middle of this. I’ve got my own problems."
Spencer nodded solemnly. She didn’t want to cause any trouble for this woman or her little girl.
"Can you take me back to where I hid my bike in the morning? It’s near that Wal-Mart."
"Sure."
"I’ll, uh…stay out here on the couch tonight. You can have your bed back."
"That’s okay. You could probably use another good night’s sleep. How’s the arm?"
"It’s better."
"And your side?"
Spencer glanced at the door as a little girl appeared.
"Mommy?" Keeping her distance as much as possible, Jessie crossed the room toward where her mother sat.
"Yes, sweetie. Come here." For some reason, Ruth’s stomach knotted at the thought of her daughter being in the room with this suspicious woman, though she had concluded to her own satisfaction that Spencer Rollins hadn’t killed anyone. However, she couldn’t help but be skeptical about the rest of the story. It seemed pretty outrageous to think that the feds were really trying to kill her.
"Hi, I’m Spencer. You don’t have to be afraid of me." Spencer set her empty plate on the floor beside the recliner.
"My name’s Karen, and this is my daughter, Megan."
"Hello, Megan. Your mom and I were just talking. I’m going to leave tomorrow so you don’t have to worry about anything."
Jessie wouldn’t answer.
"Did we wake you up?" Ruth asked tenderly, brushing the blonde curls back. "Why don’t I come in a read another story? We’re all ready to go to sleep now."
Spencer took that as her cue to head back down the hall. She felt a lot better now that she’d eaten, but another night’s sleep would be a good thing. She was still exhausted.
And tomorrow she’d be a target again.
CHAPTER 13
RUTH WAS PRETTY sure that there had to be a shortcut or a bypass that everyone in town knew about and used to get from one end to the other, but today was not a good day for experimenting with alternate routes. Until she learned her way around, she thought it best to stay on the main road. That meant one stoplight after another, and many long minutes alone in the car with her enigmatic passenger.
Ruth shot the dark-haired woman a sidelong glance. "What do you mean? This is Manassas."
"Yeah, I got that from the sign on that building back there. But I mean what highway is this and where does it go? How do I get back to DC from here?"
Beats the hell out me, Ruth admitted to herself. "I’m not sure."
"You don’t ever go to the city for anything?"
"We haven’t lived here very long."
Spencer considered this new bit of information. Come to think of it, Karen had shared very little about herself. Then again, it wasn’t like they were friends or anything.
The three of them had eaten a quiet breakfast, then the mother and daughter had gone to the landlady’s house to visit the puppies. The little girl stayed with the landlady when Karen said she had a quick errand to run.
"So where are you from?"
"Maine," Ruth answered nervously, knowing that her license tags had already given that away. Changing those to Virginia plates was a top priority. She’d try to do that this afternoon.
"What brings you down here?"
"The usual…a bad marriage…a new start." None of that was a lie.
"What kind of work do you do?"
"Enough with all the questions!" she groaned in exasperation. Okay, that wasn’t the right response, she admonished herself, pushing her hand through her hair. She was going to have to deal with people’s natural curiosity, and this was not a good start.
"Sorry." If there was one thing Spencer understood, it was a private nature. And on top of that, it made perfect sense that this woman wouldn’t exactly feel comfortable with opening up to a suspected murderer anyway.
"No, it’s okay. I’m just not used to talking about myself."
"It’s alright. I have to learn not to be so nosy."
The pair rode along through town silently, finally spotting the turnoff up ahead for Super Wal-Mart.
"Here we are."
"This is where you found me?"
"You’re kidding, right?"
"No, I really don’t…it’s just that…things aren’t real clear to me about the other night. Getting smacked in the head can do that, I guess," she joked, touching the tape on her brow. "I really don’t remember us meeting."
"Well, that’s because we didn’t exactly meet. You got in my car while I was in the store, and I didn’t find you until I got home."
"Oh." That explained why she hadn’t been pushed out and left in the parking lot. But it still didn’t answer why the woman hadn’t called the police once she’d reached home and found her there.
"Yeah, you were kind of out of it," Ruth added.
The blue-eyed woman looked around in confusion. It had been dark and raining the other night, and none of this looked familiar. The store was surrounded by woods in the back and on one side, and she wasn’t sure where she’d left her bike.
But that wasn’t Ruth’s problem, Spencer knew. She’d obviously worn out her welcome.
"Listen, I appreciate this — everything — more than I can say. When this all gets cleared up, I’ll stop by and settle up for the food and stuff."
"It isn’t necessary."
"I know. I just want to find a way to say thanks."
"You don’t have to." Again, Ruth heard the edge in her own voice, and told herself to calm down. "Really, it’s okay. Sometimes we all need a little help."
Spencer nodded. "Well, if there’s anything I can ever do for you…," she had no idea what that might be, "I’m in the book. DS Rollins. Call me."
"Okay." Ruth pulled in and drove through the lot. "Where do you want me to drop you?"
"I guess at the front door. It’s going to look pretty funny for me to just walk into the woods and disappear." She might have to wait several hours until dark, she realized grimly. But then if she did that, she’d have trouble finding her bike.
Ruth looked at the woman beside her and knew that wandering into the woods wouldn’t get her half the attention her appearance would. Her eye and forehead were black and blue, and her denim jacket was stained with blood. Her pants were filthy, and her hair looked as though it hadn’t been washed in a week.
"Why don’t I just drop you over at the edge? Then you can just go straight to your bike."
"That would look kind of suspicious, don’t you think?"
"Maybe," Ruth said diplomatically, "but I doubt people would notice that as much as they’d notice you walking around the store. You don’t exactly blend in with this…," she touched the denim sleeve, "colorful attire, not to mention your equally colorful face."
Spencer conceded that the woman had a point. "Yeah, I guess you’re right," she sighed. Frustration seemed to be her constant companion, and it was made worse when the large raindrops began to pelt the windshield. "Oh, boy."
Great! Now Ruth felt guilty about putting the woman out in the rain. But Spencer Rollins wasn’t her problem, she kept telling herself. Jessie was her problem, and so was everyone back in Madison who was probably looking for them by now. She couldn’t be in the middle of this, and she couldn’t do a thing about the weather.
"I’m really sorry," she offered.
"That’s okay. I really appreciate everything you did."
The Taurus stopped at the wood’s edge. Spencer grabbed her rain suit from the back and opened the door.
Ruth watched her climb out. "Take care of yourself. I hope everything works out." God, that was lame. I hope you’re not killed or anything.
"Thanks. Thanks for everything."
Spencer closed the door glumly and climbed the muddy bank to the edge of the woods. Any moment now, the sky was going to open up and douse her good, but she needed to get out of sight before stopping to put on her rain gear.
Ruth couldn’t shake the feelings of guilt, no matter how much she rationalized her decision. But it had to be this way. Too much was at stake here with her and Jessie, things Spencer Rollins knew nothing about. She wished she’d been able to explain it all, so she wouldn’t seem so callous.
Absorbed in her thoughts of the injured woman’s problems, Ruth fell in behind a line of traffic, mindlessly turning left before she realized her error. The road she was on led out to the interstate. That was in the opposite direction from the trailer, so she immediately started looking for a place to turn around or circle back. A cutoff up ahead looked promising, and she followed a couple of cars as they turned.
The rain was heavier now, and she turned her wipers up a notch. On her left was a wooded area; in fact, she realized, it appeared to be the same woods where she’d dropped her passenger, except on the other side. Peering through the trees, she tried to catch a glimpse of….
Fuck! Ruth slammed on her brakes, narrowly avoiding the stopped car in front of her. Did the idiot just stop in the road or what?
The flashing blue lights up ahead sent a shockwave to her bones. From here, it looked like a checkpoint of some sort. Her only driver’s license was for Ruth Ferguson, a fugitive. It was too late to turn around without being seen, and already, three more cars had lined up behind her.
Her knee bounced uncontrollably as she inched forward and saw with relief that the commotion wasn’t a checkpoint after all. Apparently, it was just a minor accident of some sort, because there were yellow lights from a wrecker on the other side of the road. As she drew closer, she followed the patrolman’s direction to keep right, finally seeing what all the activity was about: Two uniformed patrolmen were guiding a red motorcycle down the embankment. And parked behind the wrecker was a black sedan with government plates.
So they’d found Spencer’s bike.
With a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, Ruth realized that the woman she’d dropped off was at this very moment walking right into the hands of her pursuers. That man, the one in the raincoat standing in front of the government car, might even be one of the men who Spencer said wanted her dead. But surely the Manassas police would keep her safe, and she could explain what happened.
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But what if everything that Spencer had said was true? She might never have a chance to tell her story. She might be killed in their custody, and they’d just report that she tried to escape or something. Not like it hadn’t ever happened before. Suddenly Ruth felt as though she held the woman’s fate in her hands.
This is not your problem, the voice said. Your priority is Jessie. Spencer Rollins will be okay.
Even as her conscious mind repeated that mantra, Ruth slowed and pulled onto a gravel road. When traffic cleared, she turned back toward the wrecker, looking away as she passed the patrolman again. Two quick turns later, and she was back at the spot where she had dropped her passenger.
Leaving the car at the edge of the pavement, Ruth got out and scampered hurriedly up the bank and into the woods. Pushing through the wet underbrush, she fought the urge to call out, not wanting to give their presence away. Through the rain, she could make out the figure of the tall woman moving slowly in the woods up ahead. If she could just catch her before she went too far. Running faster, Ruth hurdled a fallen log and charged through the slippery forest floor in pursuit.
Spencer looked about anxiously as she scoured the woods for her bike. She hadn’t remembered walking this far when she came upon the Wal-Mart. Thinking she’d just been following the wrong angle, she turned to her right, freezing in place as she caught movement behind her from the corner of her eye. Crouching behind a rhododendron, she waited and watched, shocked to see that the blonde woman had followed her into the woods. Stepping out, she started to call out.
Frantic, Ruth ran faster, waving her hands and gesturing wildly for Spencer to stay quiet and get back down.
"They’ve got your bike," she whispered, joining the taller woman behind the bush. "They’re just over the rise at the edge of the road. It’s the black car, just like you said."