by Meg O'Brien
“But that’s not the point. I never should have been there. What an idiot I was, tramping around in the dark like some supersleuth who didn’t even know which end was up.”
Kris sat back down and took Abby’s hands. “Please, don’t do that. There isn’t time now. Look, Abby, you’ve got good instincts. And you know Alicia Gerard better than anyone on this case. You’re the kind of friends that can pick up after not seeing each other for a long time and it’s like you’ve never been apart. And listen, I’m not asking you to save the world. As soon as I know Danny’s safe you can call whoever you want—Ben, Lessing, the police. Turn Devlin in, and let them take over. All I need is a little time to find my kid, first.”
The woman’s hands were freezing, and Abby shivered. Millions of lives at stake. Three days left. No, two, by the time she figured out where to start looking. What if she never found Alicia, or she did, and Alicia didn’t know where her father was? Or what if she, Abby, found him and he didn’t agree to turn the bomb over to the authorities?
Of course he wouldn’t agree. Why would he? She’d have to hold a gun to his head. And even then, she didn’t know anything about bombs. How could she know he wasn’t deceiving her in some way?
Abby put her head in her hands. “Give me a second.” Running over her options, she thought of the Easter lily e-mail and the song “Galveston.” Hardly anything definite, but it could be a lead. The minute she’d seen it, she’d felt something. A hunch. And it didn’t seem Kris or anyone else on her team had discovered it.
Should she just go to Ben or Lessing and tell them about it? With so much at stake, how could she possibly risk doing this all alone?
On the other hand, if the authorities took over now and Pat Devlin was found too soon in Galveston, The Candlelights would think that Kris hadn’t followed their orders. They would almost certainly kill her child.
“Abby,” Kris said softly. “I told you when we first met that I know you. I know you’re strong and capable and smart—”
“You don’t know me at all,” Abby snapped, feeling pressured and manipulated. “You met me three days ago. You don’t know what’s in my gut.” Fear. Deep-down, ice-cold fear.
“Look, I know you have less self-confidence now than two years ago.”
Abby paled. “Where did you hear that? Ben?”
“No, Ben never said a word. I got it from my background check on you. You’d be surprised the things we can find out when we need to.”
Shit, Abby thought. George Orwell’s Big Brother is alive and well and living in Carmel.
But despite her fear, Abby still wanted to find Alicia. She wanted her to have an even chance when the authorities did catch up with her. Even more, she wanted to keep her promise to Jancy.
Maybe—with a little help—
Abby met Kris’s anxious gaze. “Just one thing. Say I find Pat Devlin. What if he refuses to cooperate? I’ll need something to hold over him. Some way to convince him not to turn over that bomb to The Candlelights. Or, if he already has, to tell us where they are.”
A strange look passed over Kris Kelley’s face as she released Abby’s hands.
“No problem,” Kris said. “I’m way ahead of you.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, I have something to trade with our bomb-making friend.”
Abby felt confused. “To trade? With Pat Devlin?”
“Not just him. With Alicia, too.”
“What could you possibly—”
“I’ve got Pat Devlin’s granddaughter, Abby. Alicia’s daughter. I have Jancy.”
Abby flew to her feet. “You what?”
“You heard me,” Kris said, her voice suddenly hard. “And Alicia won’t see her again until I get my son back. Alive.”
Abby’s hands knotted into fists. It was all she could do to keep from strangling Kris Kelley. She had just begun to trust her, and now—
“You’re the one Jancy was running from yesterday?”
“That’s right. I’d have gotten her, too, if Arnie hadn’t shown up. I grabbed her later, though, at a pay phone outside a market in Carmel.”
“And you’re holding that little girl hostage until—” Abby swallowed hard, feeling sick. “My God. How does that make you any better than the people who have Danny?”
“It doesn’t,” Kris said with deadly calm. “But in the immortal words of old Rhett, frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. I’ve spent seven years protecting that little boy, and I want him back. I’ll do anything to make that happen.”
“I don’t believe you!” Abby said. “You talk tough, but you’d never kill Jancy! You haven’t got it in you to kill a child.”
“Maybe not, but I can fix it so the Gerards never see her again.”
“Impossible! You think Jancy’s going to let you get away with keeping her from her parents? She’d take off the minute your back was turned.”
“Not if she didn’t remember that she even had a mother and father named Gerard,” Kris said in a tone that meant business. “Or, if what she ‘remembered’ was that I was her mother.”
Abby felt her blood literally run cold. “You’re bluffing. You can’t do that!”
“We have people on our payroll who can do precisely that,” Kris said.
Abby felt faint. “My God. What kind of monster are you?”
“I’m a mother,” Kris said. “I would kill to protect my child. And though I’d prefer not to, I will kill if Danny is harmed, to avenge my child.”
26
It was hot and muggy in Galveston at nine-thirty that night. The highway south from the Houston airport had been clogged with traffic, and a cheap little rental car was all they’d had left. The AC wasn’t working right, and within the first ten minutes, Abby’s silk blouse had stuck to her skin.
There was no time to waste. Three days till doomsday. Two, now, after tonight. If she and Kris were lucky, Pat Devlin would still have possession of that bomb. If not, and they couldn’t find The Candlelights who had it, nothing else would matter in two days’ time.
She couldn’t believe Alicia knew about this and wouldn’t have tried to stop it. After all, her own child could be one of the bomb’s victims. Alicia wasn’t a monster. Not like Kris Kelley.
Was she?
Abby pulled up to the lobby entrance of a motel with a leaping dolphin on its sign and parked, sliding off the sticky faux-leather seat of the car. Inside the lobby it was cool, and the room she’d reserved online under the name of Katherine Gavney was ready for her. Air-conditioned and nonsmoking, thank God.
She drove to the side of the building and found number thirty-eight alongside a swimming pool that was flanked with nearly dead palm trees. Dragging her tote bag, purse and a map of Galveston into the room with her, Abby flopped on the bed. Staring up at the ceiling, she kicked off her shoes and took a moment to breathe in the cool air.
When on earth had she ever been this tired? The last time she’d slept, other than brief catnaps on airplanes, had been the hospital in Phoenix. Two nights ago? Three?
She hadn’t wasted any time getting here, other than making a necessary brief stop at the Prayer House after Big Sur. From there, she had secured these reservations on her computer, made a phone call and taken another five minutes to throw a few things into a tote bag.
Sister Helen had stood by, obviously upset with her. A woman with two children had come to the Prayer House seeking sanctuary through Paseo while she was gone.
“I don’t know how to do all that as well as you,” Helen had complained to Abby as she packed for Galveston. “It’s not my thing.”
Abby had smiled. “Your thing? What is your thing, Helen?”
“To be retired!” Helen had grumbled. “Do you realize it’s been fifteen years since I retired from teaching? When do I get to act like it?”
Despite her worries, Abby’s smile had widened. “I’ve been trying to slow you down for years! The minute I get you to stop doing one thing, you’re on to another.”
<
br /> Abby knew Helen’s grumbles were largely for effect, but on the off chance she was serious this time, she’d said, “I can arrange for Narissa to take over all your duties, Hel. And she can sub for me with Paseo. She grew up with a lot of siblings, and she’s great with kids.”
Sister Helen had sighed. “We’ll see. I guess I can hold out till this is over. But please don’t call me ‘Hel.’ It makes me think too much of the afterlife.”
“Sorry.” The afterlife wasn’t something Abby wanted to think of at the moment, either.
“How long do you expect to be gone this time?” Helen had asked. “And just where exactly has that Jancy girl gone off to?”
“I don’t really know how long I’ll be gone,” Abby had said. “No more than a few days, I hope. Maybe less. As for Jancy, she’s staying with a friend. She’s okay.”
I pray she’s okay, Abby had added to herself. It was something she had to believe in, to trust. But Kris Kelley? Was there anything more formidable than a mother protecting her child?
She had started to fall asleep on the motel bed when a knock sounded at the door. She started, then looked at the bedside clock—2:23 a.m.
Crossing the room in her bare feet, she looked through the peephole, but it was too dark to make out who was on the other side. Speaking softly, she called out, “Who is it?”
Holding her ear to the door, she heard, “The KGB. Who else? Let me in.”
She smiled, opened the door and hugged Jimmy Delgado. His return hug lifted her off her feet.
“I don’t think there’s a KGB anymore,” she said. “But thanks for showing up.”
“How could I not?” he said, putting her down. “I told you, I was glad to hear from you.”
Noticing the small airline bag, she said, “Here, toss that down, and let’s talk.”
He dropped the bag and looked around the room. “Not the fanciest, but you really want to talk? I thought we were having a rendezvous.”
“More like a summit meeting,” she said.
Jimmy sighed. “I was afraid of that when you called me earlier. Something about terrorists? Didn’t sound very romantic.” He grinned. “Unless, of course, that’s your idea of a fantasy.”
Abby smiled, and felt good for the first time in days—or as good as anyone could feel under the threat of an impending doomsday.
“There’s a coffeepot over there,” she said. “I’ll make some, then we’d better get started.”
“So, Joey thinks this is where Devlin could be?” she said ten minutes later, drawing a circle in red on the Galveston map. In a blank space she wrote Emerald Gardens.
They were sitting at the small table by the motel window. The drapes were closed so that no one could see in, and they had both moved their rental cars to the back of the motel.
It wasn’t much in the way of security, but they’d both also made sure they weren’t followed, and had signed in under fake names.
“That’s what his contact in the IRA told him,” Jimmy said, answering her question. “But you’ve got to remember, this guy was a double agent. He got washed out of the CIA years ago, and even Joey isn’t sure how credible this information is. The other place he mentioned was Los Angeles. This one just seemed more worth checking out because you said Devlin might be in Galveston.”
“This guy worked for both the IRA and the CIA? Why did he wash out?”
“Heavy drinker,” Jimmy said, tilting his coffee cup to get at the last dregs. He went over to the utility table and got the pot of coffee, bringing it back.
“More?”
Abby nodded. “Keep it coming.”
He poured and said, “The CIA was afraid he’d start selling out. This was in the nineties, after the Cold War with Russia was over, and they were cutting back on agents anyway. I guess he didn’t seem like much of a loss.”
“Is he still with the IRA, though?”
“Joey says no. He just hangs around in the same bars with them. Hears things. There’s a large Irish community in Phoenix, you know. They have a festival, all kinds of events, every year.”
“That’s what I’d heard, which led me to think Joey might be able to find something out. But if Joey’s wrong about this guy, we could be walking into a trap.”
“We could,” Jimmy agreed. “Do you want to back out?”
“No way. As far as I’m concerned, this is just the beginning. And thanks to you and your brother, I’m ten times further along than I was this afternoon.”
“With any luck,” Jimmy said.
“Right. With any luck.” Abby felt a chill as she remembered all the times her luck had run out.
Joey’s friend had given him two pieces of information. The first was Emerald Gardens, which they’d discussed earlier as being the most likely place in Galveston for Pat Devlin to be hiding out. An upscale mobile home park, it had high walls and extreme security. The park was known by the underground to be equivalent to a “safe house” for anyone—legal or not—who had enough money to pay the rent. No one got in or out without the permission of a homeowner, and no homeowner ever gave permission to a stranger. These weren’t people expecting the Joneses over to dinner and a night of watching movies. If Pat Devlin was in there, the ex-CIA agent had said, good luck getting to him.
Joey had also gotten out of him the fact that there was, or at least used to be, a warehouse along the waterfront where the IRA often met. If The Candlelights were connected in any way with the IRA, they might be hanging out there.
“He told me,” Joey had said, “to check out the lease on that warehouse. If it was still under the name Thomas Rannigan, that was a good sign. The name Thomas Rannigan was one the IRA and their splinter groups used sometimes to rent or purchase property. Came from some old hero of the Troubles,” Joey had said.
He and Jimmy had done a search of properties along the waterfront and found one that was, indeed, leased under that name.
Since it was dark and too late to check out Emerald Gardens, they decided to drive by the warehouse and see what it looked like. Finishing up the coffee, they took Jimmy’s rental car, grabbed cheeseburgers and fries at a McDonald’s and headed down to the waterfront.
“Are you thinking what I am?” Jimmy asked, as he washed down his last bite of burger with a Pepsi.
“What are you thinking?” Abby said.
“This warehouse. What if we find Pat Devlin there tonight, working on that bomb? What if he falls into our lap—” he snapped his fingers “—just like that?”
“I don’t know…” Abby said thoughtfully. “From the map, it looks pretty crowded along the waterfront. I can’t imagine he’d be building it in a place where anyone could just walk in.”
“Maybe nobody can just walk in. Maybe it’s as protected as that mobile home park.”
“Well, we’ll know pretty soon.”
Abby peered through the side window, looking at street signs. “It should be coming up…three more blocks, on the right. Let’s just drive by first, take a look. See if there are any lights, or any activity going on.”
“You know,” Jimmy said, “for somebody who lives in an abbey, Abby, you sure do have a lot of coplike tricks. I suppose you picked them up from that California cop? The one who was in Phoenix looking for you?”
“If you’re talking about Ben Schaeffer,” Abby said vaguely, still looking out the window, “I guess after two years, things do rub off.”
“So he is your boyfriend?”
“Used to be,” she said. “Now? Hell, I don’t know. Sometimes I think I don’t know anything anymore.”
“Oh, well, now, I definitely object,” Jimmy said.
“You object?”
“To the witness’s testimony about herself. Aren’t you playing prosecutor now, with you in the defendant’s chair?”
Abby gave him a look. “You know what?” she said. “You’re weird.”
He laughed. “Yeah. Joey keeps telling me that.”
“No, really. I mean, I keep forgetting you’re
a lawyer. For heaven’s sake, all you do is break the law all the time.”
He pulled over to the curb and turned the engine off. “Isn’t that why you called me, instead of him?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she looked at the street sign a few yards in front of them and saw that they still had two blocks to go. “Why are you stopping here?”
“Because,” Jimmy said, “I have a few tricks of my own.”
Doing a drive-by, he pointed out, would make them much more suspicious to anyone guarding the place—especially if they went slowly enough to really see anything. Instead, he suggested they get out of the car and walk down the side street at the corner ahead of them, then into an alley at the back of the warehouse.
“How do you know there’s an alley?” Abby said as they got out of the car.
“There’s always one for deliveries, and there should be addresses on the backs of the buildings.”
“You’re right,” Abby agreed as they entered the alley. She peered at the number on the wide loading bay that served as the only back door to the nearest warehouse. “Here’s 307. We want 422. Must be at least halfway down the block.”
“Or in the next one,” Jimmy said.
“No, look, the numbers are jumping up faster than that. This one says 380.”
All the warehouses were dark and closed up for the night—or more likely, Abby thought, abandoned. On the first three, the corrugated roofs were rusted and coming off in places. They flapped and made an eerie slapping, squeaking sound in the cool night breeze off the water.
Without discussing it, they both slowed down and became quiet as they approached number 422. Abby tugged on Jimmy’s shirtsleeve to pull him back beside a Dumpster for cover, though it was hardly necessary. The only light in this block was on this warehouse—a dim yellow bulb with a metal cage around it, by a normal-size door. This building had no loading dock or bay.
“Doesn’t look like there’s a guard or anyone else around,” Abby said. “In fact, this whole alley looks dead.”
“Like no one’s used these buildings in years,” Jimmy added.