Linda went to the mini-fridge and took out two cokes. After they each popped open their cans, Ryan looked directly at Linda. “When were you going to tell me about your daughter?”

  “What do you know about her?”

  “Her name is Stephanie. She’s what . . . probably ten years old. She attends Hobart School here in Portland. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I guess it was a shock for you to hear those calls mention I had a daughter?”

  “I’ve known for some time.”

  “How?”

  “I know pretty much everything about you. Remember me? What I do? There’s not much I can’t find out.”

  “Why didn’t you say something? I mean, before this.”

  “I didn’t want to violate your privacy. I figured you’d tell me when you were ready. This current mess threw a monkey wrench in waiting ‘til you got around to it.”

  “Why do you bring Steffi up now?”

  “They needed something to threaten you, a lever. Something profound enough for you to consider killing a man you don’t even know. Right off, I figured that had to be your daughter. I had it checked. Your daughter is still in Hobart, so they haven’t abducted her. The picture in with the roses was to let you know they’re watching her. To keep you from taking your daughter out of Hobart and making a run for it.”

  Linda began nodding her head before he finished. “You got all that right. You’re an amazing man, Ryan Testler.”

  “A man I was with a few days ago, said, ‘In times like this, information is what separates life from death.’ He was right.”

  “I’m so frightened. I don’t know what to do.”

  Ryan reached out and took Linda’s hand. He put it into his own, and put his second hand on top of hers. “Don’t worry. We’ll keep Steffi safe and get you out of all this.”

  “How?”

  “You do ask the tough questions, don’t you?”

  “How? Damn it, how?”

  “It’s coming together, but we need to know more before ‘how’ can take shape.”

  “Back up some. Who called you a few minutes ago? Who is it you’re going to meet?”

  “A source. After that, I’ll know more.”

  “Who was it? Where are you meeting?”

  “Can’t go into that. Part of my commitment to the source.”

  “But you’ll tell me what you learn?”

  “Sure. Now let’s get back to what you just told me. First off, that man’s got the hots for you. Billy, not Brad. We can use that.”

  “Yes. Well, Billy Knight is a man constantly in heat. I’ve been required to stoke his fire. That’s part of my problem.”

  “What? You having trouble deciding whether to kill him before or after you boff him? You might get a kick out of knowing you’ll be the last lover the man ever experiences.”

  “You’re disgusting sometimes. You know that don’t you?”

  Ryan laughed. “Yeah. And, if I didn’t, you’ve told me a few times before.”

  “Where were you? Why didn’t you just pick up one of the times I called?”

  “That’s a long story. One I can’t really tell. I couldn’t answer. Didn’t even have the phone with me.”

  “But you’ve said you always carried it.”

  “That’s the trouble. Sometimes and always aren’t fully compatible. It was late Tuesday night when I was finally able to listen to all your calls. Fortunately, I was somewhere where I could get access to outstanding resources. I worked on it some very late Tuesday. After a good night’s sleep, I stayed on it right through Wednesday, during which I contacted the help I needed. We’ve been able to narrow down the identity of this Brad fella. A technical friend jumped in to work his magic, while another friend, nearer to here, did some reconnaissance and surveillance on your buddy, Brad. We know his last name. I should say, we’re all but certain we do. He fits, he’s here, there aren’t all that many men who are possibilities for this kind of work. We know a lot of general stuff that’s always handy to know.”

  “What’s his last name?”

  “Unimportant.”

  “You’re still saying, ‘it’s unimportant?’ That’s bullshit.”

  “Yep.”

  “It’s really irritating.” Linda paused, taking a drink of her soda. “Okay. I get it.” She forcefully crossed her arms under her breasts. “That it irritates me is also unimportant.” Ryan smiled before she added, “Seriously, what’s his last name?”

  “Nope. I don’t want you inadvertently saying it. That would tip your hand. Put you in danger.”

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Can’t do that is more foolproof than wouldn’t do that. I’ll tell you eventually, but not now. I can tell you this Brad, as we’re calling him, is a real piece of work.”

  “Who is he, really? Not his name. Just … for Christ’s sake, you can tell me about him can’t you?”

  Ryan stared at the now fully brightened window covering. “I can say this much, and no more. He’s a former special forces guy. Drummed out for, how should I put it, being too nasty even for his unit. Unfortunately, some guys in those units get twisted. Not many. They’re a fine group of men and women, but a few get … too nasty. He’s not the brightest bulb in the pack. Brad is weak at improvisation, but he follows the orders of whoever is in charge. Recently, he’s worked for a few people on retainer, always ready, willing, and generally able. My friend and I are trying to figure which of his regular customers might be bossing this mission. We’ve got it winnowed down to the two most likely employers, possibly three. That should clear up sometime today. The three are all people who deal with high-end stuff. Matters they think are lofty enough for them to wrap their acts in the cloth of patriotism—at least in their minds. These people think they shape the world and drive the really important changes. Mostly it’s self-aggrandizing shit.”

  “What’s so important about Billy Knight that someone wants him dead?”

  “I don’t know. That’s a key piece. When we know it, we’ll know which of the three probables is behind what’s happening to you. Maybe I’ll have a handle on that before noon.”

  “The person who called?”

  “Yep. You’re set to meet Brad here at the hotel at eight. I’ll be back no later than five, probably sooner.”

  “How do you know that, ah, I’m meeting Brad at eight?”

  “One of your blurted out non-messages said you were in this hotel under the name Sue Little. The fellow I called ahead to do some surveillance work was able to find you here and put a tap on your hotel phone and a bug in your room. He’s been listening for almost twenty-four hours, since well before I got home from my mission. I’m guessing that by now he’s gotten into Billy Knight’s condo and installed a tap on his phone and bugged his place as well. We don’t know enough yet about Billy. And we haven’t nailed down Brad’s location. I expect he’ll call you today to remind you about tonight and to keep you feeling the constant pressure he wants you under. If he calls on your cell, feign trouble on the line. Low battery, anything, and suggest he call back on the hotel phone. Then we can capture the call. It might help us locate where he’s staying, if we don’t find out before then.”

  Linda slipped her arms into the sleeves of the hotel robe, and went to the desk to get a pen and a pad of paper. “If you don’t already have it, here’s Billy cell number. Can’t you just stay here? With me.”

  “Can’t. Got more to do. I’ll pass Billy’s cell number on, but I’m guessing my man’s already got it. We need to nail down the identity of Brad’s employer. The more I think about it, the more convinced I become of which one it is. We need confirmation. I want to know more about Billy Knight, too. By the way, did you see in the news that Senator Roy Dickerson is going to run for president against President Walker?”

  “That came out of left field.” Linda shook her head. “At this point, why do I care? Why do you bring it up? It has nothing to do with my … mess.”

  Ryan smirked. “I gotta go.” He headed for the door, talking as he did. “His real name is Roscoe Dickerson, but the world knows him as Roy. Roscoe makes him sound like one of Buffalo Bill’s skinners from the old west.” With that, Ryan opened the door and started to leave.

  Before the door closed, he stopped, turned, and pushed his way back in. “I’m guessing they’ve continued showing you pictures of Steffi at school, since the original one that came with the roses. They’d want you to know they can get her anytime. I should have thought of this sooner. Do you have any of those pictures?”

  Linda shook her head, her lips curled inside her mouth. “I’ve seen several, but Brad wouldn’t let go of them.”

  “Tell me about them. Where Steffi was in the pictures. Her exact position as well as you remember. What was in the foreground, in front of your daughter, and in the background behind her. Speak as if you’re looking from across the street from the Hobart. Then, give me a second view from the front porch of the Hobart.”

  For the next couple minutes, Linda described the pictures. After she finished, Ryan asked for picayune details. The position of a tree as if it were a number on a clock with Steffi’s position representing twelve straight up. The same thing with respect to a gate, another tree, and the street sign at the corner. Linda, sometimes with her eyes closed, did the best she could to provide the answers. Her forehead furrowing and unfurrowing as she squinted for a closer look into her memories. Each of those pictures were burned into her mind so it was easier than she expected when Ryan asked. When she finished, Ryan dug for more details or further clarifications.

  “I can’t be certain of all these details.”

  “What you’ve provided is excellent. It should do.”

  “Why do you want to know so much about the pictures?”

  “Unimportant. Okay, not unimportant, but I’m already late. I don’t want this source getting antsy and fleeing before I get there.” As he walked out he was dialing his cell phone.

  The door closed.

  Linda was alone, but feeling less alone than she’d felt since the roses arrived at her condo in Sea Crest. A time that seemed in a prior life. Still, the risks to Steffi hadn’t changed. Not yet.

  Who the hell is Ryan going to meet?

  26

  Ryan entered the Portland, Oregon, Museum of Contemporary Art. He walked toward a padded leather bench already occupied by a somewhat dowdy woman. Seeing Ryan, she subconsciously performed the nervous gesture of shaking her head to toss her long black hair back off her cheek. Her paleness indicated she toiled at an indoor job, followed by most weekends also spent indoors.

  His cell vibrated against his leg. He stepped around a corner in the museum and answered. He grunted once or twice, then gave a careful, detailed description of the pictures of Steffi in relation to the main buildings and grounds of the Hobart School. The caller reported that electronics installed on Billy Knight’s cell and in his condo were working perfectly. Ryan went back around the corner and continued toward the woman seated in front of a painting.

  Her thin white limbs had hairs that couldn’t have been there a few days before when she last shaved her legs. Light hairs, suggestive of the silk of girlhood despite the woman’s middle age.

  She was a mother for whom Ryan had done a favor when her single, barely adult, daughter had become enchanted with a man the woman didn’t approve of—that no mother or father, not to mention grandparent or family friend, would approve of. The woman owed Ryan for dispatching the scoundrel down the road, without charge. She sat in front of a painting Ryan could not imagine anyone stopping to look at. He didn’t understand how such pieces became world class art.

  The woman spoke just above a whisper. “I had to be very careful.” Her eyes, nervously glanced to one side and then the other. The painting was about twenty feet in front of her. Her dark, serious eyes were placed higher on her forehead than most people’s. Or, perhaps, that look resulted from her lower lids sagging enough to reveal white crescents when she looked with a fixed stare.

  He sat next to her.

  “We’re talking people in high places,” she began. “People with the power to end my pension, if not my right to breathe.” Her eyes flittered about as if the surrounding canvas all had real, not painted, ears.

  “I need what you’ve got.”

  “None of this can come back to me.” She looked right at Ryan. Her face seemed like two faces, somehow combined. The oddness of her eyes, and her flowing hair style, which didn’t really fit with her long, narrow head, were parts of one face. On the other hand, her mouth was the kind a man packs into his thoughts and carries home. Full natural lips, reddened to appeal, her teeth straight and white as piano keys. A Hollywood mouth.

  “Brad Sander is working for the president’s reelection committee.” Her eyes narrowed, then closed. “Oh, God. Why did you come to me?”

  “It’s called friendship, Lillian. I was there for you. Now you’re here for me. You’re in a position to be able to check the records of everyone who’s ever worked for the government, on or off the books. This is how it all works, helping each other. You came to me not long ago. Now I come to you. Relax. I’ll go to my grave without disclosing you were my source.”

  Her pallid arm came toward Ryan. Her shaking hand gripped his forearm. “You also wanted to know about Billy Knight.”

  Ryan placed his hand over Lillian’s. “Yes. It’s important. Not unlike your need to save your daughter. I’m trying to save another woman. There are numerous similarities between her situation and the one that involved your daughter.”

  “With what I learned, I can understand that.” She nodded her head gently, then jerked again to move the hair off the side of her face.

  “Okay. It’s time. Tell me.”

  Lillian breathed deep and closed her eyes. “William Knight was with the Secret Service. He was in charge of the detail that guarded the president’s wife, our first lady. Carolyn Walker is considerably younger than President Walker. There are rumors that say she has made herself available to several other men. What I hear is she makes the first overture. There are stories about men who have avoided her advances and were later disadvantaged through transfers to undesirable posts. The woman gets what she wants or takes retribution.”

  Bingo.

  Ryan had the connection. The key to the puzzle in which Linda Darby found herself. The president’s Chief of Staff, Carlson Bickersley, had been good friends with Alistar Webster, a brutal, fanatical man for whom Ryan had worked in years past. His past work for Webster was not all that different from what Brad Sander was now doing for Bickersley. If so, the chief of staff could have known of Webster’s attempt to kill Linda Darby.

  That would explain how the man in Linda’s hotel room was able to reference her killing the assassin, Blue, who had come to kill her. Yes, it fit. That probably led Bickersley to conclude that Linda was the perfect foil to prevent Billy Knight from damaging the work of the committee to reelect. Bickersley needed an assassin without ties back to himself, the government, or the president. Linda had the curves to get close and the grit to kill. Ryan anticipated the plan in place included Linda being killed in the investigation following Knight’s death. Bickersley couldn’t leave her out there after the kill. He’d clean the trail that led back to him by having her removed. That job would fall to Brad Sander.

  That way, Bickersley would achieve what Webster had not, the elimination of Linda Darby. And, with that, the death of anything Linda still knew about Webster and his extracurricular activities, some of which tangentially included Bickersley.

  Lillian sat with her arms in her lap. She had her glasses off and cradled in her open palms, the temple arms trailing out toward the tips of her fingers. She waited for Ryan to run through his thoughts and return his attention to her.

  Lillian’s chin touched her chest and her eyes closed. “Are we through here?”

  “I think so. Is there anything else I should know?”

  She shook her head gently, then opened her eyes suddenly. Her head snapped toward Ryan, who sat beside her, their shoulders touching. “Nothing. I hope you never need more from me on this matter.”

  She rose from the bench and walked away. Her fatless features moved above her feet as she carefully stepped each in front of the other, somewhat center of her stride. Her heels somehow silent on the stone floor of the museum.

  27

  BACK IN LINDA’S ROOM

  Tomorrow was D-Day for Linda, as Brad had called it. He didn’t mean the military success, June 6, 1944, D-Day from World War II. He meant Billy Knight’s death day delivered by Linda Darby. The day she would have to murder another person.

  Linda rationalized that killing Billy Knight would be in self-defense, well, daughter-defense to be technically correct. But, not really self-defense at all. She would not be killing a person directly threatening her. She would be premeditatedly killing someone not even threatening Steffi. Trimmed of all pretenses, if she obeyed, and, as yet, she had found no options, she would murder Billy Knight, an innocent person who hadn’t, in any way, threatened either her or her daughter. The real evil wasn’t even that asshole, Brad, as distasteful as he was. The villain was someone else. Someone completely unknown to her. Someone who would kill a ten-year old child to serve a crazy higher calling, or a lower unspeakable perversion.

  Ryan said he’d be back before she went to meet Brad. It was after three. She hoped he’d found some answers. Something, anything that would move her toward a solution. She didn’t want to murder Billy Knight. She didn’t want to murder anyone. But, by God, she’d kill Billy. She’d kill anyone to save Steffi. She’d even kill herself.

  That was the first time she’d acknowledged the thought plainly and simply. If she were dead, there would be no percentage for whoever it was to kill Steffi. They’d just find another surrogate and Billy Knight would still die. But Steffi would survive, motherless, but alive.

 

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