Vanessa opened her eyes and jerked up, startled by the strange surroundings. Then she remembered where she was and why she was hiding in a motel instead of waking up in her apartment and getting ready for work. She felt sick. Had she panicked for no reason? Had she made a fool of herself? She recalled the events of the previous evening. While waiting for Sam she had noticed two men talking in a doorway across from her office, but were they talking about her? Did they even know that she existed? The men had walked slightly behind her in the same direction as the restaurant, but were they following her? And what about the bum who had knocked on her car window? Did she have any evidence that he wasn’t just a homeless man looking for a handout? In the light of day her actions seemed absurd.
Vanessa felt so stupid. What would she do now? She couldn’t go to work. She would have to face Sam. Would this be the last straw? Would he leave her? He had always tried to understand, but how much could he take? And what about the police? Would they arrest her for making a false report? No, the police would have no further interest in her. Sam would have seen to that. She flushed with shame as she imagined him explaining that his girlfriend was a former mental patient who imagined that people were plotting against her. The cops would have been angry at first, but their anger would have turned to sympathy for the poor bastard who was living with this loony. They would have shaken their heads as they left. The incident probably provided a few good laughs back at the station house.
Vanessa couldn’t go home and she couldn’t go to work. She was ashamed to face Sam. Checkout time was noon. She decided to stay in the room until she was forced to leave. Maybe she would think of something by then.
Vanessa ordered room service. While she waited for her food, she turned on Fox cable news in the middle of a report on a retired general, Morris Wingate. The General had left the military in the late 1980s and stayed out of the public eye for many years. In the early 1990s, he had invested heavily in Computex, a fledgling software company headed by a genius named Simeon Brown. Wingate’s contacts in the military helped the company obtain lucrative contracts. A few years ago, Brown had died when his private jet crashed during a vacation trip to Greece, and Wingate had taken over the company. Last year, he had become a national hero by rescuing six of his employees who had been kidnapped while working on a reconstruction project in Afghanistan. The General had brought his men out alive after leading a private army into the rugged mountains on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Now he was running neck and neck with the incumbent president, Charles Jennings, for their party’s nomination.
“Terrorists must learn to live in terror of the might of this great country,” General Wingate was telling a large audience in the ballroom of a hotel in Los Angeles. The diners were elegantly dressed. The announcer said that each seat had cost a thousand dollars. “Terrorists must learn that their families, their friends, and any country that harbors them will pay dearly for their cowardly acts. We must use force against force, and we must be merciless.”
The sight of Wingate smiling down like a tin god at his wildly applauding audience made Vanessa furious. She switched to CNN, where the “Little League parent syndrome” was the topic of discussion. A bright-eyed blond listened with rapt attention while an eminent psychologist expounded on the dangers of parents’ becoming too emotionally involved in their children’s activities.
“That was fascinating, Dr. Clarke,” the blond said. “And I think our viewers will find this equally fascinating. CNN has just obtained exclusive footage of the frightening melee at the Oregon Little League game from Ralph and Ginnie Shertz, the parents of a child on one of the teams.”
The home movie had been videotaped with an expensive camera, and the picture was very clear; but Ralph Shertz was no Spielberg-the pictures jerked from one spot to another. The action started with a large bearded man shouting at a slender man with glasses. A third man with a ponytail was standing with his back to the camera. The large man threw a punch. Moments later he was clutching his throat and writhing on the ground.
When the camera refocused on the man with the ponytail, he was throwing a policeman over his shoulder. A second policeman shot him. The man with the ponytail turned toward the officer. Vanessa’s heart stopped. She ran toward the set and squinted at the screen. The man with the ponytail fell, and the policeman’s back blocked out his face. The camera moved closer to the action and tipped down. The man with the ponytail was unconscious. Ralph Shertz had gotten a close-up of his face before the policeman who’d fired the shots slapped a hand across his lens.
The tape ended and Dr. Clarke began expounding again, but Vanessa did not hear a word he said. What she’d just seen energized her. Finally, she had a chance to prove that she wasn’t crazy. First, though, she had to make certain that Sam was safe.
Vanessa took her wallet out of her purse. In one of the compartments was a yellowed business card with a number for the FBI. Many years ago, the man who had given it to her was an agent. Now she asked to be connected to the office of Victor Hobson, the executive assistant director for law enforcement services.
“Who may I say is calling?” Hobson’s secretary asked.
“Tell him it’s Vanessa Kohler.”
“Does Mr. Hobson know what this is about?”
“Just give him my name and tell him I know where to find Carl Rice. He’ll take the call.”
There was dead air for a moment. Then Hobson was on the line.
“Vanessa, it’s been years.”
“I don’t have time for chitchat, Mr. Hobson. Carl Rice is alive and I know where to find him.”
“Where is he?” Hobson asked. Vanessa could tell that he was trying to suppress his excitement.
“I’ll tell you as soon as you do one thing for me.”
“And that is?”
“There’s a man, Sam Cutler. He works with me at Exposed. He’s a photographer. I want him protected.”
Vanessa told Hobson the address of her apartment. “He’ll be there or at the paper.”
“Why do you think Mr. Cutler is in danger?”
“Some men tried to kill me last night. My father sent them.”
Hobson was quiet. Vanessa squeezed the phone in frustration. If he thought she was crazy he wouldn’t help her.
“You have to protect Sam while I make certain that the man I saw is really Carl.”
“Then you’re not sure?”
“I’m ninety-eight percent certain, but I won’t know until I see him in person. It’s been twenty years. People look different after twenty years. Keep Sam safe. I’ll call you as soon as I know it’s Carl. Do we have a deal?”
“I’ll bring him in and offer him protective custody. Where can I reach you to let you know we have him?”
Vanessa laughed. “Nice try.”
“Wait. Take down my cell phone number. I’ll keep it on. You can call me anytime.”
Vanessa wrote down the number. As soon as she hung up she started packing. She had to leave the motel immediately. Hobson might have been running a trace as they spoke. She wasn’t taking any chances, and she had to be on the next flight to Portland anyway.
CHAPTER FIVE
The line went dead. Victor Hobson hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair. When he was younger, his cold gray eyes and craggy features had made him seem dangerous. Now, in his early sixties, he was still a hard-looking man, but his gray hair was thinning, he had developed a paunch, and he took pills to control high blood pressure. With bank robberies, drugs, and all his other federal criminal concerns he really didn’t need the additional stress of having Carl Rice reappear; but Lost Lake was one of the more curious occurrences in a very eventful life, and Vanessa was a seriously disturbed woman, who was either a murderer or the key to a mystery.