“That dog bit,” Adam said, “it was an excellent ploy on his part. All right, let’s head out of here and go get the bastard. You got our directions, Savich?”
“In a second,” Savich said.
Adam took Becca in his arms. “You did great, Becca, really great. You rattled him. Now, let’s get dressed and go nail that little bastard.”
“We’re all going,” Becca said.
Savich looked up and grinned. “It’s a farmhouse some six miles northwest of here, outside a small town called Blaylock. Let me call Tommy the Pipe.” He got him quickly on his cell phone.
“Yeah, Tommy, call all the others and head on out there, but don’t go in. This guy is very dangerous. Just keep him under wraps until we get there. I’ll find out everything I can on the way there. Yeah, on MAX.”
In the backseat of Adam’s Jeep, Savich kept up a running commentary. “Here we go. The farmhouse belonged to Orlando Cartwright, bought the place back in 1954. He’s dead now. Oh yeah, that’s good, MAX. He had one daughter, she was with him until he died three weeks ago at Blue Hills Community Hospital. Lung cancer, Alzheimer’s. Oh, no, she’s still there, alone.”
“Shit,” Adam said.
“What’s her name?” Becca asked, turning in the seat to look at him.
“Linda Cartwright. Just a minute here, okay, good hunting, MAX. She’s never been married, age thirty-three, and she’s on the heavy side, one hundred and sixty-five pounds, but she’s really pretty, even on her DL photo. She’s a legal secretary for the Billson Manners law firm in Bangor, been there for eight years. Hold on a second, let me get into her personnel file. Yes, she’s got very good evaluations-in 1995 she complained about sexual harassment. Hmmm, the guy was eventually fired. Her work record is clean. Her mother died back in 1985, a drunk driver killed both her and Linda’s younger sister. No, MAX, there’s no need to go into police files, probably a waste of time.”
“She’s single and she’s alone,” Sherlock said. “Not good at all. Hurry, Adam.”
“She’s alone,” Becca said. “She’s alone, just like I was.”
At one o’clock in the morning, beneath a nearly full, brilliant summer moon, Adam pulled his black Jeep next to a dark-blue Ford Taurus parked on the side of a two-lane blacktop road. They were some fifty yards from the old farmhouse with its peeling white shutters and sagging narrow front porch.
There was no need for introductions.
Two men, both in their thirties, fit, one wearing glasses, the other smoking a pipe, were leaning against the side of the car. Savich said, “The guy in there?”
“The lights are still on, but we haven’t seen any movement at all. No one left since we got here. Chuck and Dave are around the back.” He took out his walkie-talkie. “You guys see anything?”
The answer was clear and loud. “He hasn’t come out this way, Tommy. You and Rollo haven’t seen anything?”
“Nothing.”
Dave said, “There’s no movement in the house that we can see. Chuck wants to go up close and look through the windows.”
“Tell Chuck and Dave to stay put,” Adam said. “Here’s Savich, he’ll give you the rundown on what we’re facing.”
Savich was concise, his voice clipped.
“I don’t like this,” Tommy said and puffed frantically on his pipe. “Damn, a woman living way out here, all alone, no neighbors for a couple of miles. I’ll bet he scoped her out really fast and that he’s been here with her. God, this doesn’t look good. We’ve seen nothing of either of them. Maybe she’s not here. Maybe MAX is wrong and she was never here.”
“Yeah, right, Tommy,” Rollo said, and he sounded depressed. He was short, dressed all in black, and he was perfectly bald, his head shining brightly beneath the summer moon.
Tommy the Pipe said, “Maybe he left before we got here. It could be that he took her with him, as a hostage.”
Linda Cartwright was a woman alone, and Becca knew he’d been in there, with her.
Damn the bright moon, Adam was thinking, it lit them up as clearly as daylight from the front of the farmhouse. But there were thick pine trees crowding the eastern side of the small farmhouse. Folk grew potatoes in this area, and so much of the land was cleared, open, just occasional random clumps of pines and maples dotted here and there, but no place to hide. There was a big mechanical digger sitting in the middle of an open field. There was a small sagging porch in front of the house, a naked lightbulb burning over the front door.
On the eastern side of the house, he could get to within twenty feet of the structure before the pine trees played out. It would have to be good enough. He pulled out his Delta Elite, thoughtfully rubbed his temple with the barrel. Then he said, a feral gleam in his eyes, “I got a plan. Gather round.”
“I don’t like it,” Savich said after Adam had fallen silent. “Too dangerous.”
Adam said, “I was thinking that all of us could go in guns blazing, raising hell, but the woman might still be alive. We can’t take the chance he’d pop her then and there and then kill two or three of us, what with all this damned moonlight.”
“All right,” Savich said after a moment, “but I’ll go with you.”
“Bullshit,” said Adam. “I don’t care if you’re a damned FBI agent and your goal in life is to catch bad guys. You’re married and you’ve got a kid. What I need from you and everyone else is good cover. I hear you’re a pretty good shot, Savich. Prove it.”
“I’m coming with you, Adam,” Becca said. “I’ll cover your back from right behind you.”
“No.” He held up his hand. “I’m the professional here. Just say some prayers, that’s all I ask.”
“No,” Becca said, and he realized then that if he wanted her to stay put, he’d have to have one of the men tie her down. He didn’t like it, but he understood it. It could be dangerous, too dangerous. He just didn’t know what to do.
“I’m coming,” she said, and he knew she was committed. “I have to, Adam, just have to.”
He wished he didn’t understand, but he did. He nodded. He heard Savich snort. “Becca will cover me from the woods,” he said. “No, no arguments, Becca. That’s the deal.”
Sherlock took the walkie-talkie and spoke to Chuck and Dave at the back of the house, told them what was going to happen.
Becca’s heart was pounding hard and fast. The night was chilly but she was sweating. She felt faint nausea in her stomach. This was real and it was scary and she was terrified, not just for Adam and her, but for that poor woman inside the house, that poor woman she prayed was still alive. Sherlock and the men looked calm, alert, ready. Tommy put his pipe back in his pocket and handed Becca a Kevlar vest. “It’s the smallest one, after Sherlock’s.” He shrugged. “Let me help you with it. You’re going to stay under cover in the woods, remember. You’ll be out of the line of fire, but hey, it always pays to be careful.”
Once she was strapped into the vest, she pulled her Coonan, and checked the clip three times. Adam took one look at her and didn’t say a thing, just mouthed at her to stay a bit behind him. Her heart was pounding harder and faster than it had just five minutes before. Her hand was shaking, no good, no good. She stuffed her left hand in her pocket. Keep steady, she thought, as she looked down at her right hand, which held her pistol. She looked over at Sherlock, who was frowning at one of the Velcro fastenings on her Kevlar vest. No one was taking any chances at all.
“Show time,” Savich said after he checked his watch. “Go, Adam. Good luck. Becca, you keep down.”
Adam, with Becca on his heels, made a wide berth to the east side of the house. He walked slowly, quietly, Becca just as quiet, through the pine trees. When they got to the edge of the woods, Adam pulled up. Twenty feet, he thought, not more than twenty feet. He looked through the window at the other end of those twenty feet, right in front of him. There were curtains, thin, see-through white lace, but they weren’t drawn over the single wide window. It was probably a bedroom. He turned to look at Becca, her face as pale as the fat moon overhead. He cupped her neck in his hand and pulled her close. He whispered against her cheek, “I want you to stay right here and keep alert. You stay hidden, do you hear me? You see him, you blow his head off, all right?”