“What does he want?” She already knew. In her gut she already knew.
“He wants to speak with you. Face-to-face. You can’t say anything I haven’t already thought,” Tawney said as Simon surged to his feet. “Nothing I haven’t already said to myself.”
“You’d put her through that, ask her to sit down with the man who tried to kill her so maybe he might toss you a few crumbs?”
“It’s up to her. It’s up to you,” Tawney said to Fiona. “I don’t like it. I don’t like asking you to make this decision. I don’t like giving him squat.”
“Then don’t,” Simon snapped.
“There are plenty of reasons not to do it. He may lie. He may get what he wants and claim he knows nothing after all, or give us information that sends us in the wrong direction. But I don’t think he will.”
“It’s your job to stop this bastard. Not hers.”
Mantz shot him a single hard look. “We’re doing our job, Mr. Doyle.”
“From where I’m standing, you’re asking her to do it.”
“She’s the key. She’s what Perry wants, what he’s wanted for eight years. The reason he recruited Eckle, and she’s the reason he’ll betray him.”
“Stop talking around me,” Fiona murmured. “Just stop. If I say no, he’ll shut down.”
“Fiona.”
“Just wait.” She reached up for Simon’s hand, felt the anger through his skin as clearly as she heard it in his voice. “Wait. He’ll say nothing. He’ll hold out for weeks, maybe months. He’s capable of that. He’ll wait until there’s another. At least one more, so I’ll know she’s dead because I wouldn’t face him.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“It’s how I’d feel.” She squeezed Simon’s hand, hard. “He took Greg to hurt me, and he could do this. He’d like to do it. He expects me to say no. He probably hopes I do until someone else is dead. It would appeal to him. That’s what you think, too.”
“I do,” Tawney confirmed. “He can wait, and the waiting gives him more time to think. He considers us inferior. We wouldn’t have caught him but for a fluke, so he’d calculate Eckle may have time for one or two more.”
“There wouldn’t have been a fluke if he hadn’t killed Greg. He wouldn’t have been driven to kill Greg if I hadn’t gotten away. So it comes back to me. You need to make the arrangements. I want to do this as soon as possible.”
“Goddamn it, Fiona.”
“We need a minute.”
“We’ll be outside,” Tawney told her.
“I need to do this,” she said to Simon when they were alone.
“The fuck you do.”
“You didn’t know me when Greg was killed. You wouldn’t have known me in those weeks, months even, afterward. I shattered. My broods? They’re a shadow of it. They’re nothing compared to the guilt, the grief, the depression, the despair.”
She took both his hands now, hoping to transmit her need through his rage.
“I had help through it. The counseling, sure, but it was friends and family that pulled me out. And Agent Tawney. I could call him, day or night, talk to him when I couldn’t talk to my mother, my father, Syl, anyone else. Because he knew. He wouldn’t ask me if he didn’t believe. That’s one.”
She took a breath, steadied herself. “If I don’t do this, don’t try, and someone else dies, I think it’ll break something inside me. He’ll have won after all. He didn’t win when he took me. He didn’t win when he killed Greg. But, Simon, God, you can only take so many beatings and get up again. That’s two.
“Last. I want to look him in the eye. I want to see him in prison and know he’s there because of me. He wants to use me, he wants to manipulate me.”
She shook her head, the gesture as fierce as the sudden fury that lit her face. “Fuck him. I’ll use him. Maybe, I hope to God, he’ll tell them something that leads them to Eckle. I hope to God. But whether he does or not, I’ll have used him, and done what I needed to do to live with whatever happens after. I’ll be the one who wins. I’ll be the one who beats his sorry, motherfucking ass again. And when it’s done, he’ll know that.”
He pulled away, walked to the window, stared out, then walked back to look down at her. “I love you.”
Knocked sideways, she lowered to the arm of the couch. “Oh my God.”
“I’m so pissed off at you right now. I don’t think I’ve ever been more pissed at anyone in my life. And I’ve been pissed at plenty.”
“Okay. I’m really trying to keep up, but with my head spinning it’s hard to focus. You’re pissed off because you love me?”
“That’s a factor, but not the main thrust. I’m pissed off because you’re going to do this, because you, being you, have to do it. I’m pissed off because short of tying you to the bed, I can’t stop you.”
“You’re wrong. You could. You’re the only one who could.”
“Don’t give me the opening,” Simon warned. “I’m pissed at you. And I think you’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever known, and my mother sets a damn high standard for amazing. If you cry,” he said when she teared up, “I swear to God...”
“I’m having a hell of a day. Give me a break.” She got to her feet. “You don’t say what you don’t mean.”
“Goddamn right. What’s the point?”
“Tact, diplomacy, but we won’t get into that. Simon.” Needing to touch, she ran her hands over his chest. “Simon. Everything you just said to me—all of it—there’s nothing you could have said or done that could have made me feel better or stronger or more able to do what I need to do.”
“Great.” A few grains of bitterness came through. “Glad I could help.”
“Would you tell me again?”
“Which part?”
She rapped a fist on his chest. “Don’t be an ass.”
“I love you.”
“Good, because I love you. So we’re balanced. Simon.” She laid her hands on his cheeks, and when she kissed him it was strong and sweet. “Try not to worry. He’s going to try to mess with my head. It’s the only power he has now. And he can’t because I’m going in armed with something he’ll never have, and never understand. When I do what I need to do, and walk away from him, I know I’m coming back here. I know you’ll be here, and you love me.”
“You want me to buy that?”
“I’m not selling it. I’m giving it, and it’s truth. Let’s go out and make this deal. I want it done and over, so I can come back to the good part.”
They walked outside. “How soon can we go?” Fiona asked.
Tawney took a moment to study her face. “We’re cleared for tomorrow morning. Agent Mantz and I will see about getting a hotel here on Orcas, and we’ll fly out of Sea-Tac at nine-fifteen. We’ll escort you all the way, Fee. There and back, and be with you throughout the session with Perry. We’ll have her home by midafternoon,” he said to Simon.
Over and done and back, Fiona told herself. “I’ll have someone cover my classes tomorrow morning and afternoon. You don’t need a hotel. You can stay at my place. It’s there, it’s empty,” she added before Tawney could decline. “And it’ll save you some time.”
“We appreciate that.”
“I’ll get the keys.”
Simon waited until Fiona went back inside. “If he screws her up, you’ll pay for it.”
Tawney nodded. “Understood.”
Twenty-Seven
Normally, though opportunities to travel were few and far between, Fiona liked to fly. She enjoyed the ritual, the people-watching, the sensations, the anticipation of leaving one place and hurtling through the air to another.
But in this case, the flight was simply one more necessary part of a means to an end, just something to get through.
She’d thought carefully about what to wear, and hadn’t been able to figure out why her appearance, her presentation, took on such importance.
She considered and rejected a suit as too formal and studied. She contemplated jeans, her usual and most comfortable choice, but decided they were too casual. In the end, she decided on black pants, a crisp white shirt and added a jacket in strong blue.