Finally she looked over at him. “I want to tell you the truth. God, I want to tell somebody the truth.” She took a deep breath that almost turned into a shudder. “But I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“You’re already in a great deal of danger. If I were to talk to you, that danger would turn to an absolute certainty that you’re going to die.”
“Come on, LuAnn, I’ve been in dangerous spots before. It comes with the territory. What is it, and who’s behind it?”
“I want you to leave the country.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ll pay. You pick a place, I’ll make all the arrangements. I’ll set up an account for you.”
“Is that your way of dealing with problems? Send them off to Europe? Sorry, but I’ve got a life right here.”
“That’s just it. If you stay you’re not going to have a life.”
“You’re really going to have to do better than that. If you’d work with me, we could really accomplish something here. Just talk to me. Trust me. I didn’t come down here to shake you down. But I also didn’t come down here to be thrown a bunch of bullshit.”
“I’m telling you the truth. You are in serious danger!”
Donovan wasn’t listening now. He rubbed his chin as he thought out loud. “Similar backgrounds. All poor, desperate. It made for great stories, really picked up the numbers of players.” He looked at her, clutched her arm. “Come on, LuAnn, you had help leaving the country ten years ago. You’ve gotten a whole lot richer. I can smell the story here, if you’d just give me the right angle. This could rank right up there with the Lindbergh baby and who shot JFK. I’ve got to know the truth. Is the government behind this, whatever this is? They’re making billions off this thing every month, sucking it out of the rest of us. Taxation without representation.” Donovan rubbed eager hands together. “Are we talking all the way to the White House? Please tell me we are.”
“I’m not telling you anything. And I’m doing it to keep you as safe as I can.”
“If you work with me, we both win.”
“I don’t consider being murdered winning. Do you?”
“Last chance.”
“Will you please believe me?”
“Believe what? You haven’t told me anything,” he bellowed.
“If I tell you what I know, it’s like I’m putting a pistol against your head and pulling the trigger myself.”
Donovan sighed. “Then why don’t you take me back to my car. I don’t know, LuAnn, I guess I expected more from you. You grew up dirt-poor, raised a kid by yourself, and then got this incredible break. I thought you might give a crap.”
LuAnn put the car in gear and they started off again. She glanced once or twice at him and then started speaking in a very low voice, as though she were afraid of being overheard. “Mr. Donovan, the person who is looking for you right this very minute is not someone you want to mess around with. He told me he’s going to kill you because you might know too much. And he will. Unless you leave right now, he’ll find you for sure and when he does it won’t be pretty. This person can do anything. Anything.”
Donovan snorted and then his face froze. He slowly turned and looked at her as the answer finally hit him. “Including making a poor woman from Georgia rich?”
Donovan saw LuAnn jerk slightly as he said the words. His eyes widened. “Jesus, that’s it, isn’t it? You said this man can do anything. He made you the lottery winner, didn’t he? A woman barely out of her teens running from the police after believing she committed a murder—”
“Mr. Donovan, please.”
“She stops to buy a lottery ticket and then just happens to travel to New York where the lottery drawing is being held. And what do you know, she wins a hundred million bucks.” Donovan slapped the dashboard with the palm of his hand. “Good God, the national lottery was fixed.”
“Mr. Donovan, you have got to let it drop.”
Donovan’s face flushed crimson. “No way, LuAnn. No way am I letting this drop. Like I said, you couldn’t have eluded the NYPD and the FBI all by yourself. You had help, a lot of help. This elaborate cover story you had in Europe. Your ‘perfect’ money managers. This guy set all of it up. All of it, didn’t he? Didn’t he?” LuAnn didn’t answer. “God, I can’t believe I didn’t see it all before. Sitting here talking to you, it just all fell into place. I’ve been drifting in circles for months and now—” He turned sideways in his seat. “You’re not the only one either, are you? The other eleven nonbankrupts? Maybe more. Am I right?”
LuAnn was shaking her head hard. “Please stop.”
“He didn’t do it for free. He must’ve gotten some of your winnings. But, Christ, how did he fix it? Why? What’s he doing with all that money? It can’t be just one guy.” Donovan fired questions left and right. “Who, what, when, why, how?” He gripped her shoulder. “Okay, I’ll accept your statement that whoever is behind this is one very dangerous individual. But don’t discount the power of the press, LuAnn. It’s toppled crooks bigger than this guy. We can do it, if we work together.” When LuAnn didn’t respond, Donovan let go of her shoulder. “All I’m asking is that you think about it, LuAnn. But we don’t have a lot of time.”
When they returned to his car Donovan got out and then poked his head back in the door. “This number will reach me.” He handed across a card. LuAnn didn’t take it.
“I don’t want to know how to reach you. You’ll be safer that way.” LuAnn suddenly reached across and grabbed his hand. Donovan winced from the pressure of her fingers.
“Will you please take this?” She reached in her purse and took out an envelope. “There’s ten thousand dollars in here. Pack your bags, go to the airport, get on a plane, and get the hell out of here. Call me when you get to wherever you’re going and I’ll send enough money to keep you in hotels and restaurants for as long as you want.”
“I don’t want money, LuAnn. I want the truth.”
LuAnn pushed back the urge to scream. “Dammit I’m trying my best to save your life.”
He dropped the card onto her front seat. “You warned me and I appreciate that. But if you won’t help me, I’ll get it from somewhere else. One way or another, this story is being told.” He looked at her ominously. “If this person is half as dangerous as you say he is, you might want to think about getting the hell out of here. My butt may be in the crosshairs now, but it’s only my butt. You’ve got a kid.” He paused again and right before he turned to leave he said, “I hope we both make it through this, LuAnn. I mean that.”
He walked across the parking lot to his car, got in, and drove off. LuAnn watched him go. She took a deep breath, trying to calm her shaken nerves. Jackson was going to kill the man unless she did something. But what could she do? For one thing, she wasn’t going to tell Jackson about her meeting with Donovan. She looked around the parking lot for any sign of him. But what was the use? He could be anyone. Her heart took another jolt. He could’ve tapped her phone lines. If so he would know about Donovan’s phone call, that they had planned to meet. If he knew that, it was highly likely that he had followed her. Then Jackson would already be tracking Donovan. She looked down the road. Donovan’s car was already out of sight. She slammed her fists into the steering wheel.
Although LuAnn didn’t know it, Jackson had not tapped her phone line. However, as she drove off, she also had no inkling that directly beneath her seat a small transmitter had been affixed to the floorboard. Her entire conversation with Donovan had just been heard by someone else.
Chapter forty-one
Riggs turned off the receiving unit and the sounds of LuAnn’s BMW coming through his earphones vanished. He slowly took off the headphones, sat back in his desk chair, and let out a long breath. He had anticipated obtaining some information about LuAnn Tyler and her discussions with the man he now knew to be Thomas Donovan, a newspaper reporter. The name was familiar to Riggs; he had seen the guy’s byline in past years. However, Riggs hadn’t anticipated stumbling across something that had all the earmarks of a major conspiracy.