Chill Factor (41 page)

“You practice the code, dude?” Martinez feigned a punch at Dodge’s arm.

The Colonel had issued cell phones to keep in touch tomorrow, and a simple code to defeat eavesdropping.

Dodge grunted. “Seven words—what’s to practice?”

Straddling a bench, Martinez reached for a cleaning rag. Cronin sat down near him.

“Is that clock right?” Martinez asked.
“Can’t
be right. It’s stopped, man.”

“It’s exactly on time,” Philip told him. The thirty-six-hour deadline would end in one hour and twenty-seven minutes. Unless The People’s demands were met before then, a deadly new clock would start ticking. By the time the Mayor’s commemoration speech began tomorrow morning, The People would be in position, awaiting the Colonel’s order.

Philip found himself praying that Mayor Banning made the right decision. Philip would do whatever was required. Corrupt units had to be eliminated. But killing was ultimately wasteful. One life affected so many.

“What d’ya think, kid?” Martinez punched Cronin’s arm. “Tomorrow we’ll see some action!” Then he aimed a stage whisper toward Philip. “And tomorrow night, a different kind of action. Eh, dude?”

Philip’s groin tensed at a memory as fresh as the smell of gun oil on his hands—full red lips, soft cheeks, eyes like pools of ink. Those eyes locked with his own as he rocked above
them, sweat dripping from his bare skin, every nerve in his body focused on a sensation he’d never before experienced.

The Colonel believed in reward for work well done. After Martinez eliminated the first murdering police officer, the Colonel’s reward for his top three men had been a woman each.

Lizzie…

After the second officer was eliminated, Philip had asked for her by name. Last night, her face had taunted him in his sleep, her red lips whispering his name. He could still taste the salty sweetness of her skin, feel the fragrant roughness of her nipple against his tongue.

Tomorrow night … after a job well done, Lizzie would again be his reward.

Dixie shuddered awake, cramped and groggy. She blinked at the clothing clutched in her arms. What was it? Why had she fallen asleep leaning against the headboard, legs dangling off the bed?

Not her own bed. Peering around the starlit room, she saw eleven beds, all occupied. Women she’d met at dinner. At The Winning Stretch … the Church—

She glanced at the painting. Mike’s church.
Edna bequeathed nine hundred thousand dollars to the Church of The Light.

Dixie tossed the clothes on the bed. In the bathroom, she fumbled at the spigots. Plugged the sink. Ran it full of cold water. Taking a deep breath, she plunged her face into the chilly liquid. After a full minute, she rose for another breath, then pushed her head deeper, allowing the water to wet her hair and seep over the back of her neck. When she emerged the second time, shaking, her thoughts slid into better focus.

She’d experienced drugs before, marijuana in college, nitrous oxide and codeine at the dentist’s office, cocaine once to understand its effects. Had Mike drugged her on purpose? He drank from the same pot of tea. Perhaps her system had reacted strangely to one of the ingredients. Euphoria, but without an edge. Contentment, in fact, an exhilaration of total
acceptance. The music, the incense, the atmosphere of the entire house had seduced her to relax.

As her thoughts tumbled into a semblance of order, Dixie knew she needed to go … yet a deep, anxious sadness overwhelmed her at the thought of leaving. She wanted to protect this sanctuary. Mike’s dream, his ability to understand the emptiness in a woman’s psyche, and to fill that emptiness with purpose, deserved safeguarding. She could be a part of that dream—

Abruptly, Dixie inhaled and bobbed beneath the water’s surface. She envisioned Mike Tesche wearing a purple tutu. In a squeaky voice, he told her,
You have a beautiful soul, Dixie Flannigan.

Rising, Dixie gasped, coughed, and squinted at her face in an oval mirror.
Woman, get out of here.

She grabbed a towel, dried her sodden hair as she snapped off the light, and allowed her eyes to adjust to total darkness. Then she stepped into the starlit bedroom.

In a quick study of the shelves of baskets, she found one labeled “Dixie.” Sliding it out, she found her clothes inside—
yes
!—slipped out of the workout pajamas—into her jeans, shirt. Her watch told her she’d slept a few hours; it was now three thirty-seven
A.M
. As she pulled on her socks, Dixie continued scanning the baskets—Alice, Angela, Charlotte, Dolores,
Edna.

She tugged the basket off the shelf and removed the lid. Nothing inside.

Following a vague hunch, she opened Angela’s basket. Under a neat stack of clothing, she found a small bag containing lipstick, moisturizer … and a bottle of brown hair rinse. The temporary kind that shampoos out. With her blond hair dyed brown, Angela could easily be the first Granny Bandit.

She could never have
masterminded
the robberies—Angela didn’t have the mentality. But with her sweet, childlike desire to accommodate, she could’ve followed directions precisely, as she did at The Winning Stretch.

Whose directions? Mike’s? Did he conspire with Lucy and Edna to rob Texas Citizens’ branches? Or had the pair become so enamored of the Church vision that they dreamed up the scheme on their own as a way to hasten the project?

Mike claimed he hadn’t known Lucy Ames. And the women Dixie’d met tonight—last night?—how long had she slept?—only remembered Lucy from the news.

Shoving the baskets back in place, dressed but carrying her boots, Dixie stopped for one last look at the architectural rendering. How far would the robbery money go toward completing the Church of The Light? Not nearly as far as Edna’s nine-hundred-thousand-dollar bequest.

She eased the door open and slipped into the empty hall. After the brighter dorm room, the intense blackness rendered her blind. But in her mind’s eye, she retraced her steps as Angela had led her from Mike’s suite.
Left turn, right turn, right, left…

Mike wouldn’t be the first charismatic leader to encourage the transfer of all worldly goods to the Church and to expect sacrifice or even theft from his followers. Breaking man’s laws to do God’s will was considered necessary and respectable by many fringe religious groups.

Silent in her cotton socks, Dixie followed her instincts. By the time she reached the second left, her night vision had returned. At the room she believed to be Mike’s, she checked around the door for light seepage.

Even with proof that Mike encouraged the bank robberies, the law might not be able to touch him. All religious organizations were protected by constitutional rights. But Dixie wanted desperately to believe Mike was the healer, the nurturer she’d seen in his classroom and whose inspiration she’d witnessed through the eleven vibrant women at dinner.

No light under his door. So far, Dixie’d encountered no locks anywhere inside the house. She slowly turned the knob. The latch
clicked.
She froze, listening.

Hearing only the pervasive music, she eased the door open and slipped inside the room. Ahead, the glow from the lighted garden softened the darkness. To the right, a screen saver on Mike’s PC played a patch of colored images on the corner wall.

Dixie padded silently to the desk. She hadn’t determined earlier which direction Mike’s sleeping quarters might be, but the wall directly behind the office seemed most likely. She
swiveled the monitor forward and searched for a sound button on the speakers that flanked it. Locating the button, she turned it all the way left, praying this would mute the usual
beep
s and
pong
s.

A
click
of the mouse brought up a dialog box requesting a password. Dixie had no techno-snoop experience, but she typed the first word that came to mind:
LIGHT
. After a moment, a new message appeared:
UNABLE TO LOG IN
. The cursor blinked beside the request for a password. Dixie typed:
CHURCH
. No dice. Then:
STRETCH
. This time the hourglass symbol stayed on the screen an instant longer, followed by the dual message:
UNABLE TO LOG IN
and
PLEASE ENTER YOUR ID
.

Stumped, and worried that Mike would see this new dialog screen and realize someone had tried to access his files, Dixie keyed the
START
button to reboot. Maybe he’d think a power surge caused a glitch.

Turning her attention to the desk, she noted a scanner and microphone connected to the PC, a cup filled with pens and pencils, a simulated leather surface protector, and a telephone. Nowhere else in the house had she seen a phone, nor had she heard one ring since she’d arrived.

As the computer screen blinked through its start-up sequence, she opened drawers. In shadowy light, she saw a stapler, letter opener, rubber bands, paper clips, notepads—nothing more ominous. Invitations to The Winning Stretch. In a lower drawer, she found a lockbox. Dixie lifted it to the desk and examined the simple lock. No problem opening it. She bent a paper clip to the right shape, and seconds later the latch snapped open. Light from the computer monitor glinted off an array of glass vials. Some held dark, coarse powder. Others were empty. The box also contained a plastic bag filled with a pale leafy mixture, a laboratory flask and condenser, and a supply of sterile hypodermic needles. Drugs? If so, they didn’t resemble anything Dixie’d seen. She sniffed the finely ground leaves in the plastic bag—not pot.

She returned the relocked box to its drawer, then opened the next drawer up. It contained two thin smooth-edged notebooks, the pages still blank. Her searching hand brushed
another volume that must’ve slid behind the first two. Dixie pulled it into the screen-saver light.

A spray of tropical flowers embellished the satiny cover.
Edna’s missing journal!
Dixie tilted the pages toward the meager light and recognized her neighbor’s rounded, almost girlish penmanship.

Hearing a creak somewhere in the house, she slid the book under her shirt and wedged it in the waistband of her jeans. When no other sounds issued, she searched the final drawer, found nothing of interest, and decided she’d pressed her luck far enough—

A step sounded nearby.

Dixie slid off the chair and scanned frantically for a place to hide. A broad-leaf philodendron in a fat pot offered the only cover. She scooted backward, keeping low, as she saw a door open in the wall behind the desk. Mike stepped from the shadows.

He circled the desk and snapped on a small lamp. Dixie huddled lower behind the pot. After a moment, she heard the
clickety-click
of computer keys, then the
rip
of paper being torn from a notebook. She ventured a peek through the philodendron. Seated, Mike guided a page into the scanner. A few passes with the mouse, then he fed the page into what Dixie had thought was a wastebasket. A shredder
whirred
into action. Three pages later, he laid the notebook on the desk, snapped off the lamp, and rose.

Dixie shrank as small as possible.

When Mike’s footsteps receded toward the living area, she darted a look. He must be in the dining alcove.

Dixie glanced at the outer door, mentally measuring the distance. Six long strides. No cover. She recalled the noisy latch … glanced back at the alcove … he would surely hear if she opened the door.

His silhouette glided in front of the window to the lighted garden. Dixie held her breath and peered between the wide philodendron leaves as he walked toward her.

He passed her. The noisy door latch clicked open … and a moment later clicked shut.

Dixie ventured a look. Mike was gone.

Now go! Get out!

No … not yet. She might bump into him in the hall.

Waiting, counting the seconds, her legs going numb beneath her … she noticed the light from the monitor was motionless. Mike hadn’t exited from his program. That meant he’d return shortly … or … that his password-protected screen saver would start up automatically after a brief period of non-use.

Dixie craved another chance at that computer.

She glanced back at the door … and decided to risk it.

When Dixie touched the mouse, the monitor remained lighted, the program active.
Okay, good.
She pointed the cursor at the
OPEN FILE
icon and scanned the list.

Ames.
A coincidence? Not very damn likely.

When Dixie clicked on the file, a dialogue box appeared requesting her password. She clicked on the
PINE
file and got the same request. Well, shit!

Clicked on
DELGADO
: The file opened.