The Perfect Husband (41 page)

Tess lived on Elm Street. That supplied one of the
E
s in
here
.

But to start he would need the letter
H
.

Marion pivoted and walked down the other side of Hoxsey. It would end here.

She veered away from the main street, following one of the footpaths through the science compound. Gravel crunched beneath her feet as she walked.

A group of four students passed by her and faded away.

A blue-suited security guard approached, gray hair protruding from beneath his cap. His generous middle jiggled like Jell-O.

She shook her head, tucking her chin against her chest for warmth as she trudged on. Another retired policeman who'd become a rent-a-cop. Slow, out of shape, and absolutely no match for a man like Jim Beckett.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw the guard's head come up. His face was lined heavily. He had jowls.

Less than twelve inches away from him, she finally noticed his eyes.

Bright blue eyes.

Ice.

She reached for her gun. And he lunged forward.

“WHERE'S MARION?” J.T. grumbled. He paced back and forth in the kitchen, where Tess was trying to keep busy by making chili. She was stirring the beans obsessively and adding chili powder with a heavy hand.

He glanced at the clock for the fourth time in five minutes.

Only 9:35. And they were already going nuts.

“Maybe she's still at the office.”

“Maybe.” He could feel the tension rising inside him. Jungle drums with a jungle beat. He couldn't stop pacing.

He picked up the phone and called in. Lieutenant Houlihan picked up the secure line on the first ring. “What?” the lieutenant demanded sourly.

“I thought Marion was coming back to the house one more time.”

“She seems to have changed her mind.”

The statement irritated J.T. beyond reason. “Put her on the phone.” His tone was curt.

“Can't.”

“Can't?”

“She's not here. I don't know what the deal is. Last we heard, police team Alpha saw her walking down Hoxsey Street. She must have had some last-minute things to do. It's going to be fun watching her try to explain it to Quincy. He really doesn't look happy.”

J.T. frowned harder. “Why would she be walking around? That's not like her.”

“Don't know. It's been a tough week.”

“Yeah, well, Marion isn't exactly weak in the knees.”

“J.T., she's not under my jurisdiction. She was supposed to be here by seven. It's now 9:38, and last we knew she was walking through Williamstown in an overcoat and casual clothes. The officers said they almost didn't recognize her with her hair down.”

“What?”

Warning bells were already going off in his mind. He didn't want to believe them. “She was wearing jeans and her
blond
hair was down. Would you say she looked like a college student? Like a young blond coed?”

There was a stunned pause. Then, “Oh, shit.”

“You idiot,” J.T. swore, and suddenly he was so angry and so terrified, his hand shook on the phone. “Can't you see what she's doing? Damn you!
And damn her
!” He didn't wait for a reply. He slammed the phone down and grabbed his gun from the small of his back.

Tess was staring at him, her hand frozen on the wooden spoon protruding from the pot of chili.

“Lock the door behind me,” he ordered curtly. “Don't move, don't blink, don't open the fucking door for anyone. For
anyone
. Do you hear me!”

“Y-yes,” she whispered. He was already running toward the door. “Wait! You can't—”

It was too late. He was gone.

“DAMN!” HOULIHAN GRABBED the van door. Quincy's hand shot out and stopped him.

The radios were crackling to life around them. The snipers reported J.T. running from the house. Team Alpha was responding to reports of a disturbance at the Student Union.

Things were heating up.

“Stay smart,” Quincy warned. His grip relaxed a fraction, but not his gaze. “Team Alpha will check out the disturbance. Can we move Team Omega to the last reported sighting of Marion?”

Houlihan made a fist, then released his breath with a sigh. “Yeah. Yeah, we'll do that.”

“Can you handle surveillance alone?”

“What?”

“The van, can you handle it alone?”

“Sure I can—”

“Good. Ms. Williams is alone in the house now, Houlihan. That's not acceptable. I'm going over.”

Houlihan gave it some thought. His nerves were strung too tight. Hell, all of their nerves were strung too tight. And now they had an agent going AWOL and her mercenary brother following suit. Everybody wanted to know what the hell was going on and what the hell to do. Now was not the time for panic. Beckett was right, after all. Discipline was the key. Houlihan took a deep breath and said, “Remember, Beckett has the guns he stole from Difford's safe house. You got a vest on?”

“Yes. I'll watch from inside the house. You keep control from the outside.”

Quincy pulled out his 9 millimeter and took off the safety. From the drawer in the specially equipped van he pulled out two more clips and slipped them into his pocket. He nodded to Houlihan one last time, then stepped out of the van.

Houlihan closed and locked the door behind him. He was now alone. His eyes chased down all the shadows. He sat down lower in his seat.

It was 9:41 P.M. and his team was fractured.

It wasn't good.

IN THE WAR room an operator waved her hand for the sergeant. She put the caller on hold and said to him, “I have a woman on the line who insists she knows where Jim Beckett is.”

“And where is that?”

The police operator sighed. In the last few weeks she thought she'd heard it all. By the time this gig was up, she would have no more faith in man's intelligence. “The woman claims her next-door
neighbor is Jim Beckett. Her next-door neighbor, the sixty-year-old retired woman from Florida.”

“A sixty-year-old retired woman is Jim Beckett?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Of course, what was I thinking? Why are you wasting my time with this?”

“Because the woman also claims she has Samantha Williams with her right now. She says she's calling from a gas station, Martha is going to hunt them down at any time, and she's scared for herself and for Samantha. I can hear sounds of traffic in the background and what sounds like a child crying. She says she's not hanging up until we send over the cavalry, and I believe her.”

The sergeant motioned for the headset. He put it on and took the caller off hold. “Hello? This is Sergeant McMurphy. Who am I speaking to? Edith? Edith Magher? How can I help you, Edith?”

He was frowning. Edith Magher. Why did that name sound familiar? He glanced at the log sheet while she babbled in his ear about dead girls haunting her porch and her sixty-year-old neighbor who liked to smoke cigars and was too big and too strong and had too blue eyes.…

He didn't see her name listed on the log sheet. He flipped the next page, going back a few days. He could hear a child sobbing quietly in the background. The woman kept telling her everything would be all right. And then she started talking about the dead girls climbing into a brown Nissan and Martha/Jim Beckett driving away. But Martha/Jim knew that Edith knew. Sooner or later Martha/Jim would come get them.

The sergeant's gaze fell on the list of phone numbers Team A was tracking down. Suddenly the name blazed out at him. Edith Magher. Shelly Zane had forwarded calls to her seven times in the last two years.

The sergeant grabbed the operator's shoulder so tightly, she winced. He pointed furiously at the screen. “Where's the location of the caller listed on this damn thing? I need the location and I need it now!”

BECKETT TRAPPED HER arm first. Marion didn't panic and she didn't struggle too hard. She let him drag her behind the trees, where they were further isolated, while her mind formulated her best plan of attack. He thought she was helpless. She wasn't. But she didn't want to give away the game too soon. With a man like Beckett, surprise was everything.

She raised her foot and slammed it down hard on his toes. He jerked away, but the motion unbalanced him. With a quick twist she slipped out of his grip, leaving him holding just her coat.

She spun to face him, bringing her gun out of her holster, but he caught her squarely on the chin with a single fist formed by knitting together his two hands. Her head cracked back.

Move through the pain, she ordered herself. She drew out her gun and he nailed her forearm with the billy club. Her fingers went numb. The gun dangled, and for a moment she thought she was going to lose it. The gun would fall and she would be helpless.

Don't drop your weapon.

She grabbed it with her left hand and got off three awkward shots.

He dropped low, then rushed her. He plowed her back against a hulking tree, knocking the air from her gut. She responded instinctively, hammering down on the back of his neck with the butt of her gun. He grunted and squeezed harder, two years of weight lifting in a prison rec room giving him incredible strength. His shoulder pressed into her diaphragm, squeezing her lungs, killing her.

She couldn't shoot him. She couldn't get her hands to function. White dots were appearing before her eyes. She tried to bring up her knee. He blocked it effortlessly. She pulled at his hair and the wig came off in her hand.

The world began to spin. Her chest burned. Her body cried out for oxygen. Tree bark dug into her back. There were so many ways to suffocate a person. She'd forgotten about that. What a thing to forget.

J.T., I'm so sorry.

With her last sane thought she fired the gun again, alerting the world to her position. Then she clawed at Beckett's shoulder, searching for his old gunshot wound.

It didn't matter.

Beckett counted off eight more seconds, then her body went limp.

He let her slip to the ground, stepping back and staggering drunkenly for a moment. The back of his head continued to throb from her blows. When he tried to focus on her, he saw double.

He didn't have time for such weaknesses. Discipline is the key.

He raised his baton and got it over with. One two three. After a bit of practice a man became efficient about these things.

He ran, stripping off his guard's uniform as he raced through the trees. Act one was over. On to act two.

J.T. HEARD THE gunshots as he raced down Main Street. He veered onto Hoxsey, rushing through students, who were suddenly stopping, eyes wide.

“Move, dammit!” he cried. “Outta my way!”

He knew the minute he'd found her, because people mingled around the entrance to the shadowed footpath, not quite sure what Bad Thing had happened and not quite willing to step forward and find out. They craned their necks from the relative safety of the lit sidewalks.

J.T. swung his cast-covered arm like a bat, forcing his way through.

“Cop!” He lied baldly. “Someone dial 911!”

“Some guy went crashing through the trees,” a kid volunteered.

“He looked like a campus guard.”

“Stupid campus guards,” another student murmured. “Probably shooting at a rat.”

“Or his big toe.”

J.T. raced forward. Passing the fifth tree he saw her, her long, golden hair spilling out from behind the tree trunk. Darker red strands were slowly mingling with the gold.

“No! No no no no no!” He fell to his knees. He grabbed her hand. Then he grabbed her shoulders and clutched her against his chest. Her head rolled lifelessly forward, her lashes still against her cheek, pine needles tangled in her hair.

So much blood. Her skull fell apart in his hands. He tried to hold it together. To put her back together again. And he willed her to survive as he'd willed her to survive every day when they were children.

Pillow forts and GI comic books.

Live, live, live.

Horseback riding and swimming suicides.

Don't leave me don't leave me don't leave me.

Standing at the foot of his bed, begging him to save her.

Don't let me fail you a second time.

“Damn you!”

BECKETT MOVED FAST through the shadows. He came at last to a thick hedge and stopped to regroup. His breath was coming out in sharp gasps, forming puffs of steam in the cold night air. He could feel blood on his cheeks, and the back of his skull was swollen and tender.

These things were not supposed to happen to him.

The euphoria was dimming. Beneath, exhaustion threatened to crash his system. He shook his head, fighting it.

He had the letter
H
. He was fulfilling his plan.

Some adjustments would have to be made. Edith knew his true identity and had Samantha. He'd debated giving chase, but couldn't possibly kill an old woman in front of his daughter, so he'd let them go for now. Later he would show Edith what happened to women who crossed him. Then he would simply reclaim his daughter from the police. He'd done it before, he could do it again.

Theresa was still in the area, and that's what mattered. They'd buzzed about her enough on the police scanner and he understood that he was invited to join them.

He was looking forward to seeing her again.

He smoothed a hand over the navy blue suit he'd worn beneath the guard's uniform. From the pocket he produced four towelettes and used them to wipe the thick makeup from his face, wincing a little as the soap stung the scratches along his jawline. Next he pulled out a pair of glasses and a short dark wig.

Then he unbuckled the sawed-off shotgun he'd strapped beneath his arm. Difford's gun cabinet had been a gold mine.

He was ready.

TESS TURNED TO Quincy. “Ten o'clock,” she whispered. “Where is he?”

“Any sign?” Quincy asked over the walkie-talkie.

“Unconfirmed,” Houlihan answered. “There's a report of another disturbance on Hoxsey, the sound of gunfire. Team Omega is almost there—” Crackling interrupted. A new voice came on.

“This is Sniper A. It's ten o'clock-check time. I have visual of B, but no reports on C. Please confirm.”