The Woman (18 page)

“Come here, boy. You’ve been following along, waiting politely. Here it is.”

The horse came close, neighed and extended his head over the split rail fence.

Webster’s scream pierced the night. Victor came running. “Mr. Webster, What happened?”

“That damned horse bit me.” Webster held out his hand. “Look.”

“That’s a nasty little nip, sir. Maybe you cupped your hand a bit too much and Oval caught the skin. It doesn’t need stitches. It should heal nicely.”

“I never cup my hand,” Webster said incredulously. “I’ve been feeding Oval cubed sugar for years.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I only meant it was inadvertent, an accident.”

“I’ll show you an accident. Give me your weapon.”

“What?”

“Give me your weapon. Now.”

Victor drew his Smith & Wesson, flipped it around in his hand and extended it. Handle out. “Sir, don’t overreact. Please. You love that horse.”

“That’s why I’m going to put him down.”

“Sir?”

“I won’t allow him to be fed after he bit the hand that feeds him. I should let him starve to death, but I won’t.”

Alistair Webster took the handgun, turned toward Oval and without hesitation shot him in the head.

“I want his remains off the estate before sun up.”

“Yes, sir,” Victor said, his head lowered.

Chapter 28

Linda left the bank and after walking a block entered a convenience market where she bought a diet soda and two candy bars.

Two blocks later, she suddenly turned into a bar, walked through it and out their back door, across the rear alley and into the back of a card store, and then left by the front door onto the main street. At the end of that block she walked into her hotel, went up to her room, engaged the deadbolt on her door and drew the blackout curtains. On some level, all this seemed a bit melodramatic, still, following the steps to lose a tail she had learned from books and movies provided her some measure of comfort.

She nested back into the layers of decorative bed pillows, twisted the cap off the diet soda and tore open one of the candy bars. This was not a lunch designed to enhance her waistline, but then, right now, she’d settle for living long enough to get fat.

She reopened Cynthia’s letter and continued reading:

“You deserve to know what type of research we did and who is hunting you and why.

“For years my company did surveillance work for the CIA, electronically culling countless cell phone and email communications between people in certain regions of the Middle East, and people within the United States. Our computers had been programmed to alert us of any messages that contained key words. An example: for years,
Big Cold
, was the code Al Qaeda used to refer to Russia. Our job was to cull out correspondence that needed human reading and analysis. Other than the potential of those communications, the work was rather tedious.

“A few years ago, after my contract with the CIA terminated, a private individual, Alistair Webster, contacted me to do some clandestine work for him, largely the same, only with regard to communications totally within the U.S. This work was illegal. He implied he was doing this for the government, outside congressional oversight. These things are done, so I assumed this was legal illegal work—if there is such a thing. Anyway, I recently was able to confirm my growing suspicion.

“The work for Webster was illegal surveillance of select Americans: some business executives, but mostly members of Congress, some of their staff, and also regulatory agency personnel. The identity of the targets eventually made me suspicious, but, by then, good old American greed had me hooked. I received substantial amounts of money, for which I sold my integrity. I saw it as the pension I would soon need. My eyes were failing and I was alone. We certainly can rationalize when we want to. My three employees did not fully understand the nature of what they were doing or, if they came to suspect something was afoul, they, too, were paid extremely well so they chose not to rock my boat. The employees only gathered the data. I was the analyst. It is likely they, too, have been killed to protect my client from the blowback of anything they might have learned. I suspect that is essentially why you are being sought, a possible blowback from anything I might have shared with you.

“We dug up dirt on Americans holding influential positions, stuff that could be used for blackmail. Little by little, using the training and equipment I had, I was able to conclude my work was not off-the-books for the government. Still, I had to know that Webster wasn’t fronting for some unfriendly foreign government or non-state terrorist.

“Six days ago, one of my employees said she had seen a stranger in our town. She thought the man had been watching us. That night, I searched the office and found surveillance equipment. I called Chief McIlhenny. He came over and convinced me to leave it in place so he could watch to see who came for it and to whom it was passed. That evening, a man followed me home. I spent the next day using my online skills to follow the phone calls and emails of Alistair Webster. Staying late that night I went back over everything we had on the communications he had us tracking. I then cross referenced searches for those individuals. He had to be using the data to blackmail regulators and members of Congress to support legislative or regulatory actions he wanted taken or not taken, supported or opposed. That evening, you called to confirm our meeting for lunch the next day. I didn’t want to lead them to you, but it would now appear they had already known about our relationship. The next morning, while you were out jogging, I left the first letter in your travel bag.

“I’m sorry I never told you. I wanted to keep you close to me. My selfish decision put you right in the middle. The fact that these men will kill is obvious. They have. This money will help you run. Hide. Rent units offered directly from owners, not leasing companies. Do not open any accounts. Do not purchase anything online. Buy only in stores and only for cash.

“Do not seek revenge or justice for me. It’s of no consequence. For men like Webster, appropriate justice does not come in the courts. Don’t try it. Use your new identities and the monies I have left to find another Sea Crest, perhaps in another country. If you feel it is too unsafe for you to go after your investment accounts, let them be for now. Research how and when assets escheat to the state to learn the frequency you will need to make periodic contacts to the brokerages to avoid that from happening. Never mail anything from anywhere close to where you hole up. If three years pass without any threats, you might consider going to the brokerages to get your funds. After another five years without a threat, go back to your own identity. The money and diamonds I have left will easily support you for those years.

“I have also left my condo to you. It is free and clear. My will is with my attorney, Maxwell Crane. His office is in the building at the corner of Main and Seventeenth. I recently made arrangements with him that if he did not hear from you within two weeks of my death he should rent out the condo and wait until he does hear from you. He understands that he may not hear from you for several years. He was confused but accepted the instruction.

“You have the advantage that Webster will not use the authorities to find you, at least not officially. The fact that you have no living family will help you. Do not contact anyone. It isn’t worth the risk.

“I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but you need to recapture the bold confidence you lost after your divorce.

“Disappear.

“I’m so sorry.

“I love you,

“Mother Cynthia.”

Linda sat clutching the letter, no longer reading the words, just staring while tears washed her cheeks. There had been so much to Cynthia Leclair that she had never known. Her friend had been part of a world Linda thought existed only in novels: Spies. Traitors. Killers. Then there were those they victimized, the foolish, gullible and greedy who sell their souls for money. The two men in the alley had been part of that world, as was the man she killed on the beach. This was also true of her mystery man, Ahab, her hero.

What happened to the line that separated good and evil? Maybe that line existed only in the fairy tales that parents tell their children with the hope the next generation will rise up and reject evil in all its forms. What happened to the world Linda thought she knew? The world she thought she lived in. This is wrong. That is right. It had all become a blur.

A moment later, her deep thoughts were shattered by the ring of a telephone.

Chapter 29

Linda looked at the hotel phone, but the rings were more distant and muffled. Her ears followed the noise trail to her purse. Ahab. She had forgotten the cell phone he had given her was still in the bottom of her big, colorful Nora Larick purse.

She swung her feet off the bed and grabbed the bag. Then she stopped dead still. Did she want to answer it? Maybe she should run from him as well. After all, he was part of the world that had sucked in Cynthia, a world Linda wanted no part of. In her letter, Cynthia had said, “No contact with anyone. Just disappear.” During her uncertainty, the phone went silent, action taken through inaction. She briefly considered throwing the phone away, but decided she would keep it in case her thinking changed.

Linda’s gaze went to the window, the outside light muzzled by the open-weave drapes. She had opened the blackout drapes after the sun had passed over the top of the hotel. She burrowed into the warmth of the pillows, exhausted, and eventually her eyes closed and she fell into a fitful sleep.

* * *

At some point during the night, Linda suddenly opened her eyes. She still faced the window, but the night had darkened the room. Perhaps she had been startled by a bird that had flown through the muffled outside commercial light, a seagull maybe. There were seagulls in downtown Portland, although mostly nearer the Willamette River. She watched for a while but saw no birds.

Straining her senses, she detected a presence. More like feeling a presence, not like in Sea Crest. Then she had smelled the musk fragrance he had worn. This time there was no aroma, just awareness. Maybe her mind had replayed the incident about the man who had been in her bedroom in Sea Crest, the man she had shot dead and left lying in the surf. She closed her eyes and tried to put this awareness out of her mind. But it would not leave.

She did not recall having taken off her clothes. She must have done so sometime during the night, too asleep to remember, because she now wore only her panties. If her instincts were correct and she was not alone, the room had no sliding screen door she could break through and vault onto the sand. Her only way out would be past whoever was in the room watching her, right now.

After trying with only modest success to calm her breathing, she groaned and turned over the way she imagined she might while sleeping. After lying in that position for a minute or two, she eased her eyes open far enough to see through her lashes.

The occasional chair had been moved close to the bed.

A man sat in that chair.

Close enough to reach her.

Suddenly, he raised one hand. His palm turned toward her. He curled his fingers a few times in a child’s wave. Linda fully opened her eyes.

“Ahab! What are you doing here?”

“Who the hell is Ahab?”

“It’s a name I’ve given you. Oh, it doesn’t matter. What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

“It’s what I do. I’m impressed that you were able to sense my presence for I gave you no way to detect me. You have good instincts. Trust them.”

“What do you want?”

“To protect you, of course.”

“How did you find me?”

“Not important. What is important, it’s likely no one else will as long as you do what Cynthia Leclair told you to do in her letters.”

“How do you know about Cynthia’s letter?”

“You left it over there on the table. I read it.”

“You read it?”

“I think I just said that.”He shifted in his chair and crossed his legs. “I’m thirsty,” he said. “Do you mind if I raid your minibar? Can I get you something?”

“No, nothing for me. Help yourself.”

He flicked on the light in the bathroom, its spreading brightness tunneled across to the small refrigerator.

“How dare you read her letter?” Linda sat up and leaned against the headboard, before quickly pulling the sheet up over her exposed breasts. “That letter was private.”

“Oh, spare me the indignant outrage. This isn’t some kid’s game. The more I know, the more I can do to protect you. There is one thing I would have had you do differently. You should have immediately gone to your brokerage houses and cashed out your investments. Before the people looking for you could get their sweeps fully set up. Then again, Cynthia had no way to know which data filters were already in place. Still, I agree, your funds are safe enough for now.”

“You said letters,” Linda said, “but there is only one letter.”

“Ah. You’re got a good ear for details. You could be great in my business. The plural is correct however. There were two, counting the one in your travel bag back at your condo.”

“How did you know—”