Body of Lies (30 page)
Fully clothed, he lay down on the bed beside her and kicked off his shoes. “Nothing much. Just had it out with Big Brother. I told him the truth.”
That didn't surprise her. “What did he say?”
“I think he was a little surprised, both that what he assumed wasn't true and that I'd never bothered to correct him. I probably should have done that years ago.”
Probably, but she knew he'd been hurt by his brothers' mistrust. It was easier for him to walk away or pretend that hurt didn't exist than to face it. At least it had been. She couldn't say that for certain anymore. The night she'd told him about her father, he'd withdrawn, but he'd come back almost right away. Still, he'd been there for her in every possible way when she needed him.
They weren't the same people they were thirteen years ago. For the first time that thought filled her with something other than dread. She didn't know what to call it, but it was something good, something to look forward to. He lay on his back and she leaned over and pressed her mouth to his.
He set her away from him, almost immediately. “Please, baby, don't start. I brought us over here to sleep, just sleep. I need my eyes sharp to keep you safe. I don't want to be falling asleep in the middle of the road.”
She had meant the kiss as a simple sign of affection, but it didn't hurt her ego any to know he doubted his self-control around her. She lay back against the pillows. “All right, but you owe me one.”
“I'll owe you as many as you like, just go to sleep.”
“That could be dangerous,” she teased.
“Don't I know it?”
She urged him to take off his clothes and join her under the covers. He did and after a while she fell asleep against his chest.
What woke her later was not the sound of the alarm Zach had set, but her cell phone. Considering the news the last time she'd picked it up, she wasn't looking forward to hearing who was on the other end. Zach didn't say anything as she rose from the bed to retrieve it from her purse, but she felt his eyes on her.
She connected the call. “Hello?”
“Hi, Dr. Waters?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Winston. I work with Eric Rosetti.”
“Yes?”
“Eric isn't in and I wasn't sure who to call. Your name and number were with the file.”
“Yes?” She was beginning to sound like a broken record, but she wished this kid would get on with what he had to say.
“You were looking for some guy in connection with the Amazon Killer.”
Alex ground her teeth together. “Yes?”
“Well, Hercules 912 just bit.”
Twenty-eight
“What do you mean, he bit?” Alex asked, anticipation making her hand holding her phone tremble.
“We still had an operative pretending to be Jenna Thorne, the profile we put up for him. She was on last night and he contacted her. He wants to meet with her.”
“When?”
“That's the problem. I don't know what to tell him.”
Since she had no idea either, she turned to Zach, told him who was on the phone, and handed it to him.
While Zach spoke her mind raced. Why would Williams resurface on the Internet now? She doubted his compulsion for killing young girls was responsible, not when he'd picked the one girl designed to trap him. Had Roberta told him about the profile? She didn't know and Roberta was no longer with them to ask. Whatever he planned had to be some kind of setup, though what variety Alex couldn't fathom.
And what would happen now? They'd get some decoy to pretend to be this girl to meet with him? Even if that decoy were a policewoman and not one of Juvenile Justice's volunteers that would be one more life put in danger because of her. She already had Roberta's death on her conscience. She didn't think she could handle another.
Zach disconnected the call and handed her the phone. “Here we go again.”
“Tell me.”
“I've got to call in, but I'm sure we'll make some arrangement to meet with him. Or they will. I still plan to take you out of here.”
She shook her head. “I'm not going anywhere. How can I run and hide while other people put their lives on the line for me? He burns down my house, but he could have taken down Gladys's as well. If he wants me, why don't we just let him come get me and stop him then?”
“Apparently, he doesn't want you this time, so that's a moot point.”
She couldn't argue with that. Not that she really wanted to argue with him. She just wanted it to be over. She put her hands in her hair in a mockery of tearing it out. “This is so goddamn frustrating.”
He grasped her wrists and pulled her down to him. “I know.”
“If you want my professional opinion, it's some sort of setup. He has no more interest in this girl than he has in bicycling on the moon. For all we know, he wants to divert manpower away from watching me to make it easier for him.”
“Don't you think I've thought of that? All the more reason you should be somewhere else while this goes down.”
Maybe, but that didn't make it feel any less like cutting and running. “What if I stay here, under your brother Adam's protection?”
“And what will I be doing?”
“Hunting that bastard down. Your skills are wasted babysitting me. I want you to find him, and if it's possible put a few bullet holes in him for me.”
“Alex, don't ask that of me. I sure as hell wouldn't mind the bullet hole part, but don't ask me to leave you, not even on my brother's watch.”
That's what he said, but she could tell that he was weakening. Then his cell phone rang. “I have to take this. Why don't you go downstairs and see if Barbara's got anything to eat?”
Yeah, anything to get her out of the room so that he could talk in peace. She slipped on her clothes and headed downstairs. They'd have to finish their conversation later.
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Zach sat behind the wheel in the car next to Smitty, feeling uneasy. He'd let her talk him into joining this fool's errand, when he should be back with her now. He would have stayed, except he wanted to be there on the off chance they caught him, to be able to look into the man's face and know that Alex was out of danger. In that way, he was no different from McKay.
Zach scanned the area. There had to be a good fifteen pairs of cops hidden in plain sight around themâa couple of them “working” the all-night counter in the service station, a couple served as patrons in the Dunkin Donuts. Another couple of sets, like them, sat in darkened parked cars, waiting. Backup, in the form of several marked cars, waited back on a couple of side streets.
They'd set up an hour and a half ago, figuring they'd beat Williams to the area in case he decided to show up early. But if Williams had shown, Zach didn't see him. At least the decoy policewoman was only three stops away on the 30 bus. Whatever happened, it would be over soon and he could get back to Alex.
“Why don't you call her?” Smitty suggested.
Zach shook his head. Calling her now would only worry Alex when there was probably nothing for her to worry about. He was more concerned that he hadn't heard from Adam yet. While he and Alex had been sleeping, Adam had gone in to work. He was supposed to call when he got home, but so far nothing yet. How goddamn long did it take to drive across town? Then again, knowing Adam, if he thought Zach was overreacting he wouldn't bother to call.
He started to pull out his cell phone to dial Adam's number when Smitty elbowed him. “Here comes the bus.”
It was the moment they'd all been waiting for. Zach trained his gaze on the approaching vehicle, breathing deeply, trying to control the burst of adrenaline that shot through his system. They couldn't mess this up. Not only was Alex's life in danger, but so too was that of the young officer who served as their decoy. The bus stopped at the corner of Boston Road and Connor Street to let off passengers. When it pulled away to turn on to Connor, several people got off. Most of them immediately dispersed. Only three remained: the decoy and a pair of cops posing as lovers waiting for the connecting 16 bus to show up.
But there was no sign of Williams. The decoy paced around, checking her watch as a young girl might when being kept waiting. She'd been outfitted with a microphone and a receiver. “Okay, guys,” she whispered. “What do I do now?”
Before the words were fully out of her mouth a black SUV pulled into the Dunkin' Donuts end of the parking lot and drove toward her. The driver stopped beside one of the gas pumps but not close enough to actually fill his tank.
The driver's-side door opened and a man got out. He called to the decoy, “Hey, are you waiting for someone named Sam?”
Zach knew immediately that this man was not Williams. He was too tall and his build was too beefy. But he found himself running across the broad street, dodging traffic to get to the spot where the man had already been forced to the ground. One of the “lovers” was in the process of cuffing him when Zach got there.
The man was already blubbering and the strong smell of ammonia reached his nostrils. The asshole had peed on himself. Zach pushed through the others gathering around and hauled the man to his feet and pushed him back against his car. “Where's Williams?” he demanded.
“Who's Williams?”
The man seemed so genuinely terrified, Zach doubted he was trying to dissemble. “Who told you to be here?”
“Some guy I met online told me he had a girl meeting him here but he had another date. He asked me if I wanted to take his place since she didn't really know what he looked like.”
Zach shoved the man away from him. If Williams wasn't here, he could think of only one other place he might be. He sought out Smitty in the crowd, nodded toward the car, and mouthed one word. “Alex.”
Twenty-nine
Alex paced the floor in Barbara's living room, unable to keep still. It didn't bother her that Adam had yet to show up, though the strain of his absence showed on Barbara's face. There had been some sort of pileup on the Cross Bronx earlier that evening. A semi carrying toxic chemicals had jackknifed causing a several-car accident behind it. If Adam had gotten caught up in that, siren or no, who'd know when he'd get home?
Alex's concern was for Zach. She grew more anxious as the minutes ticked down toward the time Williams was supposed to meet them. Williams was one man against many, but if there was one man he'd tried to take down with him, it would be Zach. She knew he'd seen them together, if not the night of the copycat killing, then definitely on his own farm.
Alex glanced at the policewoman standing at the entrance to the room, the lone cop inside, while another pair guarded the front entrance in a car. She was tall with a beefy face and a hard expression. But when the shrill sound of the phone ringing invaded the silence of the room, she along with Alex and Barbara jumped.
Barbara reached for the cordless phone on the table beside her. “Hello.” Her face immediately brightened. “Where the hell are you?”
That had to be Adam. At least they knew where he was now, if nothing else.
Barbara spoke for a few more moments, then hung up. “As you must have guessed that was Adam. He was in that wreck on the highway. The damn air bag didn't deploy and he smacked his head on the steering wheel.”
“How is he?”
“Fine now. But they're not letting him out of the hospital until someone can come and get him. He's got a mild concussion.”
“Poor thing.”
“Don't go worrying about him. If you'd seen the way my husband drives you'd wonder if he wasn't the cause of the accident. By the way, Adam contacted Jon. He's on his way over. He and Dana live five minutes away.”
Alex nodded, but she wasn't really paying attention to anything past finding out if Adam was okay. She checked her watch. Nearly the appointed hour. She'd know soon one way or the other.
When the doorbell rang a couple of seconds later, Barbara rose to her feet. “That must be my brother-in-law.”
The policewoman waved them back as she walked toward the door. “The car outside should have radioed if they were letting someoneâ”
The woman never got to finish her sentence. There was a crash and then a loud boom that Alex recognized as the report of a large-caliber gun firing. The officer slumped to the floor, a large circle of crimson spreading across her chest. She'd barely had time to get her gun out of her holster, let alone fire.
Alex had her own gun out a second later, trained on whoever might appear on the other side of the wall. She saw a wisp of blond hair before she saw anything else. It took her a moment for it to register that the woman's face that peeked around the corner at her belonged to Williams. By then she'd already squeezed off a round, just missing him, as he pulled back around the corner.
“That's not very friendly of you, Doctor,” he said in a chilling high-pitched voice. “But I can kill your friend right now, and there's nothing you can do to stop me.”
He was right about that. This was an old house built with cement and mortar, not drywall and plasterboard. A slug from her little .22 wouldn't make a good dent in one of the walls; much less reach him through one. And Barbara was out in the open, crouched low, but still accessible from where he stood.
“Put the gun down and come on out here, Doctor, and I'll let your friend live.”
She really had no choice. She didn't intend to let him kill anyone else because of her, especially not Barbara, who as it was had so little time left to be with her family. Besides, Jon was supposed to be on his way here. If she could stall for a little while, she might have his help.
She dropped the gun to the coffee table as close to the edge nearest Barbara as possible. She ignored Barbara's quiet pleas not to go with him. If Alex saw any other way out of it, she'd have taken it. Besides, if all he had in mind was killing her, he'd have done that already.
She stepped out into the hallway. She saw all of him now and knew how he'd passed himself off as some sort of dowdy woman, as nondescript as a female as he was as a maleâsomeone you could pass on the street and never be left with any lasting impression. “What do you want?”
Abruptly, he lunged toward her. At first she thought he intended to grab her. Instead, he touched something to her skin and electricity danced over every nerve ending in her body, sapping her of any control of her body. Her body jerked and she fell to the floor in a heavy mass, unable to move. Her head was turned toward the living room to where Barbara had risen to her feet and started to move toward her.
Alex wanted to yell at her to stay back, but her mouth didn't work. Nothing worked. She couldn't even react when a second deafening boom split the air and Barbara crumpled to the floor beside her.
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