Gideon (28 page)

He got out and walked up the fieldstone path toward Harry Wagner’s front door, lost in thought. Not a plan but a sorry reflection:
I am not supposed to be here. I am supposed to be comfortably ensconced in a cozy cabin in the woods writing the great American novel, a fire roaring in the fireplace, a loyal mastiff dozing at my feet. This is not me.

But it
is
me
, he realized.
So I’d better deal with it. More important, I’d better survive it
.

He rang the doorbell. No one answered.

He rang it again. Again no answer. He reached for the doorknob and turned the handle to the right. No luck. The front door was locked. He turned to face Amanda. The car was lit by the moon and the faint glow of a street lamp, but here eyes were hidden in the shadows cast by the trees. He turned back to the house. The blinds were drawn and Carl couldn’t get a good glimpse of the front room. There didn’t seem to be any movement. And he couldn’t hear any noise. And yet … it was hard to pinpoint, but the place didn’t
feel
empty. Maybe Harry was out back. Sitting in a lawn chair, having a brandy. He wouldn’t necessarily hear the doorbell.

There was a path to the left of the house, bordered by an unruly row of hydrangea bushes on one side and by a hedge on the other, helping to hide the view of the neighbor’s yard. Carl walked carefully until he reached the backyard. There was a small brick patio but no lawn chair, no brandy. No Harry. There was a back door, though, and Carl moved to stand before it. He tried to talk himself out of what he was about to do. But it didn’t work.

He grabbed the doorknob, turned it slowly. The door was unlocked.

Carl took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a second.

That’s when he felt the hand on his shoulder. He jumped two feet in the air and spun around, hands balled into fists. He started to swing blindly—

It was Amanda.

He hadn’t heard her get out of the car.

“Shit,” he hissed at her. “What are you trying to do, give me a heart attack?”

“What are you doing, Carl?” she asked.

“I’m going in,” he said. “Who knows what he’s got lying around? I might be be able to find something important.”

“It’s breaking and entering.”

“Believe me, Amanda, if I’m caught, my lawyers will be
happy
to plea-bargain down to breaking and entering.”

“What if there’s an alarm?”

“Then I’ll leave a polite note and get the hell out of here.”

“Carl …”

“I’m going in.”

“All right,” she said. “But I decided I don’t like this waiting-out-here business. I’m going in with you.”

It was his turn not to bother to argue. He just nodded and turned the know to the right. Carl pushed the door open and ushered Amanda into Harry Wagner’s house.

They prowled from room to room. There were two bedrooms. A bathroom. A powder room. A kitchen. A half dining room and a small den. Many closets. A full basement. And there was not a thing in any of them. Not one scrap of paper. Or a picture on a wall. Not one stick of furniture. Not one cleaning rag. There were no phone numbers scrawled in pencil on the wall over the phone. There was no phone. No slivers of soap on the edge of the sink. It was as if the whole house had been wiped clean, then boiled and sterilized.

Neither Harry nor Amanda spoke until they’d worked their way to the kitchen, the last room to be inspected. As they had in the other rooms, they made a thorough inspection. The cupboard under the sink: no garbage pail, no rags, no Ajax, not a speck of dust. The cupboards over the sink and counters: no dishes, no pots or pans, no coffee mugs. The silverware drawers: no silverware, not one utensil. The pantry: not a morsel of food. The only trace that anyone had ever lived in this house was a three-quarters-empty bottle of Maker’s Mark on the kitchen table and two clean glasses sitting upside down in the dish tray by the sink. Amanda even opened the shiny stainless-steel professional oven and peered inside. She found exactly what she was expecting to find: nothing. She turned to Carl and shrugged forlornly. The refrigerator was also stainless steel, a large Sub-Zero monolith, and he slumped against it, dejected. He shook his head in frustration. Then, with his left hand, he pushed himself off the fridge and headed out of the kitchen.

“Well, I’m no expert,” he said, without looking back, “but I’d say my good friend Harry has flown the coop.”

Amanda followed. As she passed the refrigerator, she couldn’t help herself. Never one to leave a stone unturned, she tugged at the handle of the freezer, pulled the heavy door opened, and looked in. It was bare—except for four additional shelves neatly stacked on the freezer’s top shelf. She moved her hand to the right now, to the refrigerator handle, and yanked. That door opened, just a crack and, when the light went on, Amanda glanced inside. She was silent a long moment, her hand resting on the open door, before she said softly, “No, he hasn’t, Carl.”

She said it with admirable calm. “But there was something odd about her voice. Odd enough for the hair on the back of Carl’s neck to stand up.

He turned back and moved to stand behind her. Putting his hand on top of hers, he swung the refrigerator door wide open.

“Harry?” she asked. The question barely managed to escape from her lips.

“Harry,” Carl answered, staring into the icy glare of the refrigerator.

H. Harrison Wagner, Carl’s last and best hope, was wedged inside, fully clothed, looking surprisingly peaceful and normal except for the switchblade knife sticking out of his left eye.

Amanda backed slowly away, her legs buckling. All of the color had drained from her face. Her hands trembled, and she was blinking rapidly.

Carl reached for her and gripped her tightly by the shoulders. She shook her head almost imperceptibly, and he knew what that meant. It was her way of saying that she couldn’t deal with this. But he only nodded, just as faintly. It was his way of saying,
Yes, you can. Even if you don’t know how strong you are,
I
do
, She bit her lip to stop from crying. And then she grabbed him, throwing her arms around his chest, falling into him and hugging him to her as if they were the only two people left in the world. As they stood there, his eyes were on Harry. On the dead eye that stared back at him from inside the refrigerator. On the blood that still oozed down his face from the knife wound in his other eye.

On the man whose voice Carl had hoped would lead him out of the wilderness. The man whose voice would never again be heard.

* * *

Special Agent Bruce Shanahoff of the Washington office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation knew that something was wrong. He just didn’t know what. And it had him on edge.

He’d been told to lay off Amanda Mays—the bureau did not do well when it came to screwing around with reporters. It was always a big mistake to mess with the
Washington Post
, had been for years, but the
Journal
wasn’t too far behind. In fact, with the current political climate, they’d pretty much pulled up to equal. They were splashier, sure, maybe a bit more reckless with the facts, but the movers and shakers at the
Journal
had a lot of clout, politically and socially. And while Mays was neither a mover nor a shake, she was an up-and-comer. In short time she’d been in town, she’d made a big impression, inside the paper and out. So better to leave her alone.

Except …

Except leaving people alone was not one of Agent Shanahoff’s best things. Especially when he thought they were guilty as hell.

A car passed by, close to Agent Shanahoff’s Taurus. Obviously lost. For a moment Shanahoff thought the driver was going to stop and ask for directions. That put him even more on edge. Agent Shanahoff was one of those people who always seemed as though he knew what he was doing. He was confident and smart, and he had the right look. He liked that about himself. He liked the Look. And usually he
did
know what he was doing. Put him in the middle of an emergency, he’d be the one acting calm and in control. Ask him a question about how to get something done, he’d tell you how to do it. But not when it came to directions. Much to his embarrassment, Shanahoff could get lost going around the block. When he first came to D.C., it took him three full weeks before he could get from his apartment to Bureau headquarters without making a wrong turn somewhere along the route. It frustrated the hell out of him when people asked him directions, because he hated not knowing the answer to a question. And when it came to directions, he not only never knew the answer, he never even had a fucking clue.

So he was relieved when the driver passed him by. He could concentrate on the problem at hand. Which was Amanda Mays.

Not that he thought she was a major criminal. But he was positive she’d been in touch with Carl Granville. Was pretty sure Carl had stopped off at Amanda’s house. Shanahoff had no illusions about his appeal to women, especially women like Amanda Mays. She was out of his league. But she’d come on big-time flirtatious. Incredibly eager to please. Ready to open up. It wasn’t natural. It wasn’t her.

Which meant it had to be him. It had to be Granville.

There it was again. Shit. The car was circling back around the block. A suburban. He liked them. Good and sturdy. He’d almost bought one when he moved to D.C. This one was definitely lost. Definitely coming back over to him to find out how to get someplace that he’d never even heard of. Shanahoff groaned out loud as the car’s headlights shone through his windshield. He geared himself up … but the car kept going. Shanahoff shook his head, chagrined at his own discomfort.
What’s the big deal?
he thought.
What’s the big fucking deal?

Carl Granville … now
he
was a big deal. The way the media were playing him up, maybe the biggest deal since Cunanan. It wouldn’t hurt to be in on his capture. Which was why he was staked out in front of Amanda Mays’s house, against orders. She was the best lead they had. She was gone now, but she’d be back. Couldn’t hurt to just stick around. Do a little checking. Maybe nothing would come of it, but it sure couldn’t hurt. All he needed was a little patience. And time. Hell, he had plenty of both. And—

And there it was again. The same car, moving at the same snail’s pace. Agent Shanahoff frowned. Either whoever was behind the wheel had a sense of direction even worse than his own—which was highly unlikely—or something strange was going on. Shanahoff forced the relaxed-looking smile back onto his face. But he moved his hand inside his coat and onto the butt of his gun, which sat firmly in its shoulder holster.

This time the car pulled to a stop alongside the Taurus. The windows rolled down and the driver leaned out toward Shanahoff.

“I wonder if you could help me,” the driver said, looking exasperated and hopelessly lost.

“I doubt it, but I’ll try.” Agent Shanahoff took his hand off his gun.
Jerk
, he said to himself.
There
are
some normal people in the world
. Then he smiled, his very best smile, giving the driver the Look. “What can I do for you?”

In response, the driver’s hand came up. In it was a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum.

The silencer attached to the revolver muffled the two quick pops. Special Agent Shanahoff didn’t make a sound either as the back of his head exploded, all life went out of his eyes, and his body slumped down across the front seat of his car.

* * *

They went out the back door of Harry’s house, Carl still holding on to Amanda, keeping her close. He helped her into the car. The street was as quiet as before, with no lights on anywhere. He told her he’d drive, but she was not even able to hand him the key. When she fished it out of her purse, her hands shook so badly she dropped it on the ground.

She still hadn’t said a word, and Carl didn’t blame her. What could she say?
I’ve seen the ugliest thing I’ve ever witnessed. I will never again be the same. I hate you for what you’ve done to my life
. Those seemed like the most likely choices to him, which is why he didn’t speak, either. He couldn’t disagree with her.

He started up the car engine, and as he turned the key he was thinking of Harry.

Why would Harry be killed? Because he
knew
things. When it came to dealing with Gideon, a little knowledge was clearly proving to be a dangerous thing, and Harry had more than just a little knowledge. He had read all the original material as well as what Carl was creating. He knew the truth; that’s why he was killed.

Which brought them back to step one: What did Harry know and how did he know it? That’s what Carl had to find out. And then manage to stay alive so that he could do something about it.

The chances of actually being able to do that did not strike Carl as being particularly favorable. Trying to be objective about it, he placed the odds at about a million to one. If they could get to Harry, they could get to anyone. How had anyone gotten close enough to him to kill him? It seemed impossible that Harry would have let his guard down long enough for that. There were many words to describe Harry Wagner—
dangerous, powerful, paranoid
—but
careless
was not one of them. The guy wouldn’t move without checking the street from behind the window curtains and making sure the door was locked. He hadn’t even carried a briefcase. He’d made sure he hid his papers in his—

They were two blocks away from Harry’s house when Carl slammed on the car brakes. He glanced behind him, swung the Subaru around in a U-turn and gripped the steering wheel tightly as his foot pressed down hard on the accelerator.

“What are you doing?” They were the first words Amanda had spoken since she’d found Harry’s body.

“We forgot something.”

“Carl, we went over every single inch of that house. What could we possibly have forgotten?”

Carl tried to keep his voice even, trying not to sound as excited as he felt. “We forgot to undress him.”

* * *

The night was calm and undisturbed as the Closer pulled the Suburban up to the small carriage house, stepping out from the driver’s seat, and carefully lifted a three-gallon can of gasoline out of the backseat.