At all costs Read online

  Jake waved him off with a smile. “Oh, no thanks, nothing like that. Just had a bit of a problem with our boat, is all. Sure could use a cop.” He could feel Carolyn’s eyes boring into him for his transparent lie, but he ignored her.

  “You’re sure you’re okay?” Terrell seemed ready to drive them to the hospital in his own car.

  “Perfectly fine,” Jake assured him.

  Terrell regarded them for a moment longer, then pointed to the seats. “Please, sit down.”

  They did.

  “You’re welcome to use the phone, but unless there’s somebody dead in the road, or the Russians are invading Little Rock, you’d best save the quarter. Every cop within a hundred miles is up at Newark helping with the evacuation. Threatened to arrest me, as a matter of fact, if I didn’t leave, but gave it up once they got word they had to evacuate the jail.” Terrell laughed hard, triggering a cough.

  Smoker, Jake thought. Menthols. “Evacuation?”

  The look Carolyn shot him spoke volumes. What are you doing? Again, Jake ignored her.

  “You ain’t heard?” Terrell gasped. It was as if they’d just admitted they didn’t know what a Razorback was. “There was a big explosion and fire out near Newark. Got nerve gas, nuclear weapons, all kinds of stuff, and it all leaked into the environment. Every place within fifteen miles has been evacuated.”

  Jake did a great job of feigning surprise. “No kidding! Are we in danger?”

  Terrell scoffed and strolled back toward his counter. “I don’t believe in none of that stuff. I figured if the Good Lord wanted me with him today, I’d be havin’ a heart attack in the evacuation shelter, know what I mean?” He disappeared around the corner but kept talking the whole time. “Way I figure it, this is a perfect time for punks to come around lootin’. They come around here, though, and I got one hell of a surprise for ’em.” He produced a sawed-off twelve-gauge, with a combat grip where a stock should have been. “Now, tell me, wouldn’t you think twice about taking my stuff if you were staring down one of these?”

  Carolyn gasped. Jake felt his stomach cramp. So much for Grandpa Hospitality.

  At the sight of them, Terrell turned immediately apologetic and put the gun back behind the counter. “I’m sorry. There I went and scared you folks a second time.”

  This time the Donovans’ laughter sounded a bit forced. “No, no,” Jake said. “That’s okay. Guess that should make me feel safe.”

  The grin returned to Terrell’s face.

  “So how long before they lift the evacuation?” Carolyn asked.

  “Can’t say as I know,” Terrell answered, shifting his eyes. “I can’t imagine it’ll go on much after tomorrow. Can y’all wait that long for the police?”

  Jake looked to Carolyn and made a face. “I gotta tell you,” he said at length. “What I really need is some sleep. Maybe we could rent one of your rooms and call the police from there?”

  Terrell’s eyes brightened even more. “Well, I can sure as shootin’ accommodate you there. You can have your pick of the rooms.” He pulled a registration card out of a box and a pen out of his pocket. “Just fill out this information here.”

  Jake filled in all of the blanks on the card, fighting off a final wave of exhaustion. His brain felt numb. When he was done, he handed the card back to Terrell. “You take Visa?”

  “Oh, we take ’em all.” Terrell laughed, clearly delighted there’d be at least one customer today.

  Three minutes later the Donovans were making their way across the parking lot toward room 15, which, according to Terrell, had the best view of the pool.

  “You want to tell me what that was all about?” Carolyn asked.

  Jake shrugged; kind of a shiver, really. “I don’t know, I just got a funny feeling. This place is so inbred, for all I know, that sniper on the hill might be Terrell’s brother. Just didn’t seem like a good idea to share the story yet. I want to tell it directly to a cop.”

  They arrived at their room, and Jake opened the door. Same decorator as the office.

  Carolyn collapsed dramatically onto the bed. “So are you going to call right away?”

  “In a minute,” he said.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Jake awakened to the sound of distant sirens.

  Disoriented at first, he stretched his back and scanned the darkened room. “Shit,” he moaned. “I fell asleep.” He checked his watch. For three hours.

  He’d fallen into the sagging, overstuffed lounge chair just for a minute, he thought. To give his back and shoulders a rest. He didn’t even remember closing his eyes.

  The sirens reminded him that he’d forgotten to do something. Then, like a curtain being parted, the events of the day raced back into his consciousness.

  Somebody had tried to kill him! The bullet came within an inch, for Chrissakes! As his mind replayed the impact of that bullet, the sheer force of it, even as it missed him, a lump formed in his stomach, and his hands began to tremble. Trapped in the netherworld between sleep and reality, he felt the blast of heat all over again, blistering hot against his shoulders and his back, despite the protection of his suit. And he saw the bodies of his friends, scattered like logs across the old roadbed. Even in his memory, they didn’t look real; they didn’t look dead. He could only presume that the man on the hill had shot them, just as he had tried to shoot Carolyn and him, but the horror of it all was somehow muted by the absence of blood and the facelessness of the bodies.

  “Got to call,” he whispered. Got to find out what happened. Taking care not to make any noise, he pulled hard against the arms of the chair and sat up straight. Raking a hand through his hair, he twisted first to his left and then to his right, releasing a ripple of pops from his spine. Only twenty-four years old, and tonight he felt every bit of seventy.

  In the darkness of the room, the sparse furnishings were visible only as shades of black against a charcoal-gray background. Fumbling blindly along the nightstand, Jake placed his hand on the telephone but paused as his attention turned once again to the sound of the sirens. They seemed to be growing louder. He stood and hobbled over to the front window, where he used two fingers to part the heavy, rubber-lined blackout curtains.

  A gentle but steady rain fell in the empty parking lot, giving everything a glassy, reflective look, which in the darkness of the night took years off the age of everything. The wail of the first siren reached a crescendo, then stopped abruptly as a police car sped into view and slid to a stop in front of the motel office.

  “What the hell is this?”

  Carolyn stirred at the sound of his voice. “What’s going on?” she groaned sleepily.

  “I don’t know yet.” He watched with a growing sense of dread as the trooper climbed out of his car with his hand on his pistol and moved cautiously to the door of the office. The cop pulled hard against the lock, then pounded heavily with his fist on the glass panel. “I think our friend Terrell might be in a bit of trouble.” In the distance, more sirens approached.

  Her curiosity piqued, Carolyn joined her husband at the window and watched as a light came on in the office, casting a greenish hue through the tinted glass. Soon Terrell’s lanky form appeared through the glass. He opened the door wearily, then seemed suddenly animated as he listened to whatever the trooper was telling him. He nodded a couple of times, then shook his head a couple more.

  Finally, Terrell pointed directly at Jake and Carolyn. They both jumped. “Holy shit,” Jake gasped.

  “What?”

  “This doesn’t look good.” The trooper moved quickly as he said something into the microphone clipped to his shoulder, then climbed back into his cruiser. He never took his eyes off their motel room.

  “What?”

  Jake could hear the edge of panic in Carolyn’s voice-the same emotion he felt building in the pit of his own stomach. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “What are you talking about?” She was crying now, gripped with fear.

  He turned two quick c
ircles in the dark, trying to figure a way out of the room without being seen.

  “Jake!” she nearly shouted.

  “Shh!” he commanded. “The bathroom window! Come on!” He dragged her by the hand toward the back of the room, even as the police car’s high beams pierced the thin seam in the curtain and cast a laser-width spear of light against the far wall.

  “What are we doing? I’m not going anywhere,” she insisted, following along as she spoke.

  “Look,” he snapped. “People tried to kill us today, and now that cop looks mad as hell. Looks to me like staying here could get us shot.”

  The window in the bathroom was of standard height and size, but made of smoky white glass. Yet another siren peaked in volume and fell silent. Shit, Jake thought. There’s two of them now. And still more in the distance. The window lock turned easily, but he had to pound upward with the heels of both hands to get it to slide open.

  “Jake, this is stupid!”

  He made a stirrup with his hands. “Here. You go first.”

  “Go where?”

  “Out!” he hissed. “I don’t know where. Just out.”

  Carolyn opened her mouth to argue but then complied. No sooner had she placed her bare foot in his hands than he nearly launched her through the opening. She came out too fast, tumbling headfirst into the wide alley behind the motel. She got her hands out in time, though, preventing damage to everything but her pride.

  Jake arrived feet-first, just as the blue and red lights of a police car began to sweep the trees at the far end of the complex to their right. “Shit! They’re coming around to the back, too!”

  They needed cover; something to hide behind. With the cop car approaching, they’d never make it to the tree line without being seen. The Dumpster! Jake grabbed Carolyn’s hand again and pulled her behind him as he dashed twenty yards or so and ducked behind the maroon trash receptacle. The warm rain had reinvigorated the stench of old garbage and rotting food, and he found himself instinctively breathing through his mouth.

  “Why are we hiding from the police?” Carolyn shouted at a whisper. “We’ve done nothing wrong!”

  “I don’t know. I have a bad feeling.” It was as honest an answer as he knew to give.

  The second cop car approached more cautiously, killing his lights as he closed in on the back of their room. Once in place and stopped, the cop opened his door carefully and rolled quickly out of the car, taking his twelve-gauge with him. He scampered over to the passenger-side door, where he could use the vehicle as cover.

  The Donovans exchanged panicked glances in the dark.

  “Are they trying to arrest us?” Carolyn whispered.

  Jake answered with a shrug that was invisible in the darkness. “Look at him. He’s scared shitless.”

  They both jumped as the cop’s radio squelched and an electronic voice pierced the muted thrumming of the rain. “All units be advised, we have positive ID from the manager. These are definitely our shooters.”

  The cop muttered something unintelligible into his microphone, then racked a round into the chamber of his shotgun and leveled it at the window they’d just climbed through.

  “Oh, my God,” Carolyn breathed.

  “He can’t wait to pull that trigger,” Jake said, not believing what he was seeing. This trooper wanted them bad, and he didn’t much care whether they were breathing or not. Jake pulled Carolyn away from the Dumpster and headed for the tree line. “We gotta get outa here. They’re liable to have dogs and all kinds of bullshit out here soon.”

  This time she needed no pulling or prodding to get her to run. A second car pulled up to the rear of the building just as they reached the first line of cover. The police were shouting now, apparently no longer worried about a stealthy approach, and that was the Donovans’ cue to run like hell, while noise didn’t matter.

  “We going back to the boat?” Carolyn asked.

  “I sure as hell hope so.”

  They’d floated in the dark nearly all night before Carolyn got the idea to contact her uncle in Chicago. A men’s clothing retailer turned real estate mogul, Harry Sinclair had more money than God, and if there was anyone in the world with the connections to lift them out of this mess, it would be him. They still didn’t know why they’d gone from near victims to Public Enemies #1 and #2 in the space of just a few hours, but it was clear as crystal that they needed some answers before they showed their faces again. And, assuming that the Visa card had alerted the cops back at the motel, they could forget about credit cards taking them where they wanted to go. They needed to develop alternative resources fast. Which meant Harry Sinclair.

  It took them nearly two hours to give Travis that much of the story. There were parts he didn’t understand, and still more that he didn’t want to. But as it dragged on, and his parents shared the details about who they really were, and who they really weren’t, he found himself burrowing further and further under his Army blanket, finally wishing that they’d just stayed quiet and let him believe that things remained as they’d always been.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Eight-thirty had come and gone by the time Clayton Albricht finally returned to his office. Veronica was still there, of course-his personal assistant since his very first day in office-but she was the exception. The rest of the staff had flown the coop an hour ago. The senator walked heavily, his mind and his butt numbed by an endless series of meaningless meetings with colleagues and constituents alike. Sometimes he swore that his life had become one long photo opportunity.

  As he walked through the huge oak doors and entered his outer office, he felt a sense of peace pour over him. He’d worked for decades to get these digs in the prestigious Russell Senate Office Building, and now that he had them, every hour of the effort seemed worthwhile. In Washington, where power was measured by the square foot, Albricht’s unobstructed view of the Capitol Building was the envy of all of his colleagues. With its two fireplaces, its intricately carved wood paneling, and its walls adorned with priceless works on loan from the National Gallery of Art, Chairman Albricht’s office resonated with power.

  “Hello, Veronica,” Albricht mumbled as he dragged himself through the doors. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting so long. Really, there’s no reason for you to stay.”

  Nor was there much reason for her to leave. A widow with no kids, Veronica had precious little to go home to. She packed her stuff, nonetheless-an umbrella and rain hat were standard, regardless of weather-and headed for the door.

  “A messenger dropped a package off for you,” she said, plucking her overcoat out of the closet behind her desk. “The inner package said for you to open it personally.”

  Albricht noticed the package just as she mentioned it, sitting on the conference table in his office. According to the attached paperwork, it came from the Washington Post.

  “It came from a newspaper,” Veronica explained further. “The reporter said to give him a call when you get in. He said the story goes to press at nine.”

  “What story?” Albricht asked.

  “Guy wouldn’t say. Just told me to tell you to call him.” Veronica walked as she talked, having learned a long time ago the hazards of sticking around after she’d been released for the day. “His card’s on top of the package. See you tomorrow.”

  Albricht heard the outer door close before he had a chance to answer.

  The package wasn’t very big-standard eight-and-a-half-by-eleven, maybe a quarter inch thick. Reporter Tom Ford’s business card was taped to the outside. If the hour were earlier, Albricht would have set one of his staff to the task of finding out who the hell Tom Ford was.

  Helping himself to one of the wine-colored calfskin chairs at his conference table, Albricht shoved his thumb up under the seal and pulled open the Tyvek envelope, revealing a short stack of photocopied documents, along with a cover letter on Washington Post stationery.

  Dear Senator Albricht,

  Enclosed, please find copies of documents we recently
received from an anonymous source, in support of allegations that you have regularly engaged in pedophilic and homosexual activities. Because of the criminal nature of these allegations, I thought you might want to comment before we went to press with it.

  Should you be so inclined, I have included my business card for your use. As I’m sure this is very troubling news, you have my deepest sympathies, sir. Under the circumstances, however, I have no choice but to go with the story.

  Sincerely,

  Tom Ford

  Albricht’s stomach seized as he tore the paper clip away and turned the page. He gasped audibly at what he saw: credit card receipts for membership in some outfit called the Homosexual Freedom Congress and for subscriptions to a half dozen underground publications specializing in pedophilic photographs.

  “Oh, my God,” he moaned. The blood drained from his head. “Oh, my God.”

  These were his signatures and his credit card numbers, but he’d never ordered any such materials! He’d authorized the legislation that made it a federal crime even to possess such things, for crying out loud. He’d even suggested the death penalty for the animals who produced them. How could anyone think for even a moment…

  Then, in an instant, he saw what had happened. What was it that Frankel had said? We’ll both be on the news tonight… Jesus.

  His phone rang, and Albricht closed his eyes. It had to be the reporter. Who else would call at this hour? He considered ignoring it but rose from his chair, anyway, his mind racing to put together a quotable quote but coming up empty. It was too soon, too new. He needed his staff, dammit, and he needed them right now, to put a respectable spin on it all, before he talked to the press. Before he said something he’d regret.

  The phone rang a fourth time. As a practical matter, he had to issue a denial. The sooner the better. Otherwise, the morning paper would tell the world that he “could not be reached for comment”-code words interpreted by the public as a tacit admission of guilt. Still unsure of what he was going to say, the senator inhaled deeply, then lifted the receiver.