Michael Prescott - Mortal Faults

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether or not she still trusts me. She knows I was suspicious about Garrick’s death.”

“It’s too risky,” Hauser said over the speaker. “If she senses a trap, she’ll make a break for it. We’re better off taking her unawares.”

Tess shook her head. “Deploy two hundred agents to scour the business district, and there’s a fair chance she’ll see them before they see her. If she knows she’s been made, she probably won’t take the Mazda. She’ll hotwire something or find some other way out. Roadblocks won’t stop her.”

“As long as she’s got her phone,” Hauser said, “we can still track her.”

“The phone will be the first thing to go. She’s not stupid. That’s the thing you both have to understand. She knows how to take care of herself.”

Michaelson pursed his lips. “But she’s not smart enough to see through you if you call?”

“I don’t know.”

He hesitated for a long moment. “Call her,” he said finally. “And be convincing.”

Tess took out her cell phone and punched in Abby’s number. She counted four rings before the call was answered.

“Hey, Tess,” Abby said without preamble, obviously having recognized the number on the caller ID screen. “I enjoyed our picnic in the park this morning.”

Tess swallowed. “Actually, that’s what I called to talk about.”

“Another lecture?”

“I wanted to apologize.”

“Really?”

“It was wrong of me to suspect you.” She held her voice steady. “All the signs point to a gang hit.”

“Or maybe I just set it up to look that way.”

“Stop playing games, Abby. This is serious.”

“Sorry. Winsome drollery is my nature. Apology accepted, no hard feelings, yada yada. Now if you’ll excuse me-”

“There’s more.”

“More apologizing? I’ve hit the jackpot.”

“Not more apologies, just more to talk about. Something’s about to go down. We’re thinking of making a move tonight. A big move.”

“Gonna nail a major target? Give somebody a one-way ticket to the slammer?”

Tess shut her eyes. “That’s the plan. But I need to ask you a few questions first.”

“I’m a little busy now-”

“I don’t want to discuss it over the phone, anyway. Can we meet? Just for a few minutes?”

“I’m nowhere near Westwood.”

“Doesn’t matter. I can come to you. Name a place, I’ll be there.”

“Okay, I’m at the central library. You can meet me in the main lobby.”

“It’ll take me about a half hour to get there.”

“Longer than that, if you’re coming from Westwood.”

“I’m closer than Westwood.” A lie, but she could hardly tell Abby she’d be using her red light to cut through traffic and shorten the trip. “Thirty, thirty-five minutes. What are you doing in the library, anyway?”

“Catching up on my reading, what else? See you in a few, soul sister.”

Soul sister, Tess thought numbly.

She didn’t feel anything like Abby’s sister right now.

“Who was that?” Andrea asked. “Why did you say you were at the library?”

“It’s not important.” Abby slipped the phone back into her purse and kept walking. “Just a pal of mine, playing games.”

She knew what was going on. By now Tess must have linked her to Dylan Garrick. Presumably she was looking to bring her in for questioning. Tess could determine Abby’s general whereabouts with the cell phone’s signal, but she wouldn’t be able to zero in on her exact location. The library was across the street from the Brayton Hotel-close enough, Abby thought, for government work.

When Tess failed to find her, she and her fellow feds-Abby assumed she was working with her colleagues at this point-would search the area. They might find the Miata, but maybe not, or at least not right away. She’d made Andrea park in an alley near the Brayton rather than in the hotel’s underground garage. The garage was too obvious a place to stash the car, and in a situation like this, when meeting a man like Reynolds, it was best never to be obvious.

Things were little complicated, but she could handle it-or die trying.

She guided Andrea toward the hotel entrance, trying to think good thoughts.

There was no way for Michaelson to keep Tess off the arrest squad. She had to be in place in order to draw Abby into view.

“We’ll settle matters when you get back,” the ADIC growled.

“Great, Dick. Something for me to look forward to.”

Tess took out the red Kojak light carried by all Bureau cars and mounted it on her dashboard, then made her way to Abby’s condo building at high speed. The sun in her rearview mirror was a brassy ball of glare. Still more than two hours till sunset. By the time the sun went down, Abby would probably be in custody-and then she would rarely see the sun again.

The trip didn’t take long. As it turned out, Abby lived only a few blocks from the federal building, a fact that struck Tess as somehow ironic. In the condominium tower’s curving driveway she met up with Hauser and six other agents, among them Crandall. The rest of Hauser’s people were still upstairs going through Abby’s things.

Crandall and two men Tess didn’t know crowded into her car, while Hauser and the other four took a second Bureau sedan. Ordinarily they would have worn raid jackets for an arrest, but in this case they wanted to keep a low profile once they arrived downtown. With red lights flashing, they cut down to Olympic and sped east, sticking to surface streets because the freeway was jammed.

By now everyone was miked up, and conversation between the two cars was possible on a scrambled tac frequency. In the backseat of Tess’s car, someone had brought up a map of the library on his laptop. “There are three entrances to the main lobby-Fifth Street, Hope Street, Flower Street. If Sinclair tries to run, we won’t know which exit to cover.”

“We can cover them all,” Tess said.

“No time,” Hauser said over Tess’s earpiece. “We’re barely going to make there on time as it is. And the damn library closes at six.”

Crandall frowned. “You don’t think she’s setting us up, do you?”

“I don’t think so,” Tess said quietly. “But I can’t be sure.”

Hauser’s voice grated in her ear. “She can’t be sure. Terrific.”

Abby sat Andrea down on a sofa near the registration desk in the lobby of the Brayton Hotel. Andrea gazed around, blinking at the spacious expense of saltillo tile, the great potted palms and indoor koi pond.

When was the last time she’d ventured into a hotel, any hotel? Before her institutionalization, probably. That was twenty years ago.

“Okay, kiddo,” Abby said. “Focus. This is where I reveal my master plan.”

“Which is?”

“You’re going to help me out. And with luck, I’m going to help you out. We’re like two baboons picking nits off each other. You scratch my back, I scratch yours.”

“I don’t follow.”

Abby didn’t blame her. She wasn’t sure she followed herself. She got like this in the minutes before a potentially explosive situation. She talked too much and made little sense. It could be disconcerting to others. Heck, it could be disconcerting to her.

With effort she pulled herself together. “Here’s the thing. I’m going to sit over there.” She pointed at a scattering of tables and armchairs almost dead center on the lobby floor. “You’ll sit close, but out of sight. Behind that plant, I think.”

“That’s a tree. A palm tree.”

“Tree, plant, whatever. It’s green, it has chlorophyll, and it provides better cover than, say, carpet moss. Or Kate Moss, for that matter. From my table you’ll be invisible, I think. Let’s test it out.”