Jeff Abbott - Fear

‘No, Miles, she didn’t. There was… very little left of Doctor Vance. They’ve only found, um, pieces. I’m sure she died in the force of the blast, she didn’t burn to death.’

Miles put his face in his hands, forced his emotions back under control. He could have stopped it, if he’d found Sorenson’s hidden case. He missed it and she died. ‘Oh, goddamn.’

‘I’ll miss her,’ Andy said from the backseat.

‘I’m sorry, man, I know you said she’d been a great help to you.’ DeShawn put a hand on Miles’s shoulder.

Miles kept his voice neutral. ‘Do they know what happened?’ He was going to catch Sorenson, or whoever was ultimately responsible for Allison’s death, and drag them in front of DeShawn, like a cat dropping a dead mouse at its master’s feet.

‘I talked to the arson investigators. They can’t search the front of the building, where the floors collapsed, until they get heavy moving equipment in from Albuquerque. They got to do chemical tests, see if it was a gas explosion or see if it was a bomb. Don’t know yet.’

They drove away from the burned hulk.

‘I have to ask again, Miles, did she know you were in witness protection?’

‘No. I never told her. I was going to – but I didn’t want her to know. I was ashamed.’

‘So her records, no way they survived the blast and the fire, and even if they did, they couldn’t disclose your witness status. That’s our number-one concern,’ DeShawn said.

‘Not that my doctor’s murdered,’ Miles said. ‘Really, it’s nice y’all care.’

DeShawn pulled the car over, parked, gave Miles a hard stare. ‘Do you know for a fact she was murdered?’

‘I know this has nothing to do with the Barradas.’

‘But it’s got to do with something, doesn’t it, Miles? You tell me another doctor, who I can’t find a record of, wants to help Allison with your therapy and that day she’s dead.’

‘I must have gotten his name wrong. Sorenstam, Sorengard, I only met him for a minute. Allison said she used to work with him.’

‘If the arson team finds this was deliberate, you’re answering their questions.’

‘I understand. How soon before they know?’

‘Well, the investigators got to get deep into the building once it’s safe, run those chemical tests, check with the gas company to see if an undue amount of gas fed into the building. But I think it’s got to be a gas leak. All the renovations going on in that building, a worker damaged a pipe, started a leak. Why would anyone bomb a shrink in Santa Fe?’

‘Be a Boy Scout,’ Andy said from the backseat. ‘Tell him nothing but the truth.’

Instead he wondered what else DeShawn might say, if Miles didn’t make a big deal out of the question: ‘Is her house okay?’

DeShawn raised an eyebrow. ‘What do you mean, okay?’

‘I assume the police or the arson investigators have gone to her house to look for her.’

‘Yes.’

‘It wasn’t, I don’t know, burglarized or anything?’ He kept his gaze fixed on the window. ‘People rob dead people’s houses all the time.’

‘Miles, what aren’t you telling me?’

‘Nothing. I don’t know why anyone would want to hurt her.’

‘Far as I know, her house checked out just fine.’

So. The shooter had cleaned up before he left, didn’t want anyone unduly suspicious about what had happened at Allison’s house. The shooter had talked about paying Miles for research, which he called by the name Frost – a code name, Miles guessed, since it had also been inscribed on Nathan’s medical bracelet. Research could be either big bulky files of paper or computer disks or both. Easily hidden, but also easily found and moved.

Miles said, ‘Let’s cut to the chase. Are you all going to move me?’ He reckoned Washington bureaucrats were at work figuring the calculus of his life’s worth, wondering if moving him was warranted just because his doctor had died in an unusual way. But he couldn’t tread water and stay in the Michael Raymond life; not if the shooter tracked him through Nathan’s knowing his name or through the cell call. He couldn’t hide in his new life and he couldn’t run.

‘Not if there’s no real chance your identity was disclosed. But I’d feel better if we put you up at a hotel for a few days under a different name. Until the arson investigation’s done.’

‘Fine. Can I go to work now?’ Miles asked.

‘Are you up for peddling art? I know you cared about Allison…’

‘Work’s the best thing for me right now.’ But Miles didn’t mean updating the gallery’s Web site or moving sculptures. I need dirty work, he decided, the kind I used to be good at, bringing secrets to light.

The gallery was not yet open, but Joy was working the phone at a sales rep’s desk, sweet-talking a deal with a collector in Boston. She wiggled fingers at him in a friendly wave, frowned at the scrapes on his face. He gave her a thumbs-up and suddenly wanted never to lose this job.

He unrolled the morning paper and scanned it. Nothing that DeShawn hadn’t already told him. Investigations continuing, the building a loss, remains recovered in such bad shape that DNA testing would be required. The article said Allison had lived in Santa Fe only a few months longer than Miles had; it surprised him she didn’t have deeper roots here. He checked the police report section: not a word about responding to any disturbances along Cerro Gordo. Maybe Nathan had gotten away.

Miles sat down at his desk, fired up the management software that the gallery used to track sales, contacts, artists, and works. He sorted through a list of incoming paintings to process, saw Joy’s note to craft e-mails to three major collectors interested in one artist’s seventeen new paintings that the gallery had received late yesterday. He needed to take digital photos of all the new paintings, load them onto the Web site, and enter them into the system so they could be tracked. Then a schedule to rotate paintings: hang selected new arrivals (all landscapes and portraitures of the high desert), ship the unsolds back to the artist or see if the staff could sell the works from the back room. And Joy’s new computer had arrived yesterday afternoon; he needed to hook it into the network and load it up with software. A long day. But he had his own mission to perform.

Joy hung up. ‘Good morning. What happened to you, hon?’

He touched his face. ‘It’s not an interesting story.’

‘I figured you were going to say you’d been out drinking with Cinco.’ She frowned. ‘Did you hear about that fire over on Palace?’

‘Yeah, I did. Awful. If you don’t mind, I’ll get your new computer set up first thing this morning. It just may take more time to get it hooked into the network. New operating-system protocols.’ Sweat showed its guilty face on his arm, in his hair, on his lip. He really hated lying to her. But no one could know what he was doing. Joy’s eyes glazed as soon as he said protocols.

‘Well… go do your voodoo.’

‘Okay.’ He startled at the jingle of the back door. Joy’s son Cinco, holding a massive cup of coffee, came in, yawning.

Miles asked, ‘Has either of you heard of a place called Sangriaville?’

‘No. Is it a new bar?’ Cinco asked. ‘Because new bars are officially off my list.’

‘I don’t think so. I thought it might be a town with a mental hospital.’

Joy blinked. ‘There is a private mental clinic way up the road, near where Canyon dead-ends, called Sangre de Cristo.’

Sangre de Cristo. Sangriaville. ‘Maybe it’s one and the same,’ Miles said.

Joy said, ‘I don’t know, honey. But then, I don’t know any crazy people.’