Jeffery Deaver - Edge

Or Loving in a body bag. Had he stood up when I’d hoped at the lake house in Loudoun County, the case might well be over.

“But we don’t.”

“No. Please, just keep him off my back for the night, Aaron. Tell him we’ve got a delicate operation going.”

“To find Loving?”

“No. That’s gas on the bonfire. Tell him I’ve got some leads to the primary. Tell him the terrorist connection is panning out.”

“For real?”

A legitimate question, considering how deceptively I’d been running the job so far.

“Yes. There’s money going into the Middle East. Some of it’s ending up in Saudi Arabia, a dozen shell companies.”

“Now that’s interesting.”

“Westerfield’ll love it. A good federal case for his cap.”

“Cap?”

“Feather in his cap. Claire’s checking out some reconnaissance I did at Graham’s place-the Department of Defense guy with the forged check. We’re moving ahead. But I’m keeping the Kesslers. Make me out the heavy. I’m fine with that. But I can’t let them go.”

A sigh. “I’ll do what I can.”

We disconnected and I made the turn to head back to the Great Falls safe house. I’d called Ahmad, briefed him and learned everything was quiet there, though apparently Joanne and her husband had been squabbling. It was over something petty. The fights among principals invariably were, I’d noticed. I spoke to Ryan, who sounded sober, and told him that there’d been an incident at Bill Carter’s but everybody was all right. Amanda and he were in federal protection. I ended the call before an alarmed Joanne could get on the line.

The time was nearly 6:00 p.m. and fatigue was seeping in.

My caller ID announced duBois.

“Me. Go ahead.”

“I’ve got a couple of things. First, the helicopter… One thing I noticed. Women don’t say ‘choppers.’ I’ve talked to six people, three men and three women. The men all say ‘chopper.’ The women say ‘helicopter.’”

DuBois’s observations were back. She’d largely recovered from the Graham ignominy.

“There was no flight plan filed. I was thinking about what that would mean. I assume it wouldn’t be a government helicopter, like fire or police-”

“Not likely.”

“Which means it’s not a charter. Leasing companies’re very buttoned up about flight plans. They could lose their tickets if one doesn’t get filed. So the bird’s privately owned.”

“Bird.”

“Nobody called it a bird. I made that up.”

I said, “Somebody like Pamuk, an investment banker, could have one. Or maybe he’s working with a rich client.”

“And on the Graham situation, I’ve got some results from the ORC analysis.”

“Well, that was fast.”

“You said you wanted it fast. I have addresses.”

“Any in the area?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. DuPont Circle.”

That had been one possibility, I’d speculated. Greenwich Village or Fells Point in Baltimore were others but they would have been more problematic since I’d prefer to go there in person.

“Email them to me. Good job.”

“I’m still looking into doctors. I’m cross-referencing specialties. Where do you think you hit Loving?”

“I couldn’t say.”

“If you hit a bone, that might make a difference.”

“How so?”

“He’d probably try to find somebody with orthopedic training. Narrow the search down, I mean. You can’t remember?”

“No.”

“Oh.” She sounded frustrated. “I wished it was a specialty. I was trying to think of others. Ear, nose and throat.”

“Well, I don’t know where I hit him.”

“Okay. I’ll track it down. I’m texting now.”

We disconnected.

A moment later the information from the Graham case slipped into my mobile. I read through it quickly, then pulled off the road. I cut and pasted one of the addresses into my GPS, hit START ROUTE and obediently followed the synthetic woman’s commands.

I DROVE TO DuPont Circle, once the home of cottage industries, a pungent waterway and a famous slaughterhouse. Now the hood was among the more trendy parts of the nation’s capital.

GPS-whose voice I had decided sounded unnervingly like Chris Teasley’s, Westerfield’s assistant-took me to a storefront off Connecticut Avenue. It was a used-CD store, manned by a few slow-moving clerks. The customers were mostly in their twenties, along with a few smudged, bearded music lovers about my age. I walked up to one young man behind the register, flashed my ID along with a security picture of the Asian man who’d collected the gold coins in New Jersey, a perp in the Graham forgery case.

He claimed he knew nothing. I asked four or five other people. Nobody seemed to know anything about funny checks or the Asian.

Finally, with a last glance around the store, I pushed out the door, which had a quaint old-time bell on an armature. I looked around and headed into a coffee shop nearby. DuPont Circle survives on chic and Café Cafe had that aplenty. The accent mark was a clue, as was the $25/LB. sign in one bin of dark beans. I ordered a black filtered Colombian, the cheapest thing on a menu full of exotic concoctions, none of which were to my mind coffee, tasty though they might be.

I recalled an image from years ago, another one I didn’t particularly want. Peggy ordering her favorite, a mochaccino. I was never sure what that was exactly. But I remembered her heart-shaped face turning toward the drink with effervescent anticipation. She’d once commented that she loved grocery shopping because she felt comfort in watching people buy their special treats.

“It’s a tough life,” she’d said. “It’s the little things that get us through the day.”

How true, I’d thought at the time. How true I knew now.

I sipped the coffee, set down the steaming cup and began to compose a text message about my progress on the Graham case, when I heard a squeak-the front door. I was gazing down at the screen of my phone when I felt a shadow over me. I looked up and behind into the face of a man in his early twenties. He was white, good-looking, slim, wearing jeans and a seriously wrinkled striped shirt.

“Yes?”

“I work in the CD store you were just in?”

When I didn’t say anything he repeated, “I work there.”

“What’s your name?”

“Stu.” He eyed me carefully. “You were asking some things? In the store?”

His statements were inflected as questions.

I stared at him. He looked down fast.

“What do you want?” I finally asked.

“You were asking about Jimmy Sun? I know him.”

“You know where he is now? I need to find him.”

“You’re like an FBI agent?”

“Where’s Jimmy? Do you know?”

A hesitation. “I don’t, no.”

“Sit down.” I gestured at the table.

He sat and clasped his hands together in front of him. People I deal with occasionally sit in exactly this position, except that they do so because their wrists are in cuffs.

“How do you know Jimmy?” I asked sternly.

“He comes into the store sometimes. He likes music. Why were you looking for him there? At the store?”

“Traced him through credit card receipts. He shops there.”

“Oh. Sure.”

“He’s in a lot of trouble. It’d be a big help if we could find him.”

“I thought… I mean, I heard there was some problem. Something about a check.”

“A forgery case.”

Stu said, “But, the thing is, the case was dropped. I heard it was dropped. So he’s not in any trouble anymore.” He lifted his hands and offered a shallow smile.

I didn’t smile. “It was dropped by the police department in D.C.”