Stuart Woods - Hothouse Orchid

Holly stood in the living room for a moment. Then she saw a flashing light on a black box on the desk in Jack’s study. There was an alarm system, and now it began making a chiming noise. She walked to the desk, picked up the phone and listened. All she got was a dial tone, so she knew the alarm system wasn’t calling a security service or Jack’s cell phone.

She didn’t know how much time she had, so she worked quickly. She went into Jack’s bedroom and rifled all the drawers and the closet, careful to leave no trace of her unauthorized presence. Then she went back into the study and switched on Jack’s computer. All she got was a window requiring a password, and she didn’t have time to work on that, so she shut it down again. She found no papers of any interest in the desk, only a few utility bills, already paid. She got up and opened what appeared to be a closet door, and it was, but it contained something very interesting: a Fort Knox safe with a digital lock. The thing was five feet high, and she reckoned it weighed six or seven hundred pounds.

Now why would Jack Smithson need such a large safe? Did he have a camera collection or, more likely, a gun collection? Or maybe a lot of cash? She would like to know, but she would need specialized equipment to get the safe opened, and she would have to get that from her house in McLean, Virginia.

She let herself out of the house and locked the door behind her. The alarm would reset itself after a few minutes, and she doubted if it recorded to a computer log, so Jack wouldn’t know she had been there.

She got her shoes on again, then took a couple of palm fronds from under a nearby tree and swept her path clean of hers and Daisy’s footprints all the way to the high-water mark. Then she jogged back to her house, arriving sweaty and tired.

She still had her suspicions, but she couldn’t back them up.

The following morning, Lauren knocked on Hurd’s office door with some trepidation.

“Come in,” he called out.

Lauren walked in and sat down. “Okay,” she said, “I have a better plan.”

Hurd sat back in his chair. “I’m all ears,” he said.

Lauren explained her plan to conceal video and audio bugs in Jimmy Weathers’s car, along with a GPS locator.

“I’ll need a surveillance van, two chase cars and a helicopter,” she said.

“Wait a minute,” Hurd said. “We can’t requisition all that equipment on the off chance that some night he might go after another woman. He might take weeks to do that.”

“I still plan to be the woman,” she said.

“Lauren, I’ve already ordered you not to do that.”

“Listen to me, Hurd. We’ll have the two chase cars just far enough away to be out of sight, and the helicopter maybe a mile away. All I’ll have to do is speak a code word, and they’ll be all over Jimmy.”

“All right, suppose it takes them a minute or two to arrive. How are you going to handle Jimmy?”

“I’ll have two weapons concealed in the car.” Hurd started to speak again, but she interrupted. “And I have some fighting skills.”

Hurd leaned forward and rested his elbows on his desk. “Lauren, I apologize for having to say this, but you weren’t able to fight off Jim Bruno when he…”

“That’s true,” Lauren admitted, “but if I had had help to call for, the rape would never have happened. All I have to do is hold Jimmy off for a minute or two, and it will be that part of the video that will be valuable in court.”

Hurd just looked at her and said nothing.

“Hurd, if this were a drug bust, you’d let me do it.”

“If it were a drug bust, you wouldn’t have to provoke a violent response to make an arrest.”

“That’s true, but you’re underestimating me. I’m tougher and better trained than I was with Bruno; I could hurt Jimmy, if I had to, and I’ll still have two weapons to fall back on: one under the dash and one under the seat.”

“Something else,” Hurd said. “Even if this worked, we’d only have Jimmy on one count of attempted rape.”

“I think I can get him to confess beforehand,” Lauren said. “I think when he gets excited, he’ll talk about it.”

“But he’ll know that if he did that, you could testify against him.”

“Of course, that’s the idea. Hurd, if Jimmy is the killer we think he is, he would plan not to leave me alive to testify.”

“And you think that notion is the way to talk me into this?”

“You know it’s true,” she said.

“Everything will depend on the chase cars getting to you before he kills you.”

“I know that,” Lauren said. “Sometimes you have to take a chance to get a serial killer off the street.”

“This is a big chance; it’s your life.”

“I know that, and I’m telling you I can handle him. The alternative is to let him go on killing until we can catch him at it. How many lives of innocent women might we have to sacrifice?”

Hurd slumped. “When do you want to do this?”

“As soon as we can get the equipment in place,” Lauren said. “Holly is going to call Jane Grey and have her tell Jimmy his car has to be serviced or inspected, so we can get hold of it for a day. All we need is to set the day.”

“Let me make a couple of calls,” Hurd said.

Holly sat in her office and called Lance. His face came on the screen.

“Yes?”

“Lance, I’ve got one suspect for our man, but I have no evidence to back up my suspicions.”

“I’m not intending to try him,” Lance said.

“I went into his house this evening. I found nothing except a large safe with an electronic lock. If there’s anything that will prove or even indicate who he is, it will be in that safe.”

“You’ve been trained to open it,” Lance said.

“If I do that, I’m going to need an electronic device that Tech Services can supply. They call it an electronic combination resolver.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes, time to get into the house and do the work. I got lucky tonight; he wasn’t there.”

“You’ll have the device tomorrow morning,” Lance said.

“All right, but understand this, Lance: I’ll do the black-bag job, but I’m not going to go further than that. If you want something more done, you’re going to have to send someone else.”

“You’re such a sissy,” Lance said, chuckling. “Just get into the safe. All I need is confirmation of his identity, and then you’re out of it.”

Holly sighed. “All right,” she said. She ended the call.

Holly woke up to the sound of the doorbell, alone, since Josh had worked a night shift at the hospital. She got up, struggled into a robe and walked downstairs. Daisy was already sitting in front of the door, on guard.

“Stay, Daisy,” she said. Through a glass pane beside the door, she could see a black car. She looked through the peephole and saw a man, his back turned to her, wearing a black windbreaker and a black baseball cap. Guard, Daisy,” she said. Daisy stood up and gave a low growl.

Holly put the chain on the door and opened it a crack. “Yes?”

The man turned around. He was young-midtwenties-and wearing dark glasses. “Ms. Barker?”

“Yes.” Holly put her foot tight against the door, ready for his shoulder against it.

He held up a small package. “I have a delivery for you.”

“From whom?”

“From your friend in Virginia.”

Holly slumped. “God, I didn’t know who you were.”

“That’s kind of the idea,” he said. “Nobody is supposed to.” He held out the package, and Holly took it.

“I’m supposed to tell you, you should take very good care of that and return it when you’re finished; it’s not supposed to get lost.”