Jan Burke - Nine

Don’t even think about messing with me, he thought, as a beefy-armed trucker went by. I have killed, and I will not hesitate to kill again.

He wished he could say that aloud, stand up on the table and shout it.

Much better, though, to know something others didn’t know. Frederick had always loved secrets, both keeping and finding them. Everett called Frederick his spy. He always said it with respect, with gratitude. Frederick had never met anyone who appreciated his talents as much as Ev did.

He wondered briefly what Ev would make of his disobedience. The thought made him uneasy, and he paid his bill in cash and went back out to the Bronco.

He stopped at a twenty-four-hour supermarket to buy a few supplies to help him survive the hours of surveillance ahead of him. He bought a cheap foam cooler, some ice, and a lot of bottled water. He bought some bread, a small jar of mayo, cheese, some lettuce, some sandwich meat, and a knife.

He felt pride in his purchases. He hadn’t learned to make a sandwich until he met Everett. Everett had no more need to prepare his own food than Frederick did, but he had forced the members of Project Nine to learn, as he put it, to “stop acting rich,” for those times when they would need to blend in with less important people. Thinking of Ev as he entered the checkout lane, he placed two packs of nearly every brand of chewing gum into his basket. This was another act of defiance-Ev hated gum chewing.

He prepared his new cooler and then drove over to the Sandia Towers Hotel. He had managed to kill about four hours. Eight in the morning was not such an odd time, though, so he approached the parking lot attendant’s booth. He was a little disappointed to see that a different attendant was on duty, because he had looked forward to testing his change of appearance. He found a space from which he could watch Meghan’s car. He rustled through the plastic shopping bag with the gum in it and began a taste test.

At noon, he called his parents, who were staying in their Italian villa through the end of the summer, when they planned to return to France, where they lived most of the time. Since he had rarely contacted them after the day he turned twenty-one-and received the bulk of his grandmother’s estate-he surprised them. They had not forgiven him for suddenly becoming wealthier than they were. He understood that completely. He hoped his mother would mention the big news about the FBI’s Most Wanted list, but when he asked if they had watched any news of the U.S., she told him that they had decided that the only way they would ever really relax and enjoy life was to go on what she called “a media fast.” When he (quoting Everett) told her that intentional ignorance was the opium of the coward, she hung up on him. This was not a first.

At one o’clock, hotel checkout time, he stretched. Seeing that Meghan hadn’t brought her luggage down to her car, and concluding that this meant she was staying another night, he devised a ruse that he thought might work well. He would disguise his voice, ask for her room, and when connected, ask her if she wanted extra towels. In his experience, women always did want them, if you suggested it. “That’s room seven-eighteen, right?” he would say, and she would correct him and tell him her new room number. He would grab a stack of towels from a housekeeping cart and hold them in front of his face so that she couldn’t see him. She would answer the door. Then he would make her tell him where Gabe was hiding these days.

But when he called and asked for her room, the operator said that he would have to leave a message with her, as Ms. Taggert was not accepting calls.

He was angry, so he said, “Ask her if she wants more towels,” and hung up.

At about three o’clock, a disturbing thought occurred to him. What if Meghan planned to meet Gabe without ever driving anywhere? What if they were up in her hotel room right now?

But then he thought back to the previous evening’s first fiasco. The reactions of the people at the front desk, the guard who chased him-Meghan had obviously been in touch with hotel security, and now they were keeping an eye on her. Somehow, he doubted she would bring her fugitive brother here under those circumstances.

His uneasiness grew, however, when he considered other possibilities. He decided to drive around the hotel perimeter to better assess the situation. When he used the ticket to exit, he remembered his impatience with the gate the day before and saw that parking in the garage itself might be a bad idea. If Meghan got into her Beemer, he would see her, but if he followed her out, she would very likely see him, and even if she didn’t recognize him, she would notice that a guy who looked a lot like James Dean was following her in a Bronco. And if he waited to follow, by the time he got past the parking gate, he’d lose track of her.

So he put on his shades and looked for a good surveillance spot.

Shortly after he left the garage, he found a wide alley that ran along the back of the hotel. Several dozen floral centerpieces were being delivered at a receiving area. Frederick considered for a time all the ways he could gain entry through the back of the hotel, disguise himself in an employee’s uniform, and work at learning Meghan’s room number. None of these seemed like pleasant undertakings, or even likely to pay off, but he didn’t mind having backup plans.

Driving along the front of the hotel, he saw two taxicabs parked in the shade of the area near the lobby entrance. This made him consider another complication: Taxicabs were another means by which Meghan could evade his watchful eye.

He eventually found a place along the street that would allow him to watch both the front entrance of the hotel and the exit for the parking garage.

About twenty minutes later, just as he had decided he was tired of the confines of the Bronco, that he’d just go home and forget all about Meghan, his attention was caught. A taxicab with a male passenger started to pull into the front drive, then suddenly veered away from the entrance, the passenger gesturing as he spoke to the driver. Frederick tried to get a better look at the passenger but failed. The driver then drove to the alley behind the hotel. Curious, Frederick started the Bronco and then moved it so that he could watch the cab without going down the alley itself or being too easily observed by its occupants.

The passenger did not get out. Frederick began to be sure this was Gabe, waiting for Meghan. He considered going down the alley right now and kidnapping him, or even killing him outright. But he’d have to kill the cabdriver and anyone else who might be around the area, and he had no gun with him. He hadn’t tried to obtain one here, either, an oversight he was regretting. But why should he have to skulk around a strange town arranging in low-life bars to buy untried weapons, when he had perfectly good guns at home? If he’d been able to bring his personal arsenal along with him, he would have had plenty of firepower to accomplish the task. For at least two full minutes, his thoughts were taken up with the injustice of the various measures that impinged upon rights guaranteed to him and every other American by the Second Amendment.

Just then he saw Meghan Taggert, escorted by a hotel security guard, leave the hotel through a service entrance door and walk toward the cab. The guard was carrying a small overnight bag. The cabdriver got out, put the bag in the trunk, and-after she shook hands with the guard-Meghan got into the cab.

Frederick noted the cab number, then moved a little farther down the street.

His heart was beating faster now, the thrill of taking up the hunt in earnest singing through every nerve. The cab came out of the alley and moved down the street, nothing indicating a fear of pursuit.