Брайан Фриман - Alter Ego

“That’s right. Trust me, it was the only way I could think of to take him down. I know the surveillance was technically against the law, but if you’ve got her in one of your cells, I’d really like to get her out.”

She realized that he didn’t know. He had no idea.

“Cab,” she murmured unhappily.

He watched her closely, reading the story in her face. The terrible truth dawned on him like the breaking of a wave. His blue eyes narrowed in disbelief. His clenched fist pushed against his chin. He swung his head to stare out at the Gulf water. She didn’t know which emotion held the upper hand in his heart. Grief or rage.

“Who was she?” Maggie asked softly.

Cab took a long time to reply. “Her name was Peach Piper. She worked for me.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“What happened?” he asked.

“She was shot. We only found her body yesterday.”

“Was it this John Doe of yours? The same man who killed the real Haley?”

Maggie nodded. “Yes.”

Cab shook his head. “It was Peach’s idea to use Haley’s name. To see if Casperson reacted. To see if he even remembered. I guess he got the message.”

“Are you sure about him?” Maggie asked.

Cab didn’t answer. For the moment he was far away. “Peach. I can’t believe it. She was this odd, quirky, lovely girl. A total loner. No family left. Lala and I were about the only friends she had in the world. And I sent her to her death.”

“That’s not fair,” Maggie told him. “No, you didn’t.”

The anger swallowed up his sadness. “We have to stop this son of a bitch,” Cab insisted, his voice choked with determination. “This has been going on for too long. We have to expose this psychopath for who he is. Casperson is the one who had Haley killed. He’s the one who had Peach killed.”

Maggie tried to wrap her mind around the idea. “Cab, are you sure? Is that really possible? You said yourself all you have is smoke and no fire. You don’t have any evidence.”

Cab stood up, which was like watching a flamingo perched atop long, gangly legs. He was at least six foot six.

“I told you I also have an anonymous source. And I want you to meet her.”

“Who is it?”

“Someone who has known Dean Casperson for a long time,” Cab said. “Someone who knows the truth about him. My mother.”

When Stride saw the blue Hyundai Elantra for the third time that day, he knew he was being followed.

It had shown up the first time as he drove down the Point from his cottage at seven in the morning. He’d noticed it three blocks behind him, but he hadn’t paid much attention. Then it had appeared again as he was leaving police headquarters to revisit the apartment used by Haley Adams — who was actually, according to Maggie, a Florida private investigator named Peach Piper. The Elantra had stayed behind him all the way to the Central Hillside neighborhood, where it disappeared when Stride pulled over to the curb. He wasn’t close enough to note the license plate or see who was driving the car.

Now the Elantra was back again.

Stride was driving north on I-35 on his way back from the Duluth Grill. He was almost at the Superior Street exit when he spotted the car in his rearview mirror. A blue Elantra wasn’t an uncommon vehicle in Duluth, but three times in one day was more than a coincidence. The car hung back, a quarter mile behind him in the left lane. Its headlights were on, and its windshield wipers brushed aside the light snow. He slowed to let the driver get closer, but the Elantra slowed, too, keeping a steady gap between them. He still couldn’t see inside the car.

At Superior Street, he left the freeway. The Elantra changed lanes and prepared to exit, too. He stayed on the right-hand fork toward Michigan Street and headed into the downtown streets past the depot and the library. The blue car followed. He eased back on his speed, waiting for the stoplight at Fifth Avenue to change. As the light turned yellow, he accelerated and cruised through the intersection, leaving the Elantra stranded at the red light behind him.

He drove two more long blocks before the light changed and then made a quick turn into the parking lot inside Harbor Center. The covered lot was dark, and he spun the Expedition around so that it was facing the street. Then he switched off his lights, and he waited.

Thirty seconds later, the Elantra slowly passed the driveway. He got a brief glimpse of the driver, long enough to see that it was a woman with short auburn hair. She wasn’t familiar to him. He waited until two more cars passed, and then he pulled out of the parking lot and focused on the blue Elantra ahead of him. She drove as if she were trying to figure out where he’d gone, but she wasn’t savvy enough to look behind her. She went slowly, and the cars between them got impatient and blared their horns. Eventually, it was obvious that she’d given up on finding him. She sped up and turned off Michigan onto the cobblestoned pavers at First Avenue. Then she turned right onto Superior Street and made another right at Lake Avenue on her way down to the harbor area at Canal Park.

Stride followed.

In Canal Park, the Elantra turned into the parking lot at the Hampton Inn. He parked in one of the diagonal spots across the street in front of Caribou Coffee and watched through his driver’s window as the woman got out of the car. She wore a navy-colored bubble coat that looked new and gray dress slacks. She was young, probably no more than thirty years old. She walked swiftly toward the hotel entrance and shook snow from her bobbed red hair, which was highlighted with streaks of royal blue. As he watched, she disappeared inside.

Stride got out of the Expedition and crossed the street into the hotel parking lot. He found the Elantra and made a quick call to Guppo to check the license plate. It was a Thrifty rental car from Minneapolis. He brushed snow from the side windows and peered inside. A paper map of Duluth was on the passenger seat and, as in John Doe’s car, a copy of the National Gazette . She’d also printed out a stack of archived articles from the Duluth News Tribune . The topmost story was a blurb from the previous winter about Stride’s marriage to Serena.

Whoever this woman was, she was definitely watching him.

He headed for the lobby of the hotel. Inside, he showed his badge to the desk clerk and asked about the woman who’d entered the hotel five minutes earlier. Her name, according to the registration, was JoLynn Fields. The address she’d given was in Sarasota, Florida.

Florida again.

Stride got her room number and headed for the elevator. She was on the third floor in a lake-facing room at the far end of the hallway. He walked down the corridor and rapped his knuckles sharply on the door. Someone called cheerfully, “Just a second!”

The hotel door opened. JoLynn Fields saw him, and the smile on her face vanished.

“Oh!” she exclaimed in surprise.

“Hello, Ms. Fields. My name is Jonathan Stride, but I bet you know that.”

He could almost see the calculations in her head as she thought about what to say. “Yes, I do, Lieutenant Stride.”

“Well, maybe you’d like to tell me why you’ve been following me. And why you’re digging into my personal life.”

Her smiled returned. “Okay. Sure. You know, I should have figured you’d spot me. Following someone isn’t what they make it look like on TV. And let me guess. When I lost you downtown, you started following me , right?”

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Stride said.

JoLynn opened the door wider. “Do you want to come inside? I don’t bite, Lieutenant, I promise.”

He squeezed past her into the hotel room, where the heat was cranked high enough to make it uncomfortably warm. There were two queen beds, a desk, and an overstuffed chair near the window. She had a laptop open on the desk, but as she retreated to the far side of the room, she slapped it shut. She gestured for Stride to take the overstuffed chair, and she sat in the desk chair and propped her stocking feet on the bed. From where he was, he could see the lake through the window. Waves beat against the rocks, and snow streaked across the glass. The clouds were like steel. The boardwalk by the lake was empty.