Брайан Фриман - Alter Ego

“You’ll probably have to come back here for the trial,” Maggie said.

“Assuming there is one. I think Jack will make a deal.”

“Maybe so.”

That took them through another mile. They were nearly to the exit for the town of Proctor.

“Have you ever thought about moving?” Cab asked with a suddenness that shocked her. She hadn’t expected him to be so blunt.

“What do you mean?”

“To Florida. I need another investigator. Obviously, you’re very good at what you do, and it goes without saying that you and I have chemistry.”

“Leave Duluth? I’ve never even thought about it.”

“Maybe you should.”

Maggie did.

She thought about her life in Duluth, which had occupied all of her memories for twenty years. She thought about Stride, Guppo, and Serena. And about Stride again. She thought about the heat of Florida and the Gulf waters and being in bed with Cab. She thought about all of that in five seconds, and then she said, “No. Sorry.”

“I figured you’d say that,” Cab told her, “but it never hurts to ask.”

“Duluth is my home. Florida’s a nice place to visit, though. I like the amenities down there.”

“You should come back and see it sometime,” Cab said. “Maybe Troy and the girls would enjoy a vacation there. Magic Kingdom. Universal. Gatorland.”

Maggie shot him a sideways look. He was teasing her, but he was right. She had unfinished business with Troy. And she was smart enough to know that Cab had unfinished business of his own. What they’d shared was simply the right interlude at the right time for both of them.

“So do you have someone picking you up at the airport tonight?” she asked. “Since you don’t have your new Corvette yet.”

Cab waited a beat to reply. “Lala’s meeting me, actually.”

“Ah. Mosquito. She’s taking you home?”

“Yes. She wants an update on everything that happened here.”

“I bet she does,” Maggie said.

“It’s not romantic.”

“No, of course not.”

She winked at Cab because she didn’t believe him. Then she glanced in the rearview mirror again.

At first, she’d assumed she was mistaken, but she wasn’t. She made a snap decision. The exit for Highway 2 loomed in front of her, and she did a quick lane change to take the exit. Her eyes stayed on the mirror. Almost immediately, she turned left onto the frontage road. Then she made another right turn on a winding trail that took them up the hill.

“Where are we going?” Cab asked with a puzzled look.

“There’s a rest stop up here.”

“Do you need to rest?”

Maggie looked for the headlights. They were still behind her, right where they’d been since they’d left the city. As they climbed toward the Thompson Hill Information Center, the headlights climbed, too. It was a black SUV, but the windshield was tinted, and she couldn’t see inside.

“Actually, I think we’re being followed,” Maggie said.

Stride was at a stoplight on Superior Street downtown when his phone rang. The number was unfamiliar, and the area code wasn’t local. He’d been getting media calls all day. He was tempted to ignore it, but he answered it anyway.

“This is Stride,” he said.

“Lieutenant, this is JoLynn Fields with the National Gazette .” The woman seemed to anticipate his reaction, and she rushed on before he could say anything. “I realize I’m not exactly flavor of the month for you right now.”

“If you’re looking for another interview, Ms. Fields, you’re at the back of the line.”

“Well, maybe I can change your mind.”

“I don’t think so,” Stride replied.

“I’m not coming to you empty-handed, Lieutenant. I’m talking about a quid pro quo. Hear me out.”

Stride hesitated, letting the dead air stretch out on the call. He headed past the Fond-du-Luth Casino on his right. The turn toward Canal Park and the Point was two blocks away.

“Go on,” he said.

“I find spies wherever I go,” JoLynn told him. “It’s part of how I get the information I need. One of my spies works at the Duluth Airport. He was getting off work this morning and noticed something unusual. A limo did a pickup at a private jet on the tarmac.”

“We’ve had a lot of private jets coming into town today,” Stride said.

“Yes, but my spy sent me photos. The woman getting off the plane was Mo Casperson.”

The light at Lake Avenue turned green, but Stride stopped dead and waved the traffic around him. “You’re telling me that Mo is in Duluth?”

“That’s right. I’ve spent most of the day trying to confirm it and find out where she is.”

“And what did you find?”

“She got a limo to the Sheraton downtown, where she rented a suite and then arranged for a black Lexus LX. She’s been holed up at the hotel most of the day, but she just left.”

“Headed where?” Stride asked.

“South on 35. That’s all I know. So how about that interview?”

“I’ll get back to you.”

Stride hung up as his phone buzzed. It was an incoming text from Maggie. Thompson Hill. 911 .

He jammed down the accelerator on his Expedition, turned left, and shot onto the I-35 southbound ramp at high speed.

Maggie drove to the far end of the Thompson Hill parking lot and spun the Avalanche around so that her headlights faced the entry road. The rest stop was at the top of the hill. The dark Duluth sky stretched overhead, and the view overlooked the city and the lake below them. She saw two other cars parked near the tourist information building, but there were no people nearby.

The Lexus SUV followed them slowly into the parking lot. It parked oddly far away on the other side of the lot. The two vehicles seemed to stare at each other through the gleam of their headlights. Maggie and Cab waited inside the Avalanche to see what would happen next.

The door of the Lexus opened, and a woman got out.

“Mo Casperson,” Cab said.

Mo wore a sleek black leather overcoat that hugged her tall, slim body down to her ankles. Her hands were buried in the coat pockets. Her eyes were hidden behind sunglasses even in the gloom of dusk. Her golden hair was long and loose, flying in the hilltop wind. She walked in high heels in front of the Lexus and stood and stared at them from between the headlights.

Maggie tapped out a quick message to Stride.

Then she and Cab got out of the Avalanche. Maggie already had her pistol in her hand, and she leveled it at Mo at the end of her arms. The sight of the gun didn’t seem to bother Mo at all. She watched them take slow, careful steps in her direction, but they were separated by most of the parking lot. Maggie and Cab slowly converged from both sides of the Avalanche.

“Hello, Cab,” Mo called.

They both stopped where they were. Maggie didn’t lower her gun.

“I’m surprised to see you here, Mo,” Cab replied. “I figured you’d be hiding out on an island somewhere.”

“I never hide.”

“No? Well, maybe you don’t appreciate the situation you and Dean are in.”

“I appreciate it very well. Believe me. You must be proud of yourself. You and Tarla finally got what you wanted. You took down a great man.”

Cab shook his head. “He’s a serial rapist. You’re the murderer who’s enabled him all these years. Truly, I don’t how you do it. I don’t know how you sit on your patio in Captiva and justify it to yourself.”

“Dean made the world a better place,” Mo shot back. “Everything worth doing has a price.”

Maggie still had her gun trained on Mo, who hadn’t moved at all from her position in front of the Lexus. “Mrs. Casperson, take your hands out of your pockets very slowly. I want to see your hands right now.”