“I can assure you,” said Shade. “I’m not the only one looking for it.”
“Good. Let’s get together. You bring some of your friends; I’ll bring some of mine. We’ll have a party.” I started the engine and pulled into the street.
“Dr. Bowers, please. I don’t want to have to hurt you.”
“Oh, now see? That wasn’t so smart, threatening a federal agent.
After I catch you, that won’t bode so well for you at the trial.”
Shade ignored what I’d said. “You need to know this goes much deeper and much farther than you could ever guess. The only way to protect yourself and the people you care about is to hand over the device. I’ll give you a time and a place. If you do as I say, you’ll never hear from me or my people again. But if you make me come and get it, this will not end well for you.”
“Bring it on,” I said.
And then I hung up the phone.
Cliche or not, it sure felt good to say it.
Things were beginning to get interesting.
General Cole Biscayne grew tired of the mindless reality show he was watching and turned off his sister’s television. The instant the volume died, he heard a voice behind him, and it wasn’t his sister speaking. “It’s been a long time, Cole.”
And that was the last thing Cole Biscayne ever heard, because then Sebastian Taylor, the assassin Cole had trained more than thirty years earlier, the man who had once been the governor of North Carolina and was now on the FBI’s most wanted list, fired the Glock he was holding, the bullet entered the back of the general’s head and exited through his right eye socket, and General Cole Biscayne’s fresh corpse slumped forward onto the lush lemon-colored carpet of his sister Beverly’s living room.
Sebastian Taylor holstered his gun.
There.
That was finally taken care of. The general’s sister would find him later when she got home. Too bad he’d made such a mess of the place.
Now it was time to visit Cassandra Lillo and finish up one more piece of business.
I phoned Lien-hua and found out she’d gone back to the hotel.
I told her to wait for me there, and then I dialed Tessa’s number but was only able to reach her voice mail. I left her a message to call me as soon as she could.
I hadn’t wanted to check on Tessa’s location again, but if Shade was threatening the people I cared about, I needed to find out where she was. So, even though I knew she would hate me for doing it, I called cybercrime to have them check her phone’s GPS, and after a couple minutes on hold, found out she was still thirty-three thousand feet in the air, forty-five minutes from Denver. Good. I was actually glad her flight had been delayed. Tessa was safe.
The main arteries of the city were clogged and traffic was only inching along, so I left the highway behind and began to pick my through the backstreets of San Diego.
I speed-dialed my parents and found out they were already at the airport. “Listen,” I told my dad, “I’ll have some officers meet you there. Go with them until things settle down here. I’ll try to make it home tomorrow.” He agreed, we hung up, and as I cruised through a yellow light I called my friend Lieutenant Kurt Mason with the Denver Police Department and explained what was going on. “Kurt, have two officers meet Tessa and my parents, Martha and Conor, at the airport. I’ll be back as soon as I can, probably a day or two. I’ll take care of everything when I get there. Guarantee me Tessa and my parents will be safe until then. If for some reason they’re not at the airport, send a car to their house.”
“You have my word, Pat. I’ll pick them up myself.”
“Thanks.”
I was almost to the hotel. I’d be with Lien-hua in a matter of minutes.
As they approached the club, Riker slid his arm around Tessa’s waist. His tight muscles flexed against her side, and it felt good to be so close to a guy. She didn’t pull away.
It felt good.
So good.
She wondered if this was how a young bird must feel, leaving the nest. Independent and free, spreading her wings against the wind.
Exciting.
So exciting.
The thrill of walking on the edge of the forbidden.
At the door, a mound of a man with a cement-block head held up his hand. His voice sounded like it came straight from a subway tunnel. “IDs.”
Riker pulled something out of his pocket, leaned over, and slipped it into the big guy’s hand. Tessa caught a glimpse of green paper. The man closed his mitt around the bills and waved them through.
Now inside. “Thanks,” she whispered.
“No prob.”
Pulsing, pulsing music roamed through the air and pumped and echoed all around Riker and her as they walked through a dark throat of a hallway. On each side, the shadows held impatient lovers groping each other in the cyclical, winking light. A few of the guys nodded toward Riker from the recesses of the hall as he and Tessa strolled to the dance floor. Then Riker spoke to her, raising his voice loud enough to be heard over the sound of the music. “They know me here. I come here a lot.”
Techno music throbbed through the air, through the walls, vibrated up through the floor. Tessa loved it. Loved it all. “This place rocks,” she called out.
“One of my favorite clubs.”
She saw a few surfer types, but most of the people in the club seemed to have a darker edge to them. Partly Tessa felt at home.
Partly she felt unsure. Then Riker took her hand and pulled her onto the dance floor, into the swirl of sweaty, swaying, leather-clad bodies. Tessa had been to clubs before, but never one like this.
Never so intense.
Exciting.
So exciting.
The trance-like beat of the music rolled over her and through her. Seemed to course through her veins. She watched Riker shut his eyes and rise into the music, his whole body finding the driving rhythms of the song. She wanted to feel his arms around her again so she glided closer to him. Let the side of her leg nudge against his.
His eyelids parted, he smiled in a roguish way. Drew her close.
Exciting.
So exciting.
Tessa trembled. Maybe it was his touch.
But maybe it was the distant echo of her mom’s voice that day on the frozen lake in Minnesota. That warning, faint with the years, telling her to turn around, to stop wandering out so far onto the ice.
Tessa closed her eyes to the laser lights, ignored the muffled warning from her childhood, and danced in time to the music pulsing beneath her skin.