that”-she pointed toward the woods-“would be my first tactical choice.
Good cover, excellent line of fire and a hidden escape route. Car
waiting, gun disposed of, a quick trip to Dulles Airport. In an hour
the shooter’s in another time zone. The shot that killed Ken entered
the back of his neck. He’s facing away from the woods. Ken must not
have seen his attacker, or else he wouldn’t have turned his back.” She
eyed the thick woods. “It all points there.”
Another car pulled up and the director of the FBI himself climbed out.
Massey and his aides hurried over, leaving Connie and Reynolds alone.
“So what’s our plan of action?” Connie asked.
“Maybe I’ll try to match those boots to my Cinderella,” Reynolds said
as she watched Massey talking to the director. The director was a
former field agent who, Reynolds knew, would take this catastrophe
extremely personally. Everybody and everything associated with it
would be subject to intense scrutiny.
“We’ll cover all the usual bases.” She tapped her finger against the
tape. “But this is really all we have. Whoever’s on this tape we hit
hard, like there’s no tomorrow.”
“Depending on how this turns out, we might not have many tomorrows
left, Brooke,” said Connie.
CHAPTER 8
LEE GRIPPED THE STEERING WHEEL SO HARD his fingers were turning white
As the police car, lights blazing, raced past him going in the opposite
direction, he let out an enormous breath and then pushed hard on the
accelerator. They were in Lee’s car after having ditched the other. He
had scrubbed down the inside of the dead man’s car, but he could have
easily missed something. And nowadays equipment existed that could
find things completely invisible to the naked eye. Not good.
As Faith watched the swirling lights disappear into the darkness, she
wondered if the police were heading to the cottage. Did Ken Newman
have a wife and kids? she wondered. There had been no wedding band on
his finger. Like many women, Faith had the habit of making that quick
observation. Yet he’d seemed like the fatherly type.
As Lee maneuvered the car through the back roads, Faith’s hand moved
up, down and then drew a vertical line across her chest as she finished
crossing herself. The near-automatic movement conveyed a subtle sense
of surprise to her. She added a silent prayer for the dead man. She
whispered another prayer for any family he might have. “I’m so sorry
you’re dead,” she said out loud, to help assuage her mounting feelings
of guilt for simply having survived.
Lee looked over at her. “Friend of yours?”
She shook her head. “He was killed because of me. Isn’t that
enough?”
Faith was surprised at how easily the words of prayer and remorse had
come back to her. Because of her nomadic father, her attendance at
mass over the years had been sporadic. But her mother had insisted on
Catholic schools wherever the family happened to venture, and her
father had followed this rule after his wife had died. Catholic school
must have ingrained something in her other than the constant bite of
the ruler on her knuckles from Sister Something-or-other. The summer
before her senior year, she had become an orphan, her travels with her
father abruptly cut short by a heart attack. She was sent to live with
a relative who did not want her and who took pains to show no attention
to her. Faith had rebelled however she could. She smoked, she drank,
she ceased to be virgin Faith long before it was fashionable to do so.
At school the daily tugging down of her skirt to below her knees by the
nuns only made her want to pull the damn thing up to her crotch. All
in all, it was a truly forgettable year in her life, followed by
several more as she struggled through college, tried to gain some
direction in her life. Then for the past fifteen years she had thought
her rudder was flawless, the grand movements of her life fluid. Now
she was floundering, speeding toward the rocks.
Faith looked at Lee. “We need to call the police, tell somebody that