“Hello,” the voice said.
“Sara Evans just called. She asked Jordan a question.”
“What was the question?”
“She wanted to know if you had ever been in the Army.”
Warren McKenna loosened his tie and took a sip of water from the glass on his desk. He had just returned from the meeting at the Court. “And what did he tell her?”
“That he’d check and get back to her.” Elizabeth did her best to fight back the tears.
McKenna nodded to himself. “Where is she?”
“She told Jordan she was at home.”
“And John Fiske?”
“I don’t know. Apparently she didn’t say.”
McKenna grabbed his coat. “Thanks for the information, Justice Knight. It might prove to be even more valuable than one of your opinions.”
Elizabeth Knight slowly hung up the receiver and then picked it up again. She couldn’t leave it like this. She dialed Information and got the number. The call was answered. “Detective Chandler, please. Tell him it’s Elizabeth Knight and it’s urgent.”
Chandler came on the line. “What can I do for you, Justice Knight?”
“Detective Chandler, please don’t ask me how I know, but you have to get to Sara Evans’s house. I think she’s in grave danger. Please hurry.”
Chandler didn’t waste time asking questions. He raced out of his office without even hanging up the phone.
Elizabeth Knight slowly put down the receiver. She had thought her work at the Court was pressure-filled, but this . . . She knew that no matter how this turned out, her life was going to be devastated. For her, there was no way out. How ironic, she thought, that justice would end up destroying her.
* * *
The figure was outfitted in dark clothing, a ski mask pulled over his face. He had followed Sara down to Richmond and then trailed her and Fiske and the FBI agents back to Washington. He was very grateful that she had lost the FBI agents; it would make his job much easier. Crouching down, he made his way over to the car and opened the driver’s-side door. The dome light came on when he did so, and he quickly twisted the control to dim it. He looked at the windows of the house. He saw Sara pass by once, but she didn’t look outside. He pulled a small flashlight from his pocket and swept the beam around the car’s interior. He saw the papers on the floorboard, glanced at them and noted the encircled name. He gathered up the files and put them in a knapsack he was carrying. He pulled a pistol from his holster and attached a silencer to the muzzle. Looking up at the house again, he saw no sign of Sara this time. But she was in there. Alone. He put out the light and headed toward the house.
* * *
Sara had been nervously pacing the kitchen, constantly checking her watch and waiting for a phone call from Jordan Knight’s office. She stepped out onto the rear deck and watched as a jet slid past under the canopy of dark clouds. Then she looked down at her sailboat as it nudged against the rubber tires that were affixed to the dock to act as buffers between the smooth fiberglass and the rough wood. She had to smile as she thought back to the events of last night. The smile disappeared as she recalled what she and Fiske had discussed after their encounter at the nursing home. She pressed her bare toes against the damp wood, and took a moment to breathe in the soothing smells of the wet, rustic surroundings.
She went inside and up the stairs, stopping at the doorway of her bedroom and looking inside. The bed was still unmade. She sat down on the mattress and picked up one edge of the sheet as she recalled their lovemaking. She thought of how Fiske had pulled his T-shirt back down. The scar went from navel to neck, Ed had told her. As if it could ever actually make a difference to her. And yet Fiske obviously believed it could.
She listened as another jet passed overhead and then the complete silence returned in its wake, as though all sound had disappeared into a Pratt & Whitney-made vacuum. The silence so profound she could clearly hear the side door of the cottage open. She jumped up and raced to the stairs. “John?” There was no answer, and when the downstairs light went out, a shiver of fear hit her spine. She ran into her bedroom, shut and locked the door. Her chest heaving, her own pulse bursting in her eardrums, she looked around desperately for a weapon, because there was no way to escape. The window was small and even if she could manage to wriggle through, the grade of the land was such that the room was two stories off the ground, with a concrete sidewalk down below — and breaking both her legs didn’t seem like a good idea.