“But you just said—”
“The meeting will be with me, not you.”
LuAnn half stood up in her anger. “No way, Matthew, there is no way in hell I’m going to let you near that guy. Look what he did to you.” She pointed at his arm. “The next time will be worse. A lot worse.”
“It would’ve been a lot worse if you hadn’t messed up his aim.” He smiled tenderly at her. “Look, I’ll call him. I tell him that you’re leaving the country and all these problems behind. You know Donovan is dead, so Jackson doesn’t have that issue anymore. Everybody’s home free.” LuAnn was vigorously shaking her head as she sat back down.
“Then I’ll tell him,” Riggs continued, “that I’m not such a happy camper. I’ve got it all figured out: I’m a little tired of construction work, and I want my payoff.”
“No, Matthew, no!”
“Jackson figures I’m a criminal anyway. Trying to extort him wouldn’t seem out of line at all. I’ll tell him I bugged your bedroom, that I’ve got a recording of a conversation he had with you, that night at your house, where you both talked a lot about things.”
“Are you nuts?”
“I want money. Lots of it. Then he gets the tape.”
“He will kill you.”
Now Riggs’s face darkened. “He’ll do that anyway. I don’t like sitting around waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’d rather go on the offensive. Make him sweat for a change. And I may not be the killing machine he is, but I’m no slouch either. I’m a veteran FBI agent. I’ve killed before, in the line of duty, and if you think I’d hesitate one second before blowing his brains out, then you really don’t know me.”
Riggs looked down for a moment, trying to make himself calm down. His plan was risky, but what plan wouldn’t be? When he looked back up at LuAnn, he was about to say something else but the look on her face froze the words in his mouth.
“LuAnn?”
“Oh, no!” Her voice was filled with panic.
“What is it? What’s the matter?” Riggs grabbed her shoulder, which was quivering. She didn’t answer him. She was looking at something over his shoulder. He whirled around, expecting to see Jackson coming for them, foot-long knives in either hand. He scanned the nearly empty restaurant and then his eyes settled on the TV where a special news report was being broadcast.
A woman’s face spread across the screen. Two hours ago, Alicia Crane, prominent Washingtonian, had been found dead in her home by her housekeeper. The evidence collected so far suggested that she had been murdered. Riggs’s eyes widened as he listened to the broadcaster mention that Thomas Donovan, prime suspect in the Roberta Reynolds murder, apparently had been dating Alicia Crane.
LuAnn could not pull her eyes away from that face. She had seen those features, those eyes staring at her from the front porch of the cottage. Jackson’s eyes bored into her.
His real face.
She had shuddered when she had actually seen it, or realized what she was seeing. She had hoped to never lay eyes on those features again. Now she was staring at them. They were planted on the TV.
When Riggs looked back at her, she raised a shaky finger toward the screen. “That’s Jackson,” she said, her voice breaking. “Dressed up like a woman.”
Riggs looked back at the screen. That couldn’t be Jackson, he thought. He turned back to LuAnn. “How do you know? You said he was always in disguise.”
LuAnn could barely take her eyes away from the face on the screen. “At the cottage, when he and I went through the window. We fought and his face, plastic, rubber, whatever, came off. I saw his real face. That face.” She pointed to the screen.
Riggs’s first thought was the correct one. Family? God, could it be? The connection to Donovan couldn’t be a coincidence, could it? He raced to the phone.
“Sorry I lost your boys, George. Hope that didn’t cost you any brownie points with the top brass.”
“Where the hell are you?” Masters demanded.