He walked across the parking lot to his car, got in, and drove off. LuAnn watched him go. She took a deep breath, trying to calm her shaken nerves. Jackson was going to kill the man unless she did something. But what could she do? For one thing, she wasn’t going to tell Jackson about her meeting with Donovan. She looked around the parking lot for any sign of him. But what was the use? He could be anyone. Her heart took another jolt. He could’ve tapped her phone lines. If so he would know about Donovan’s phone call, that they had planned to meet. If he knew that, it was highly likely that he had followed her. Then Jackson would already be tracking Donovan. She looked down the road. Donovan’s car was already out of sight. She slammed her fists into the steering wheel.
Although LuAnn didn’t know it, Jackson had not tapped her phone line. However, as she drove off, she also had no inkling that directly beneath her seat a small transmitter had been affixed to the floorboard. Her entire conversation with Donovan had just been heard by someone else.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Riggs turned off the receiving unit and the sounds of LuAnn’s BMW coming through his earphones vanished. He slowly took off the headphones, sat back in his desk chair, and let out a long breath. He had anticipated obtaining some information about LuAnn Tyler and her discussions with the man he now knew to be Thomas Donovan, a newspaper reporter. The name was familiar to Riggs; he had seen the guy’s byline in past years. However, Riggs hadn’t anticipated stumbling across something that had all the earmarks of a major conspiracy.
“Damn.” Riggs stood up and looked out the window of his home office. The trees were stunning, the sky a pale blue that was both dazzling and soothing. To the right a squirrel scampered up a tree, a chestnut secured between its jaws. Farther back, through the thickness of the trees, Riggs could make out a slender procession of deer headed by a six-point buck as they made their way cautiously toward the small spring-fed pond situated on Riggs’s property. So peaceful, so serene, all that he had hoped for. He looked back at the receiving device he had used to listen in on LuAnn and Donovan’s conversation. “LuAnn Tyler,” Riggs said out loud. Not Catherine Savage, not even close, she had said. New identity, new life, far, far away. That was something Riggs could certainly relate to. He eyed the phone, hesitated, then picked it up. The number he was calling had been given to him five years ago, for emergencies, just as, unknown to Riggs, Jackson had provided one to LuAnn ten years ago. Just for emergencies. Well, Riggs decided as he punched in the numbers, he supposed this qualified as such.
An automated voice came on the line. Riggs left a series of numbers and then his name. He spoke slowly in order to let the computer verify the authenticity of his voice patterns. He put down the phone. One minute later it rang. He picked it up.
“That was fast,” Riggs said, sitting back down.
“That number gets our attention. What’s the situation? You in trouble?”
“Not directly. But I’ve come across something I need to check up on.”
“Person, place, or thing?”
“Person.”
“I’m ready, who is it?”
Riggs took a silent breath and hoped to God he was doing the right thing. He would at least hedge his bets until he understood matters a little better. “I need to find out about someone named LuAnn Tyler.”
* * *
LuAnn’s car phone buzzed as she was driving back home.
“Hello?”
The voice on the other end of the line made her breathe easier.
“Don’t tell me where you are, Charlie, we can’t be sure this line is safe.” She checked where she was on the road. “Give me twenty minutes and then call me at the prearranged spot.” She hung up. When they had come to the area, they had identified a pay phone at a McDonald’s that would receive incoming calls. That was their safe phone.
Twenty minutes later she was standing at the pay phone, snatching it up on the first ring.