The Winner by David Baldacci

“What are you doing?” Riggs asked.

“I need to see my daughter. I need to know that she’s safe.”

“Wait a minute, what are you going to tell them?”

“That we can meet up somewhere. I want her near me. Nothing’s going to happen to her without it happening to me first.”

“LuAnn, look—”

“This subject isn’t open for discussion.” Her tone was ferocious.

“All right, all right, I hear you. But where are we going to meet them?”

LuAnn passed a hand over her forehead. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”

Riggs said, “Where are they now?”

“The last I heard, they were heading back into southern Virginia.”

He rubbed his chin. “What’s Charlie driving?”

“The Range Rover.”

“Terrific. It’ll hold all of us. We’ll meet them wherever they are right now. We’ll leave the rental and head out. Go somewhere and wait for the FBI to do its thing. So call them and I’ll run up to that all-night burger place we saw on the way in and get us some food.”

“Good enough.”

When Riggs got back with two bags of food, LuAnn was no longer on the phone.

“You reach them?”

“They’re at a motel on the outskirts of Danville, Virginia. But I need to call them back and let them know when we’re going to be there.” She looked around. “Where the hell are we?”

“We’re in Edgewood, Maryland, north of Baltimore. Danville is a little over a hundred miles south of Charlottesville, which means we’re about five or six hours from Danville.”

“Okay, if we start right now—”

“LuAnn, it’s after midnight. They’re probably in bed, right?”

“So?”

“So, we can catch some sleep, which we both really need, get up early, and meet them tomorrow around noon.”

“I don’t want to wait. I want Lisa safe with me.”

“LuAnn, driving when you’re exhausted isn’t real safe. Even if we start right now, we won’t make it until five or six in the morning. Nothing’s going to happen between now and then. Come on, I think we’ve had enough excitement for one day. And if Lisa knows you’re coming tonight, she won’t get a wink of sleep.”

“I don’t care. I’d rather she’d be sleepy and safe.”

Riggs shook his head slowly. “LuAnn, there’s another reason we might not want to hook up with them right now, and it has to do with keeping Lisa safe.”

“What are you talking about?”

Riggs put his hands in his pockets and leaned up against the wall. “Jackson is somewhere out there, that we know. Now, the last time we saw him he was running off into the woods. He could have easily come back and followed us.”

“But what about Donovan and Bobbie Jo Reynolds and Alicia Crane? He killed them.”

“We believe he killed them, or had someone kill them. Or he could’ve killed all of them personally and hired someone to follow us. That man has a deep pocketbook; there isn’t much he can’t buy.”

LuAnn reflected briefly on Anthony Romanello. Jackson had hired him to kill her. “So Jackson could know about your meeting with the FBI? He could know where we are right now?”

“And if we go running off to see Lisa, then we lead him right to her as well.”

LuAnn slumped down on the bed. “We can’t do that, Matthew,” she said wearily.

He rubbed her shoulders. “I know.”

“But I want to see my little girl. Can’t I do that?”

Riggs thought for a few minutes and then sat on the bed beside her and held her hands with his. “Okay, we’ll stay here for the night. It would be a lot easier for someone to follow us at night and remain unseen. Tomorrow, we’ll get an early start and head down to Danville. I’ll keep an eagle eye out for anyone remotely suspicious. As an undercover agent, I got pretty good at that. We’ll take secondary roads, make frequent stops, and occasionally take the interstate. It’ll be impossible for anyone to tail us. We’ll meet Charlie and Lisa at the motel and then we’ll have Charlie take her directly to the local FBI office in Charlottesville. We’ll follow in our car but we won’t go in. I don’t want them getting hold of you just yet. But since we struck a deal with the Feds, we might as well avail ourselves of some of their protection resources. How’s that sound?”

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