and purse and raced out the back door seconds before one of Sawyer’s men
appeared to guard that area. Slipping through the woods at the edge of
the backyard, she came out onto the road on the next block. After five
minutes of brisk walking she had reached a pay phone. The cab picked
her up within ten minutes.
Thirty minutes later she slipped her key in the security slot of her
office building and the heavy glass door clicked open. She raced to the
elevator bank. A minute later Sidney stepped out onto her floor.
Inside the semidarkened space of Tyler, Stone, Sidney made her way
quietly down the hallway. The library was at the end of the main hall
on her floor. The double doors of frosted glass were open. Beyond this
portal Sidney could plainly see shelf after shelf of books making up the
firm’s impressive law library. The area comprised a huge open space
with a series of cubicles and adjacent enclosed work areas. Behind one
partition stood a row of computer terminals, which attorneys and
paraleagles used for computerized legal research.
Sidney looked around the darkened interior of the library before
venturing in. She heard no sound, saw no movement. Thankfully no
junior associate was pulling an allnighter. Walls of windows on two
adjacent sides of the library overlooked the city streets; however, the
blinds were pulled all the way down. No one could see in.
Sidney sat down in front of one of the darkened terminals and risked
turning on a small lamp that sat on the computer table next to the
terminal. She took the disk out of her purse and laid it on the table.
In a minute the computer was warmed up. She clicked on the necessary
commands to start America Online and jerked slightly as the screechy
modern kicked in. After the connection was made, she typed in her
husband’s user name and password, silently thanking him for making her
memorize them when they had signed on a couple of years ago. She stared
anxiously at the screen, her breathing shallow, her features taut and
her stomach queasy as though she were a defendant awaiting a verdict
from a jury. The computerized voice made her jump slightly, but it was
what she was hoping for. “You have mail,” it said.
Down the hallway two pairs of legs quietly made their way toward the
library.
Sawyer looked up at Jackson. They were in the FBI conference room. “So
what’d you find out on Mr. Page, Ray?”
Jackson sat down and opened his notebook. “Had a nice chat with NYPD.
Page used to be a Cop up there. I also spoke with Page’s ex-wife.
Got her out of bed, but you said it was important. She still lives in
New York. She hasn’t had much to do with him since their divorce.
However, he was very close to his kids. I talked with his daughter.
She’s eighteen, in her freshman year at college, by the way, and now she
has to bury her father.”
“What she have to say?” Sawyer asked.
“A lot. Like her father was nervous the last couple weeks. Didn’t want
them to visit him. He had started to regularly carry a gun.
Hadn’t done that in years. In fact he had taken a gun with him to New
Orleans, Lee. It was found in a bag next to his body. Poor bastard
never had a chance to use it.”
“Why the move from New York down here, especially if his family stayed
up there?”
Jackson nodded his head. “That’s interesting. The wife wouldn’t say
one way or another. Just said the marriage was kaput and that was it.
Page’s daughter was of a different mind, though.”
“She give you a reason?”
“Ed Page’s younger brother also lived in New York. He committed suicide
about five years ago. He was a diabetic. Gave himself a serious
insulin overdose after a drinking hinge. Page was close to his kid
brother. His daughter said her dad was never the same after that.”
“So he just wanted to get away from the area?”
Jackson shook his head. “I gather from talking to his daughter that Ed