Edge

Sometimes all you need is to mention a name or two. You don’t need implements of torture.”
    “That’ll do it.” Aware my toe was still in agony.
    “I don’t know about bringing charges against her. I don’t like the idea but I may have to.”
    “And Zagaev? His family?”
    “You were right. Loving paid them a visit, too—to get him to pretend he was the primary. But they’re fine.” A shrug. “The guy didn’t do anything wrong, either, except lie to us and cart around some guns he shouldn’t’ve. So . . . I don’t know, we’ll have to see about charges for him too.” Freddy laughed. “He apologized for saying bad things to you about the pumpkin. He didn’t want to. He said you seemed like a nice man.”
    Freddy headed off to consult with his teams and the state police.
    I found myself looking over at Henry Loving’s body. All his personal effects had been gathered and were sitting on a tarp next to him. I walked over and looked down at them. A wallet, a small wad of cash. A knife. The sandpaper and alcohol. An empty pistol magazine. Maps and pens, scraps of paper. Six cell phones. All encrypted and missing call logs. I knew the models and the software; it would take Hermes weeks to get information from them—if at all.
    And I noted too the shoe box, the one he’d taken from his family house just before he’d burned it to the ground.
    My heart thudded with anticipation as I walked over to one of the Bureau’s Evidence Response Team agents and asked for a pair of latex gloves. I pulled them on and returned to the cache. I stood for a moment, then crouched over the box. Did it indeed contain more pictures? Or was it somethingelse, something his sister had given him? His father or mother?
    I peeled off several strips of yellowed tape and began to lift the lid.
    Then I stopped.
    Painfully I rose to my feet and left the box with the rest of the effects. Taking the gloves off and returning to my car, I reflected that whatever might be inside, it was nothing that I truly needed to know.

Chapter 67
    I SAW MY Honda—the one Amanda had escaped in—approach. I waved to the driver, an FBI agent I knew. I couldn’t see through the tinted glass but I knew the girl was in the backseat.
    I hadn’t, in fact, given her any directions about where to drive. There was no address in the vehicle. I figured that even if she didn’t find anything she’d still drive as fast as she could to the nearest 7-Eleven or gas station to call 911. Giving her those instructions was the only way I could think of to keep myself alive long enough for Freddy to arrive with the troops and take Loving into custody. I’d made him believe that only I knew where she was going. I’d turned myself into the principal.
    As it turned out, she hadn’t gotten very far at all. At a gas station a few miles north on Route 15 she’d pulled in a little fast and taken out a rack of tires. The local police had been apprised of the situation and they got in touch with Freddy, who sent a car to protect her.
    I didn’t want Amanda to see the bodies. I also knew the primary was unaccounted for so I wanted to keep her out of sight. I climbed into the backseat with her and shut the door.
    Breathlessly she said, “You’re all right! I heardyou were but I didn’t know. What’s wrong with your foot?”
    “Stubbed my toe. Your dad’s going to be okay.”
    “I know. I heard.” The girl grew silent, looking at the compound. “That’s the man we were fighting with, Loving?” A glance at the tarp covering the body.
    “Yes.”
    “I’m glad he’s dead.” She said this firmly. She meant it.
    Got some grit . . .
    “Can I go see my dad?”
    “Not quite yet. Somebody from my office’s going to take you to a place to stay with your stepmother and aunt.”
    The Great Falls safe house was compromised, so I’d arranged for Ahmad to take Joanne and Maree to another one. The house was in Loudoun County, not too far away from here, also on an old estate. Though it wasn’t as nice as the Great Falls one.
    “Uncle Bill’s all right too.”
    “He had a little problem with his foot too. But he’ll be fine.”
    Her face was still. “I was really worried when they were shooting at him, by the roadside.”
    “You saved his life.”
    She didn’t say anything but was looking at the compound. “All those guns . . . they’re so loud. They don’t sound like that in the movies. Or like the ones we shot at camp. That other man who was