Edge

with you?”
    I shook my head. “He didn’t make it.”
    “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Did he have a family?”
    “I don’t know.”
    Amanda wiped tears.
    I wished she hadn’t attacked the minder but she wouldn’t have known Pogue and I were there. I couldn’t help but admire her courage. I told her, “That was good, the way you handled yourself in there. The pepper spray.”
    The girl’s face, ruddy with subtle dots of acne, gave a wan smile. “Dad taught me to look out for myself. Before I left with Uncle Bill I kind of borrowed some Mace from Dad’s dresser to take with me. I kept it hidden in my bear bag.”
    “Smart. You’re sure you’re just sixteen?”
    “That’s why I had it,” she said matter-of-factly. “They didn’t bother to search me. They were stupid.”
    “They were.”
    “Like, Agent Corte, I kind of messed up your car. I hit some tires. Like, I’m really, really sorry.”
    “We’ve got insurance.”
    She gave a weak smile.
    I gritted my teeth from the toe pain and sat forward, taking a pad and pen from my pocket. “I need to ask you some questions.”
    “Sure.”
    “You know, we thought at first they wanted to kidnap you to get your father to tell them something about one of his cases.”
    “But it was me they wanted.”
    “Right. The people here were just hired—and we need to find out by who.”
    “So you can throw their ass in jail.”
    “Exactly. Now, did those men mention anything after they kidnapped you? Anything that might giveus an idea of who hired them or why they wanted you.”
    She thought for a moment. “Like, after they got me in the truck and we were driving here, they were talking some. But it was like they didn’t know anything about me. Or say anything about anybody else.”
    I asked her to tell me essentially everything she’d done for the past month. Amanda understood that her father had been shot and she nearly killed because of some occurrence or someone she’d come in contact with recently, and she took her assignment seriously, launching into a lengthy recitation of her activities. The girl led an astonishingly busy life. And had a very good memory. I took voluminous notes as she described time with friends and their parents, her high school classes, sporting events, concerts, trips to shopping malls, her involvement on the yearbook, a French Club outing to the embassy in D.C., a cooking class, a picture-taking expedition with her aunt in Rock Creek Park, reporting for her blog about AIDS awareness and the fellow student who’d killed herself despite seeking help in the school’s self-harm clinic, her Facebook activities and friends (a lot of notes there), her college-level computer course in which her “weird and totally brilliant” Chinese professor let the students try out software programs and evaluate them. A dozen other entries.
    Finally, I sat back, letting my mind consider possible reasons the girl had been targeted.
    I noted an armored SUV arrive, driven by Geoff, the clone from our organization. I rolled down the window and waved. He pulled up.
    I said to Amanda, “I think I have all I need. I’m going to have my associate here take you to your stepmother and aunt.”
    “Yeah, I kinda want to see them.”
    “I’m sure you do.”
    She surprised me by giving me a hug and we climbed out. She got into the SUV and, with a nod from me, Geoff eased the big vehicle away from the site.
    I sat down on a log and read through my notes of my interview with Amanda a few minutes before. Closed my eyes. Partly from the sting, partly to help me concentrate. Then I sent Claire duBois an email asking her to do what she did best. The reply—seconds later—assured me that she’d get to the requests immediately.
    I rose and walked stiffly to a fire truck, where I got a bottle of water from a cooler and drank most of it down.
    Just as I’d finished, I heard a voice behind me gruffly ask, “You got another one of those?”
    I turned and found myself staring at Jonny Pogue, who was examining the cloth and skin on his left forearm, more troubled, it seemed, by his scorched green jacket than the seared flesh.

Chapter 68
    “ POGUE . . . WHAT HAPPENED ?” I was as delighted to see him as I was surprised he’d survived.
    He said nothing and when I continued to look him over he repeated his request: “Water?”
    “Sure. Sorry.” I handed him a bottle. He drank about half and upended the rest over his head. He rubbed his eyes and