Edge

assistance, not yet; again, I didn’t want to call attention to us.
    I’d just keep an eye on our beige shadow.
    The Kesslers were calmer now, not much, but some. In the front passenger seat Ryan was playing lookout and Maree’s pendulum had swung eerily from hysterical back to cute and coy. She kept calling me “Tour Guide,” which I found more irritating than her panicked screaming a half hour before. Joanne had gone into withdrawal again and was staring blankly out the side window. I wondered if she’d always been this timid or if the incident at the deli six years ago—facing her own death and seeing Ryan and the owners shot—had affected her fundamentally. The degree of Joanne’s emotional state might have been extreme but the frame of mind itself wasn’t. The response of principals when a lifter or hitter is after them often follows the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Joanne’s detachment was a form of denial.
    Once we’d sped out of the Kesslers’ neighborhood, via an evasive route, Joanne had said only two things. First, she’d made the accurate observation that at least her stepdaughter and Bill Carter were safe, since it was obvious where Loving and any partners had been hiding. Then she offered the speculation that it made sense that Teddy Knox’s wife was all right too. If Loving had killed her, that would lessen the leverage—the edge—he’d have over Teddy to discourage him not to testify against him. That was a possibility, yes. It was also possible, however, that Loving didn’t care what Teddy knew and could testify to and he’d just killed the wife for convenience. That was my opinion but I said nothing.
    Ryan asked me to call Freddy and find out if the wife was all right, but it was possible that he,Garcia and the other agents—if they were alive and functioning—had engaged Loving or were in pursuit and I didn’t want to distract them. Freddy would call when he had something to say. I told Ryan this and he nodded, though he seemed irritated I wouldn’t make the call. He returned to his impromptu surveillance.
    I made a sudden turn into a Burger King parking lot and paused.
    Startling me, Maree said quickly, “Hey, can I escape for a minute? There’s a pay phone.”
    “No. Stay in the vehicle.”
    “Please?” Sounding like a teenager begging for a trip to the mall.
    “No,” I repeated.
    “But it wouldn’t be traced or anything. Really, I know all about it.”
    “About what?” her sister asked.
    “Surveillance. I saw this episode on NCIS ? Spies use pay phones to be safe. Off the grid. That’s what they say.”
    “Sorry, no calls,” I said.
    “Oh, you’re no fun. I demand a lawyer!” She fell into a juvenile pout. It irritated me all the more and I ignored her.
    I waited for the beige car to pass us. Which it didn’t do. After ten minutes, I returned to the road and sped up, trying to catch the lights, incurring a horn or two. An extended middle finger, as well. But we saw no beige cars.
    My hands-free announced Freddy was calling.
    At last . . .
    I asked, “Your guys in the car out front, they’re okay?”
    “Yep. Battered. Should’ve had their belts on. They learned their lesson.”
    “And how about the shooting at the school?” I’d believed it was fake but I wasn’t sure. I would have been troubled by casualties, certainly; I was, however, more interested to learn if false alarms were a technique Henry Loving was adding to his repertoire. Something else to file away about him.
    “You were right, son. Three-dollar bill. Nothing at all. But it kept sixty troopers and agents busy for close to an hour.”
    “Okay, Loving?”
    “Got clean away. No leads. No vehicle.”
    “Anybody see anything beige that was there and then wasn’t? Sedan.”
    “Beige? No, and we canvassed. But one of my guys across the street got a look at his partner. In the side yard, the trees, where Garcia was covering. Tall, thin, sandy hair, wearing a dark green windbreaker or army jacket.”
    “Weapon?”
    “Black autoloader. Couldn’t tell what kind. He was running out of the woods fast, after you left.”
    We were past densely populated areas and were surrounded by fields and houses and some commercial lots with businesses limping along or abandoned to banks. I now eased up the speed of the big SUV steadily.
    “Did Teddy Knox ID Loving?”
    “Yep.”
    Abe Fallow had refused to use that trite line about making an ass of you and