Edge

and sitting on the seat beside her.
    Hitting a speed dial button, I called Freddy.
    “Hey,” he said.
    “You there?”
    “Nice place. I may retire here.”
    I hadn’t really appreciated the comforts of Carter’s summer home.
    “Anything?”
    “They’re gone.”
    “The chopper?”
    “Had to be.”
    “No,” I said. “I know that’s how they were extracted. I mean do you have any details on it?”
    “Negative. So far. We’re still canvassing. Some wits reported hearing a helicopter low and nearby. They thought it was going down, you know, crashing. A couple nine-one-one calls. Nobody—”
    “Saw anything?”
    “Interesting question, son. They looked but they heard only a ruckus and saw leaves and dust. Landed between two stands of trees thirty feet apart. That takes some skill.”
    “More, it takes some equipment. Expensive . . . Find the car?”
    “Stolen months ago. Somebody else’s tags. We were hoping to get the partner’s prints but didn’t find a single, solitary swirl.”
    “The neighbors?”
    “They’re fine.”
    I told Carter and Amanda about their friends, then turned my attention back to Freddy. I told him, “I’ll get Claire tracking down the chopper.” Our organization is always flying our principals around the country, sometimes internationally, so we had good contacts with the FAA and private charter companies. The fact that the craft seemed small, which meant it had a short range and would have to be based somewhere near here, would give duBois some guidance in finding the lessee.
    Freddy continued, “Somebody’s hurt. We found blood.”
    “Where?”
    “Roadside. The wall and some bushes. A path too.”
    “It’s Loving. I got him. He was on his feet afterward. How much blood?”
    “Not a lot. Found his footprints and the partner’s.”
    “I’ll have Claire look into medical treatment.”
    “Who is this gal of yours, Corte? She Claire-voyant?”
    Jokes again.
    “Listen, Corte . . .”
    “Westerfield,” I said.
    “My voice give that away, son?” Freddy asked.
    “What about him?”
    “For one he keeps calling. He’s calling me. He’s calling everybody. What’d you do?”
    I said, “He wants my principals in a slammer. He’s wrong but I couldn’t reason with him. So I basically . . .” I tried to think of a good euphemism.
    “Put your job on the line by scamming the attorney general of the United States of America. And pissing off half the federal government.”
    I said, “Loving’s got too many contacts in D.C. I couldn’t risk it.”
    “I don’t care. That’s your business, Corte. It’s no skin off my nose.”
    “Call me if you find any forensics. Loving went through Carter’s house too.”
    “Will do.”
    We disconnected. As soon as I did, my boss’s number came up on caller ID. So did Westerfield’s. I rejected both calls and dialed duBois. I explained to her what happened and then told her about the helicopter. “Find it, if there’s any way.”
    “Okay.” She took down the details.
    Then I said, “And Loving’s wounded.”
    The demure young woman said, “You got a piece of him. That’s good.”
    “I want you to try to find where he’ll go for treatment.”
    There’s a legal requirement that medical personnel must report gunshot wounds to law enforcement. Gangs and organized crime have doctors or nurses or even vets on call who treat wounds and conveniently forget to dial 911. We knew some of these medicos and routinely monitored them (we didn’t arrest them since they were invaluable as sources to find and track wounded lifters and hitters).
    Loving, though, would avoid any of these, of course. I told duBois this and said, “He’s going to find somebody private, somebody we don’t know about. Look through all the files we have on him, checking addresses he’s been seen at, phone calls, everything. Public records too.”
    She’d use ORC and other data-mining programs.
    “I’ll see what I can find,” she said. “And, Corte?”
    My name again. “Yes?”
    “Those images you got at Graham’s house? I’m still running the analysis.”
    “Good.”
    She was pausing. “I thought about it and there wasn’t any other way to get the information from him. What you asked me to do. I didn’t like it then, I didn’t like it later. But it was pretty smart. I’ll remember that.”
    “There wasn’t any other way,” I repeated.
    We disconnected and we drove in silence for a half hour. Carter asked to put the