Edge

thatsprouted from the floorboards. I didn’t think we could control the fire—it was going to win—but at least we might contain the flames long enough to get to the books.
    We tried for three or four minutes but finally the heat was too intense, the smoke blinding. I was close to vomiting from the fumes and ash. I grew light-headed and knew that to faint here would mean death. Choking, our eyes streaming, we had to retreat. The living room was now a mass of flame and so was the kitchen. We kicked out a side window and rolled onto the ground. The rest of the agents were nearby and, thinking that the fire could be a diversion, they were covering the trees, the logical position for a sniper to take out those fleeing the house.
    But there were no shots. I wasn’t surprised. Loving, I knew, would be gone.
    “Report!” Freddy shouted. His fellow agents called back about their condition. They were all accounted for. One had a slight burn and another had been cut, breaking through a window to flood the basement with water from a garden hose—a futile effort, of course. There were no serious injuries, however.
    No, the only victim here was Henry Loving’s past.
    I rubbed my stinging eyes, wondering if, as I’d speculated, this had in fact been a trap all along.
    I was alive but this round of our game was a decided loss for me.
    Scissors cut paper . . .
    The roar of the flames was so loud that the fire trucks were almost to the property by the time we heard the sirens.
    Freddy said, “A shoe box with pictures in it. He destroyed everything else. Why’d he save that? What’s inside?”
    A good question and one that I knew I’d ponder into the early hours. Did it contain photos of his sister? Of himself and her? Some place he liked to go? Pictures of a cabin in the woods or a lake somewhere he planned to retire to? I said nothing but stared at the fiery tornado that had been the family house. I walked back to my car to call the safe house in Great Falls and check on my principals.
    I didn’t, however, get very far.
    Two black vans, with flashing red and blue lights on top, skidded to a stop not far away and a small entourage got out, making right for me.
    My eyes closed momentarily as I realized who was leading them: Jason Westerfield and Chris Teasley, his assistant, possibly sans pearls. She wore a zipped-high jacket; I couldn’t see any necklaces.
    I shouldn’t have been surprised to see these two. I now realized that, of course, Westerfield would have learned about the house and that I’d probably be here, because we were on record: We’d gone to a federal magistrate to request a warrant to search Loving’s family’s house. The U.S. attorney had sped directly here to find the man who’d lied to him and sent him an empty armored van.
    I’d hoped that he’d be satisfied with a dressing-down in front of the troops and I could get back to work, but he had a different agenda. He glanced toward Freddy, standing nearby, and announced, in a voice louder than I thought necessary under the circumstances, “Arrest him. Now.”

Chapter 36
    THE FBI AGENT made no move to put me in cuffs and I thought that on one level the U.S. attorney was going more for effect than to see me in chains. But I was hardly sure.
    I looked at the occupants who’d been in the second vehicle. They had FBI jackets on too and could have arrested me themselves but they were deferring to Freddy, who was senior and technically their boss.
    Freddy stepped between us, like a referee. “Jason.” He nodded to the other agents who’d accompanied Westerfield here.
    “I want him arrested. I want somebody else to take over baby-sitting.”
    I wasn’t sure what the actual charge would be. Using an armored van to not deliver something you said you would isn’t a federal crime.
    “He lied to an officer of the federal court. That’s the charge.”
    On reflection I wasn’t even sure I’d done that. I couldn’t remember my exact words. Which wasn’t to say I couldn’t be arrested in the first place, even if the charges were ultimately dismissed. That had happened to me before.
    Westerfield glanced my way. “I want the Kesslersdowntown, near me. I want to interview Ryan personally. That is going to happen immediately.”
    “I can’t do that,” I said.
    “Release them to me or somebody Aaron Ellis recommends. You do that and give me access to interview Kessler, I won’t pursue the charges.”
    “I can’t do that,” I