Riptide

you?"
    "You're a dead man, Carruthers. Soon. Very soon now."
    "Hey, where are you holding Gleason's wake? I wanna come.
    You want me to bring a priest? Or isn't your kind of crazy into religion?"
    The breathing speeded up, rough and harsh. "I'm not crazy, you
    bastard. I'll have Rebecca watch you die. I promise you that. I see
    you got two more folk there with you. I also know they're FBI.
    You think they're going to do anything to help? No one can catch
    me. No one. Hey, Rebbecca, the governor call you yet?"
    Adam gave her a cool nod, a thumbs-up sign. She said, "Yeah, he
    called me. He wants to see me. He told me he loves me, that he
    wants to sleep with me again. He said his wife is such a bitch, she
    doesn't understand him, and he wants to leave her for me. The dear
    man, do you think he's well enough yet for me to tell him where I
    am?"
    Cold, dead silence, then, very gently, they heard the phone line
    disconnect.
    She stared at the phone. The slammer was showing "501-4867,
    Orlando Cartwright, Rural Route 1456, Blaylock" in black letters
    on a bright-green screen.
    Sherlock said, "Everyone stay still for a moment. Savich will
    have all the information in just a moment. He sounded healthy
    enough, didn't he?"
    "Yeah," Adam said.
    "Then it was only a flesh wound, more's the pity," Sherlock said,
    and scratched behind her left ear. Her curling red hair was all over
    her head. She was wearing a sleep shirt that said across the front: I

BRAKE FOR ASTEROIDS. Savich had pulled on a pair of jeans.
    He was bare the rest of the way up. So was Adam.
    "That dog bit," Adam said, "it was an excellent ploy on his part.
    All right, let's head out of here and go get the bastard. You got our
    directions, Savich?"
    "In a second," Savich said.
    Adam took Becca in his arms. "You did great, Becca, really
    great. You rattled him. Now, let's get dressed and go nail that little
    bastard."
    "We're all going," Becca said.
    Savich looked up and grinned. "It's a farmhouse some six miles
    northwest of here, outside a small town called Blaylock. Let me call
    Tommy the Pipe." He got him quickly on his cell phone.
    "Yeah,Tommy, call all the others and head on out there, but don't
    go in. This guy is very dangerous. Just keep him under wraps until we
    get there. I'll find out everything I can on the way there. Yeah, on
    MAX."
    While Savich worked in the backseat of Adam's Jeep, Savich kept
    up a running commentary. "Here we go. The farmhouse belonged
    to Orlando Cartwright, bought the place back in 1954. He's dead
    now. Oh yeah, that's good, MAX. He had one daughter, she was
    with him until he died three weeks ago at Blue Hills Community
    Hospital. Lung cancer, Alzheimer's. Oh, no, she's still there, alone."
    "Shit," Adam said.
    "What's her name?" Becca asked, turning in the seat to look at
    him.
    "Linda Cartwright. Just a minute here, okay, good hunting,
    MAX. She's never been married, age thirty-three, and she's on the
    heavy side, one hundred and sixty-five pounds, but she's really
    pretty, even on her DL photo. She's a legal secretary for the Billson
    Manners law firm in Bangor, been there for eight years. Hold on a

second, let me get into her personnel file. Yes, she's got very good
    evaluations--in 1995 she complained about sexual harassment.
    Hmmm, the guy was eventually fired. Her work record is clean.
    Her mother died back in 1985, a drunk driver killed both her and
    Linda's younger sister. No, MAX, there's no need to go into police
    files, probably a waste of time."
    "She's single and she's alone," Sherlock said. "Not good at all.
    Hurry, Adam."
    "She's alone," Becca said. "She's alone, just like I was."
    At one o'clock in the morning, beneath a nearly full, brilliant
    summer moon, Adam pulled his black Jeep next to a dark-blue
    Ford Taurus parked on the side of a two-lane blacktop road. They
    were some fifty yards from the old farmhouse with its peeling
    white shutters and sagging narrow front porch.
    There was no need for introductions.
    Two men, both in their thirties, fit, one wearing glasses, the
    other smoking a pipe, were leaning against the side of the car.
    Savich said, "The guy in there?"
    "The lights are still on, but we haven't seen any movement at all.
    No one left since we got here. Chuck and Dave are around the
    back." He took out his walkie-talkie. "You guys see anything?"
    The answer was clear and loud. "He hasn't come out this way,
    Tommy. You and Rollo haven't seen anything?"
    "Nothing."
    Dave said, "There's no