The Edge

it, Mac. What happened?" "Molinas is dead," I said to Laura. "It wasn't our side who killed him. Del Cabrizo's people arrived before we did and executed him."

    "He was afraid of Del Cabrizo."

    "He was right to be. Unfortunately, we didn't find Molinas's daughter. By the time we and the Costa Rican people got to the compound, it was deserted. The police burned it to the ground to prevent any possibility that it could ever be used again as a halfway point. They're going to patrol the airspace too."

    "Any word yet from Edgerton?"

    "They searched the Tardier house from top to bottom, and they're going through his business records. Nothing yet, no financial records to indicate anything concerning drugs.

    "Paul's gone, everything in his house including his computer, gone as well. Tarcher says he doesn't have any idea what all this is about. They can't hold him, at least not yet. They're still looking for Jilly too. But as of two hours ago, we've got nothing on anybody."

    I helped Laura move herself higher on the pillow. "There, that's better. Now, what about Charlie Duck and the traces of the drug the M.E. found?"

    "Tarcher said he hadn't any idea how Charlie Duck had gotten ahold of Paul's drug. Maybe Paul killed him, Tarcher said." I lightly kissed Laura's hand. Her skin was smooth and soft. Her fingers clasped mine. Her grip was stronger. "As you can imagine, the local sheriff, Maggie Sheffield, isn't a happy camper. She and Atherton are going at each other like two cocks after the same hen."

    Laura laughed.

    "Well, two dogs after the same bone. You get the idea. Since I got this from Atherton, he didn't quite phrase it like that, just complained that this cop in Edgerton was a pain in the butt."

    "What are we going to do, Mac?"

    I kissed her mouth and the tip of her nose. I got her ear-lobe on the third kiss. "We're going to stay right here until you're well enough to travel. Then"-I drew a deep breath-"I've got to go back to Edgerton. I've got to find Jilly."

    "Give me a couple more days, Mac. We'll go together."

    Four days later, all four of us landed in Portland, Oregon. Sherlock and Savich wouldn't let us go alone.

    Savich rented a Toyota Cressida and I rented a Ford Explorer at the airport. They remembered us from last time and gave us a distrustful look, but our original rental cars had been returned to the rental company, the repair bills paid, everything right and tight.

    I laid back behind Savich's car, bright red and in-your-face, on the road to Edgerton. We pulled into Paul's driveway on Liverpool Street a little over an hour later. It was two o'clock in the afternoon, a Thursday, in early May. A thick wet fog hung over the coastline. Since Paul and Jilly's house wasn't even fifty feet from the ocean, the fog was thick, so thick I could barely see Savich's red car right in front of me. I ached all over in the dampness, a lingering present from my injuries in Tunisia, I guessed. I wondered if this bone-deep damp made Laura's shoulder ache and pull.

    There was no one around to see me pop the lock on the front door.

    "It's not really breaking and entering," Savich said, providing me some cover as I broke in. "This is your sister's house, after all."

    The house felt as cold and hollow as ever.

    And empty. If Paul had left any notes or journals or equipment, the cops had taken it. I imagined that he'd taken everything.

    "We might as well look," Laura said beside my elbow. "You never know."

    Sherlock, humming, went off to the back of the house. I stood there quietly in the living room, wondering just where Paul would have hidden something he hadn't taken.

    I turned slowly, taking in the modern art, the glass and furnishings, all cold whites and blacks that filled the long room. I still hated it.

    Thirty minutes later I joined Savich upstairs in Paul's laboratory. Savich was looking through an empty closet, singing a country-and-western song under his breath.

    I smiled as I carefully scanned the long narrow room, looking, I suppose, for anything that might be out of place, or something that wasn't quite in the right place, like a seam in the wall. Anything that felt even slightly unusual to me.

    Nothing.

    Savich was singing about Tommy breaking out of that hot, dark Mexican jail...

    He stuck his head out of the closet. "I even tapped around the walls. Nothing."

    He rose, wiped his hands on his pants, and said, "Well, I say we go over to the Tarcher house and see how glad they are to see