The man’s words brought her breath back, straightened her right up. The man’s voice was also thick with an accent—stilted, unnatural. Swedish. Well, damn, it seemed that Olaf Jorgenson himself had come, or sent his friends. She ran again, until she rounded a slight promontory and looked up. She had found her way out. Another narrow trail snaked up the cliff, much like the one she’d taken down. Two miles back up the beach? Three miles? She didn’t make a sound, just shot up that trail, using her hands on rocks and scrubs, anything to keep her steady, knowing they couldn’t see her until they came around the promontory themselves.
They couldn’t kill Simon. They’d left him alone in the car. If there was a third man watching him, well then, they couldn’t contact him. Unless they had a cell phone. Everybody had a cell phone. Oh, God, please, no. It had to be a bluff, it just had to be.
She slipped once, saw pebbles and small rocks gushing out from the cliff and pounding their way back down to the beach. She held still, then started up again. She was up to the top of the cliff in no time and running. The men would realize soon enough where she’d gone.
Hurry, she had to hurry. She hurt, really bad, but she thought of Simon, of his hair curling at his neck, and she knew nothing could happen to him. She wouldn’t let it. Too much loss in her life, she couldn’t bear any more. She came into the back of the cemetery, climbed the wrought-iron fence, and ran down the path toward the visitors’ parking lot.
The horn wasn’t blaring anymore.
Nearly there, she was nearly there. She saw their rental car, but didn’t see Simon. She got to the car. He was stretched out on the front seat, unconscious. Or dead.
She pulled the driver’s side door open. “Simon! Wake up, dammit! Wake up!”
He moaned, struggled to a sitting position. He blinked, finally focusing on her face.
“They’re after us, two men, both with guns. I got away from them but we don’t have much time. Scoot over, we’re getting out of here. I’m going to drive us right to jail and have Lieutenant Dobbs lock us in. It’s the only safe place in the world. No lawyers allowed. Just Lieutenant Dobbs. He can bring our food. We’ll get Dillon and Sherlock out here. They’ll figure this all out, and we can get the hell out of here.”
As she spoke, she managed to shove his feet off the seat and push him toward the passenger door. “It will be all right. You don’t have to do anything, see, I can drive now. Just rest, Simon.”
“No, Lily, no more driving. You’re not going anywhere, not anymore.”
Lily turned slowly at that syrupy voice and stared up at Charlotte Frasier, who was pointing a long-barreled gun at her. “You’ve given us too much trouble. If I hadn’t decided to oversee this myself, you would have escaped yet again. I always believed three times was a charm, and so it is. Get out of the car, Lily. Now.”
Lily wasn’t surprised, not really. Not Elcott, but Charlotte. Then she almost smiled. Charlotte didn’t know she had a gun, too. Would Charlotte take the chance of killing them here, in the cemetery parking lot? She believed all the way to her gut that Charlotte was capable of anything. She was still free, and Mr. Monk had been dead for three days now.
Then she saw the men running toward them. She had to hurry, had to do something. She opened the door, lifting one arm, hiding the other hand slightly behind her.
“Where’s Elcott?” she said, wanting to distract Charlotte, just for an instant. “And that marvelous son of yours? Who loves me so much he’d like nothing more than to bury me? Aren’t they hanging back there, waiting for you to tell them what to do?”
“Don’t you dare speak of my husband and my son like that—”
Lily was clear. She raised the gun and fired.
Washington, D.C.
FBI Headquarters
Ollie Hamish came running into Savich’s office. “We got him! We got Anthony Carpelli, a. k. a. Wilbur Wright. He was right there in Kitty Hawk on the Outer Banks. He was kneeling in front of the monument at Kitty Hawk and we came up on him and he just folded down like a tent and gave it all up.”
For an instant, Savich was so distracted he didn’t know what Ollie was talking about. Then he remembered, the guru from Texas who’d had his followers murder the two deputies and the sheriff, the Sicilian Canadian who’d attended McGill University and had an advanced degree in cellular biology. Savich said slowly, “Sit down, Ollie. You said he was kneeling at the monument? As in worshiping?”
“Maybe so. All the agents were so relieved at how easily it went down, they were celebrating, drinking beers at eleven o’clock in the morning. We got him, Savich. He’ll go back to Texas and fry, probably.”