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  The hall guys pulled out their badges. “FBI,” said pointy face. “We trump DEA.”

  Sure enough, that was what it said on their ID’s. “Then what are you doing here?” said Wes.

  “We know what you’re doing,” the black linebacker said. “You’re fucking things up.”

  “Hey, I’m not the one who put all these holes in this house,” said Wes. “And any minute some neighbor is going to call the cops.”

  “This is a Joint Terrorism Task Force op,” the black agent said. “The locals have been warned. They won’t come.”

  While Wes was trying to add in that info to this still hard-to-read mess, the guy from the kitchen came into the hall. He looked like a college student, long gangly wrists, shaggy hair, stone-washed jeans. He should have had a backpack instead of a gun.

  “You really are DEA and FBI,” he said after checking everybody’s ID.

  “So who are you?” asked Wes.

  The hall had become ridiculously crowded by then. When college kid tried to get to his badge, he bonked his gawky elbows on the walls. Finally, he unfolded the thing. “US Fish and Wildlife,” he proudly announced.

  “You have got to be kidding.” This was the black guy’s response.

  Wes had to agree. “What could you possibly be doing here?”

  The kid pulled himself up as if he was about to give an oral report. “That is something I am not at liberty to disclose.”

  Chapter 18

  The FBI blamed it all on the trigger-happy FWS kid who refused to say why he’d thought he needed to shoot at someone. At least they were able to fix the damage. They had some of what they needed in their van, the white van Wes had noticed on the street. Everything else arrived in less than half an hour, along with several specialized workmen. They patched the holes in the walls and even matched the paint. They couldn’t dig the bullet out of the couch, but they stitched up the fabric so that only a slight pucker showed where it had gone in. They filled the hole in the basement door, sanded it down, and painted it. They even rubbed dirt into the new glass of the new basement window to make it appear as grungy as the rest of them. Wes was impressed by their skill.

  They used pictures they’d taken of the interior of the house to reconstruct all this, including the pile of junk mail that had slid off the chair. They’d taken those pictures a couple of weeks ago, standard procedure apparently when they installed bugs. Now they replaced their bugs. “Don’t touch these suckers again,” the black agent told Wes. “And whatever you’re doing here, cease and desist.”

  So it turned out very fortunate that Michael’s shrink was in Spokane and not here in Moscow. All that work was completed and everyone had left, and Wes still had about fifteen minutes to think before Michael and Annie got home.

  *

  He was waiting for them on the couch where the bullet was still buried. They came into the house clearly happy. Annie was carrying a bottle of wine, and they both had bags of groceries. Even Michael was smiling, and he told Wes first thing, “Dr. Kortge’s a smart man.”

  But Wes didn’t think it was Annie who had drawn the attention of a Joint Terrorism Task Force. It had to have been Michael with his interest in explosives. He followed them into the kitchen, and as soon as Annie had set down her groceries, he said, “Come upstairs with me.”

  She laughed. “Can’t I at least open the wine first? And some of these things need to go in the refrigerator.”

  “I told him all about Jeremy and Ritchie,” Michael said.

  “I’d like to get the steaks marinating too,” Annie said.

  “He told me I was right that Ritchie shouldn’t have crashed my cars, but that didn’t make it wrong to be his friend.”

  The two of them kept talking over each other like that, while pulling things out of the grocery bags and shimmying back and forth to the refrigerator. Wes watched Michael closely and still couldn’t see a bomber in him, but there was no way he could join in the festive mood.

  “I got the steaks for Michael,” Annie said. “But I bet you like them too.”

  “Dr. Kortge said lots of kids cheat at Monopoly,” Michael said.

  Wes half wished he could throw Michael up against the wall and make the guy tell him what he was up to. But if Michael was really sick . . .

  And the mic was back under the kitchen table. The FBI were listening.

  “Annie, let’s go upstairs,” he said, trying to make this sound casual when it wasn’t at all.

  She only laughed again. “You can’t wait another fifteen minutes?”

  Meanwhile, Michael kept babbling. “Dr. Kortge said it was probably normal for a small boy to get upset about being the iron, but now I realize ironing isn’t so bad.”

  Annie handed Wes a glass of wine. He downed it in one gulp.

  “When you’re a little kid, everything feels like such a big deal,” Michael said. “Does anybody even iron clothes anymore?”

  Wes poured himself another glass of wine.

  Eventually, Annie finished putting things away. She had the steaks marinating. She took him by the hand and said to Michael, “We’ll be back.”

  “Sure. I need to see how Lisa’s doing,” Michael said.

  Lisa, of course, was a terrified wreck. “She’s hiding under your bed,” said Wes.

  Then Annie was leading him to the stairs that he’d so recently sneaked down. She closed the screechy door behind them and stopped there at the foot of the stairs, wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into a kiss.

  Which seemed just another distraction right now. He found his body not unwilling to be distracted that way, but his mind said, no, later, maybe. Even though later might be a long time from now.

  She was going to be upset by what he had to say.

  He backed out of the kiss. “Come on upstairs,” he said.

  She gave him a quizzical look. No big happy smile anymore. But he couldn’t explain until they were upstairs. Because there still wasn’t a microphone in her bedroom. He should have realized that meant the bugs had never been for her.

  Once they were up in her room, with her looking a little miffed by the way he’d resisted her kiss, he said, “I think Michael really might be building a bomb.”

  “What! No.” She shook her head. “He talked it all out with Dr. Kortge. Dr. Kortge said he’s doing fine.”

  “Dr. Kortge must be missing something. He’s not doing fine.”

  “You said yourself he wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

  “That’s what I thought before. But now . . . I’ve had more time to think.” He couldn’t tell her about the FBI because how could he explain the FBI telling him as much as they had without revealing more about himself? Still, he had to convince her. “Please sit down. We need to talk.”

  “No, not now. I’m feeling good. I was worried about Michael, and now I’m not. I feel like celebrating! I thought that was what you wanted to do too,” and she gave him one of her cute sexy smiles. But he just couldn’t return that kind of smile right now, so hers faded. “Instead you want to get weird and talk about bombs because you’ve ‘had more time to think’? You know, you weren’t there in Dr. Kortge’s office. And I was with Michael all the way to Spokane and back. I’ve had plenty of time to think.”

  She turned around and was gone. “Come on downstairs,” she called back to him. “I’m going to put some music on.”

  He sank onto the bed.

  The FBI were apparently going to let Michael keep doing whatever he was doing. Until when? They had to be waiting to get the people he was working with, his “new friends.” But eventually he would be arrested. Or worse. If he made the wrong move, he could be shot!

  Wes just couldn’t let that happen to Michael. He couldn’t let it happen to Annie! And she could stop Michael. She could have him committed. Or Dr. Kortge, once he realized how badly he’d botched his diagnosis, could change his medication, or something.

  From the living room came the raw sound of Ghostwriter, not the kind of music
that made it easy for him to think this through.

  At least Annie soon came back upstairs. “You’re going to mope up here all afternoon? Or have you changed your mind about a little private celebration?” She did her sexy smile again, but not really. Clearly, she was puzzled by him.

  Wes was puzzled too. How could he convince her Michael was in danger without telling her about the FBI?

  “Just think about all those websites,” he said. “Why would he be reading about making bombs if he wasn’t making one?”

  “Hey, he believes the twin towers didn’t go down because of the planes. He thinks someone had to have set explosives to make them collapse the way they did. Maybe that’s why he was reading about them.”

  It was almost a reasonable explanation.

  “Or there could’ve been some links from one of the other goofy things he reads. Maybe the Operation for Reduced Expectations has made C-4 blocks smaller than they used to be.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Either come back downstairs or make mad love to me.”

  She stood there a moment with her arms crossed, her eyebrows pulled together uncertainly, while he wondered—could he tell her about the FBI without admitting he was DEA? But if he weren’t DEA, the FBI would have kept their cover and not admitted who they were.

  Annie turned to leave again.

  He ran to get in front of her, closed the door and stood holding it closed. “This is serious. You’ve got to listen to me.”

  She cocked her head. “Now you’re getting really weird.”

  “I know Michael is planning a bomb because . . . the FBI thinks he is.”

  “Huh? I never thought schizophrenia was contagious until now.”

  And why should she believe anything he said when he’d told her so many lies?

  “The FBI told me because . . . I’m DEA.”

  He hadn’t exactly planned this out, but at least he had her full attention now.

  “It’s true. I’m sorry. I’m telling you because I don’t want to lie to you anymore.”

  Her eyes went wide. She backed away. She looked at him as if he were growing fangs. “Were you the guy in the Cayenne? Or was that some buddy of yours?”

  “Hey, I told you I was sorry. I didn’t know you then.”

  “You almost had me believing I’d get to open for Drive-By Truckers.”

  “Really? I didn’t think you bought that at all.”

  “I didn’t. But maybe I did. I bought all your shit.”

  “I do think your music is great.” He said this with total sincerity.

  But she was still looking at him as if blood were dripping from his mouth. “‘Ooooo, I want to know all about you. I’m fascinated, enthralled.’”

  “But I am!”

  “You took me on a picnic in a bunch of cow pies!”

  “Hey, the cow pies weren’t all my fault. And that’s not the point. Your uncle—”

  “But now I know why you took me there, why you didn’t take me out the St. Joe the way anybody who really wanted to take me on a picnic would.”

  He’d expected this to be rocky, but he hadn’t expected her to drag all this up. “I really wanted to take you on a picnic. It’s just that I . . .” Needed to grill you first. “Your friends with the lab, they’re going down no matter what I do. Did they really think they’d never get caught? But I was planning to protect you.”

  Although no telling how, especially since now he was sure to be canned.

  “Except you don’t know where the lab is,” she said. “That’s the point of everything you’ve been doing with me.”

  Well, not everything. “That’s not what’s important right now! Your uncle is what’s important right now!”

  “‘Hey, I wonder where this trail goes.’ You took me up that hill in flip-flops!”

  “I didn’t make you go all the way to the top. I felt bad about your feet. And we’re getting way off track!”

  “You bastard. Get out.”

  She still refused to listen to him. Couldn’t she see he wouldn’t be blowing his cover like this if he didn’t care about her?

  “But I think I love you,” he said.

  She cocked an eyebrow. Not the best response to his first declaration of love.

  At least she’d quit yelling at him for a minute, so he stumbled on. “Did you hear that? I actually used the L word. I’ve never said that to a woman before. So I can’t be sure, how can I know for sure, but honest, I don’t throw that word around. I know I care. I cared about your feet. I cared about your sandwich!”

  The eyebrow went back down. Her green eyes went dark.

  “Okay, that’s a sidetrack too. Because while you and Michael were gone today—”

  She charged. She grabbed a guitar on her way. He was still so busy trying to come up with something that might get through to her, he barely dodged in time or he would have been brained by the thing. Then when he dodged, she got the door.

  He tripped over the broken neck of the guitar and got his feet caught in the strings. Next he was plunging down the stairs after her, dragging the guitar with him. By the time he’d rolled to his feet and disentangled himself from the broken guitar, he found she was backing out of the garage—in Michael’s VW.

  *

  Annie had to assume both her bike and her car had tracking devices on them. Because she’d fallen for a DEA agent!

  She beat on the steering wheel so furious she couldn’t think.

  But she had to think. Within a few blocks Wes was right behind her in his super-fast car. Michael’s car was no match.

  At least the thing had started. No telling why Michael wouldn’t drive it.

  Michael was crazy.

  But he wasn’t a bomber!

  She swung into the strip mall parking lot.

  She needed to slow Wes down. All these cars and people did that. She got a woman with her cart and two toddlers between her and Wes. With the toddlers circling the woman and her cart kind of like puppies, Wes couldn’t get around them. She saw him try to back up, but someone was right behind him looking for a parking space.

  She turned out of that row feeling free.

  Then some idiot who didn’t check his rearview practically backed into her. She had to stop. Wes was on her tail again.

  She swerved into the next row. He was leaning out his window yelling at her. He wouldn’t shoot out her tires here, would he?

  Cops did shoot innocent bystanders. You read about that all the time.

  But he didn’t want to stop her. He wanted to follow her. He wanted her to lead him to Russ and Char’s.

  And that was exactly where she wanted to go. Because now she needed to tell them she’d been living with a DEA agent!

  Shit shit shit!

  She managed to get an old guy who was using his shopping cart as a walker between her and Wes. She’d practically had to mow the old guy down to do this, to get around him. But now Wes was blocked again. She took off, almost side-swiping the cart of a woman who apparently thought she might as well step right out in front of a speeding car since she was in a crosswalk. The woman shook her fist.

  Annie almost took out another cart that another idiot had left sticking out beyond where carts and cars were supposed to be. She careened around the corner of the supermarket to the delivery bays. She took the exit back there, the one most people didn’t even know about.

  She was back in the neighborhood.

  She knew the driveway she wanted, and it was only a block away. Wes still hadn’t appeared in her rearview when she reached it. Most cars would never fit in that driveway because the vine maples had grown across it and hung so low the driveway was almost completely blocked. She knew for a fact the man who lived there parked his car on the street.

  But Michael’s little VW slipped under the branches just fine. The driveway went to an equally undersized garage with a small gap between the house and the old, no-longer-used garage. She pulled through that gap into the backyard.

  She felt bad about this,
but she would be gone before the man who lived here got home from work. She would call and apologize if she made tracks in his lawn.

  She waited there. She waited an hour or more, beating on the steering wheel a lot. Or just resting her head on the steering wheel. Letting herself cry, big discouraged, pissed-at-him, pissed-at-herself tears.

  She’d given up on men. Why hadn’t she stuck with that plan?

  Because she was weak and needy?

  No, she was tough! She could take care of herself. She didn’t need anyone!

  Except it had felt so good, when she used to lie in his arms.

  But he’d been just using her!

  She wasn’t sure if the tears would ever dry up enough that she could see to drive again, and by the time they finally did, leaving her limp and drained, she’d been off the streets plenty long enough to have lost him. She backed off of the grass, then checked and found the little bug hadn’t hurt it at all. She backed the rest of the way out, careful not to scratch the classic car’s paint on the trees that really did need pruning.

  She headed for Russ and Char’s.

  Chapter 19

  Mosley accelerated around the curves loving the g-force.

  His partner held onto the grab bar. “This is why I never let you drive.”

  “Am I scaring you, Clarence?” Mosley asked.

  “The name’s Cooper.”

  “Your mama named you Clarence.”

  “Don’t diss my mama, boy.”

  “Don’t do your homey jive on me.” Mosley was having too good a time not to enjoy ribbing Cooper. Just because the guy outranked him and used to be some mean linebacker, Mosley wasn’t about to slow down. The job was finally getting interesting. Before today all he’d done since finishing his FBI training in Quantico was sit around in the van, sit around in the motel room, or sit around at some meeting discussing where he should sit around next. Then today, a shootout! “Did you see how I almost got that Fish and Wildlife wimp?”

  “We’ve got enough paperwork to do for that clusterfuck,” Cooper said. “That would’ve made it total fubar.”