Cold Vengeance - Lincoln Child [137]
The man smiled. He thumbed off the safety and took careful aim.
“Auf Wiedersehen,” he said.
CHAPTER 81
SPECIAL AGENT PENDERGAST SAT ON A LEATHER COUCH in the reception room of his Dakota apartment. The cut on his cheek had been cleaned and was now just a faint red line. Constance Greene, dressed in a white cashmere sweater and a pleated, knee-length skirt the color of coral, sat beside him. A soft light filled the room from behind scallop-shaped agate fixtures arrayed just below the ceiling molding. The room was windowless. Three of the walls were painted a deep rose. The fourth was entirely of black marble, over which fell a thin sheet of water, gurgling quietly into the pool at the base, in which floated clusters of lotus blossoms.
An iron pot of tea sat on a table of Brazilian purpleheart, along with two small cups filled with green liquid. The two conversed in low tones, barely audible above the hush of the waterfall fountain.
“I still don’t understand why you let him go last night,” Constance was saying. “Surely you don’t trust him.”
“I don’t trust him,” Pendergast replied. “But in this matter, I believe him. He was telling me the truth about Helen, there in the Foulmire—and he’s telling the truth now. Besides—” he went on in an even lower tone—“he knows that, if he doesn’t keep his promise, I’ll track him down. No matter what.”
“And if you don’t,” Constance said, “I will.”
Pendergast glanced at his ward. A cold hatred flickered briefly in her eyes—a flicker he had seen once before. This, he realized immediately, was going to be a serious problem.
“It’s half past five,” she said, glancing at her watch. “In half an hour…” She paused. “How do you feel, Aloysius?”
Pendergast did not answer immediately. At last he shifted on the couch. “I must confess to a most disagreeable sensation of anxiety.”
Constance looked at him, her face full of concern. “After twelve years… if it’s true that your… your wife cheated death, why has she never contacted you? Why this—forgive me, Aloysius—but why this monstrous, overarching deception?”
“I don’t know. I can only assume it has to do with this Covenant that Judson mentioned.”
“And if she is still alive… Would you still be in love with her?” Her face flushed slightly and she looked down.
“I don’t know that, either,” Pendergast replied in a tone so low even Constance barely heard it.
A phone on the table rang and Pendergast reached for it. “Yes?” He listened a moment, replaced the phone in its cradle. He turned to her. “Lieutenant D’Agosta is on his way up.” He paused a moment, then continued: “Constance, I must ask you: if at any time you have reservations, or can’t bear being incarcerated any longer, let me know and I will fetch the child and clear all this up. We don’t have to… follow the plan.”
She silenced him with a gentle gesture, her face softening. “We do have to follow the plan. And anyway, I’m happy going back to Mount Mercy. In a queer way I find it comforting to be there. I don’t care for the uncertainty and busyness of the outside world. But I will say one thing. I realize now that I was wrong—wrong to look at the child as your brother’s son. I should have thought of the boy, from the very start, as the nephew of my… my dearest guardian.” And she pressed his hand.
The doorbell rang. Pendergast rose and opened the door. D’Agosta stood in the entranceway, his face drawn.
“Thank you for coming, Vincent. Is everything prepared?”
D’Agosta nodded. “The car’s waiting downstairs. I told Dr. Ostrom that Constance was on her way back. The poor bastard just about collapsed with relief.”
Pendergast removed a vicuña overcoat from a closet, slipped it on, and helped Constance into her own coat. “Vincent, please make sure that Dr. Ostrom fully understands Constance is returning voluntarily—and that her departure from the hospital was a kidnapping, not an escape, entirely the fault of this phony Dr. Poole. Whom we are still looking for but are unlikely to find.”
D’Agosta nodded. “I’ll take care of it.”
They left the apartment and entered