The Perfect Husband - Lisa Gardner [98]
“The best.”
“Number one. Here. Supreme. It could be many things. The point is, the phrase is unfinished. And we still haven’t found Difford’s body. My guess is that he’ll drop it somewhere else for another letter. Perhaps he’s done the same with Wilcox’s body—we won’t know until we find it. But Beckett is still engaged in his little game, and he finishes what he starts. Maybe he’ll complete it out of the country. Maybe he’ll take a year off and then do it. But he’ll kill again. Until we find him, he’ll pursue Tess Williams and he’ll pursue others.”
The silence stretched out long. Houlihan’s jaw was so tight, Quincy could hear the lieutenant’s teeth grind with frustration. Quincy didn’t say anything. Any comment now would merely light the lieutenant’s fuse. He sat back and waited it out.
“I offered her police protection,” Houlihan said abruptly, his voice tight. “She turned me down. She won’t come in.”
“Tess Williams?”
“Yeah. Difford left her contact number in a safety deposit box. That way if anything happened to him, we could notify her. Difford liked to think of all the angles, plan for all contingencies.”
“Beckett probably knows where she is,” Quincy said quietly. “He must have gotten the safe house information from Wilcox. He’ll have used the same tactics on Difford.”
“Yeah. What a way to go.” Houlihan swallowed thickly, then made a big production of squaring his shoulders. “I gave it to her straight. I offered her what I could. She told me the police had done quite enough already—”
Quincy winced.
“She would handle things her own way.”
“Oh, God.”
“She’s been training with a mercenary.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. She’s gone vigilante.” Houlihan tried to force a laugh. “Can you blame her?”
Quincy shook his head tiredly. “Let’s just hope she doesn’t do anything stupid.”
“THIS IS STUPID.”
“You don’t have to be here.”
“Tess, think about it a minute. Beckett kidnaps your daughter. So what do you do? You return to his backyard. What do you think he intended?”
Tess stared stubbornly out the window. It was after midnight and they were on the Mass Pike, headed toward Springfield. Few cars were on the road. The moon was weak and further obscured by a steady drizzle. The windshield wipers offered a rhythmic, thump thump, thump thump, otherwise the rental car was quiet.
J.T. was tired and grim at the wheel. He already missed the sun and the desert. Six hours ago he’d been wearing a T-shirt and admiring his garden. Now Rosalita tended his villa and Glug while he and Tess landed in a state so damn cold, it was inhospitable.
J.T. didn’t like Massachusetts. Boston had strong ethnic populations from all over the world—Irish, Italian, Chinese—but everyone still had to answer the same three questions to consider themselves a true Bostonian: Did their ancestors get off the Mayflower? Did they go to Harvard? Did their family personally know any of the Kennedys?
Fail that and forget it. You could live in Boston until you were a hundred and fifty and you still wouldn’t be a Bostonian.
“You said Beckett loves Sam, right?” J.T. continued pressing. “So she’s not in immediate danger.”
“Not in immediate danger? For God’s sake, she’s been kidnapped by a sadomasochist serial killer who rapes and strangles women as a hobby. How safe can she be? He’ll never hit her, but he’s on the run. What if the police corner him? What if there’s a shootout? Dear God, what if there’s a shootout?”
“Tess—”
“No.” She shifted away from him. “I don’t want any platitudes.”
“Oh, dear, what will I say now? Listen to me and pay attention. By your own admission, you are Big Bad Jim’s prime target. And you’ve just traveled within striking distance.”
“The police think he knows how to locate me in Arizona anyway.”
“Yeah, but with a four-year-old girl, it’s going to be a little difficult for him to get there. Dammit, Tess, you’re doing exactly what he wants.”
Tess simply shrugged. “Jim’s a resourceful man. He would have found a way.