Twice Dead - Catherine Coulter [106]
“I wonder why he doesn’t want my father to come? It’s my father he’s after. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“I’ve listened to everything on the news,” Tyler said, calmer now. “It doesn’t make any sense to me, either. Please, Becca, you’ve got to come. If you hadn’t called me, I don’t know what I’d have done.”
“If I come, he’ll hold me to get my father. Then he’ll kill both of us.” She didn’t add he would also kill Sam. Why wouldn’t he? She was afraid that Sam was already dead, but she wasn’t about to say it aloud. The thought nearly brought her to her knees. Not Sam, not that precious little boy. No, she couldn’t fall apart. Think. There had to be something she could do.
“I know he’d try to kill both of you. Yes, I know that. What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know, Tyler.”
“Please don’t tell that Adam character or your father, please.”
“All right. Not yet, anyway. If I do decide to tell them, I’ll call you first, warn you. I’ll get back to you in three hours, Tyler. I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. I should never have come to Riptide. The man’s crazy, obsessed.”
He didn’t disagree with her, on any of it. “Three hours, Becca. Please, you’ve got to come. Maybe you and I together can trap him. Somehow.”
When Adam came into Thomas’s study five minutes later, he saw her standing at the front window, staring out over the fine green lawn. She was rubbing the bridge of her nose with her fingers, her shoulders slumped. She looked defeated, beaten down. He frowned.
“What’s going on? Why did McBride have to speak to you?”
She shrugged. “It was just as you thought. He was worried about me, very worried, what with all the stuff on TV.”
“I don’t believe that’s all, is it?”
She turned slowly to face him. “Of course it is. The FBI people have just pulled up.” The car was black, the two men were wearing black, their hair was cut short. And Krimakov had taken Sam. He moved fast, too fast, faster than any of them could have imagined. What to do?
“What’s wrong, Becca? You look white around the gills.”
“Not a thing, Adam. It’s Agent Hawley and Agent Cobb. Let’s see what they have to say. I suppose they’re sworn to secrecy about where they’ve come from?”
Adam said as he walked toward the front door, “They would be drawn and quartered if they ever opened their mouths.”
Adam shook the two men’s hands and stepped back. Tellie Hawley said, “It’s good to see you again, Adam. Mr. Matlock, Ms. Matlock. Bet you’re wondering how we got ourselves assigned to this.”
“It did cross my mind,” Thomas said, as he waved them toward the living room.
“Boy, it’s hot out there,” Scratch Cobb said, gave Becca a big smile, and unbuttoned his black suit coat one button. “A very nice house,” Scratch added to Thomas as he walked beside him into the living room. He was looking at a particularly lovely old Tabriz carpet.
“Thank you, Agent Cobb,” Thomas said. “Won’t you be seated?”
After everyone was settled, Agent Hawley said, “Since we were the ones who initially spoke to Ms. Matlock in the hospital, and since I knew you, sir, Mr. Bushman decided we should stay on as the leads. Of course Savich and Sherlock are on it as well, and he approves of that. It doesn’t mean, of course, that the folk here at FBI headquarters are sitting on their hands. They’re not.”
Thomas nodded. “No, they never do. I’m very sorry about the agents Krimakov murdered in New York, Hawley. It’s got to be an awful blow.”
Tellie Hawley turned pale, then he flushed red with anger. “He killed four more people in cold blood. He waltzed into the hospital—we still don’t know how he was disguised—and he killed my agents. How did he get away? We don’t know. It’s driving everyone nuts. His aged photo is plastered everywhere. We’ve got dozens of agents walking around a mile radius of NYU Hospital showing everyone his photo. Nothing yet.” He stopped and Becca could feel the pain, the guilt, the rage, radiating from him, spilling out in waves. He