The Last Time I Saw Her (25 page)

Charlie had to fight the urge to drop her head into her hands: she'd thought she was being discreet. Apparently not. Tam's eyes slid her way in silent commiseration. She'd clearly overheard. Denying that she had the slightest interest in Hughes occurred to Charlie, and had the advantage of being absolutely true, but would probably do more harm than good.
Least said, soonest mended
were actually good words to live by, she'd discovered. Lena was warning her out of the purest goodwill, she realized, which she took as another step forward in their building friendship, so Charlie did the only thing she could do.

She said, “Thanks. I appreciate you looking out for me,” and smiled at Lena. Lena's brows snapped together, and she frowned back.
Ah, well. Baby steps.

Tam said to Lena, “That was really nice of him to take your shift as well as his own last night and let you sleep an extra two hours.” As Lena's frown darkened and Charlie's eyes widened, Tam's significant glance at Buzz confirmed who she was talking about.

“I didn't ask him to.” Lena's voice was no less fierce for being kept low. The glance she shot at Buzz was poisonous. Fortunately for him, he was looking at Michael and thus remained oblivious. “I didn't want him to. He was supposed to wake me up.”

Tam said gently, “I can feel that he really cares about you.”

As Lena sputtered with indignation and denial, inspiration hit Charlie, and that, coupled with a desire to rescue Michael, had her saying to hell with her unreliable knees and standing up and walking over to Tony. After all, Abell was dead, she was no longer in danger, and there were missing teens out there. She could sit around and be traumatized later. All three men looked at her as she joined them. She consciously did not look at Michael. Still, after what Lena had picked up, she was afraid that she might be sending
I'm-so-in-love-with-you
vibes in his direction. God, she hoped not. How absolutely lame and embarrassing would that be?

“You know, Tam might be able to help locate some of these people,” Charlie said to Tony.

Officially, the FBI did not authorize the use of psychics. On their last case, Tony had taken a gamble and Charlie's word, and turned to Tam for help when time was of the essence and the situation was desperate. Tam had more than established her bona fides with this team, and both Tony and Buzz looked at Charlie with approval.

“Good idea,” Tony said, glancing at Tam, who was still talking to Lena. As if she felt their eyes on her, Tam looked at them. Charlie smiled and beckoned. Tam looked wary, but stood up and joined them. Her face like a thundercloud now, Lena came with her.

Tony told Tam about Charlie's suggestion.

“I can try,” Tam said. She was absolutely confident in her abilities, her face and voice serene. “It would help if I had something that belonged to the subject or that the subject had some contact with.”

Charlie, Tony, Buzz, and Lena looked at each other.

“Torres, Ware, and Doyle will have personal belongings at the Ridge,” Charlie said.

“I'm better with past events,” Tam warned. “More accurate and detailed. For present and future events, I tend to get mostly feelings and impressions. For example, I can feel danger hanging over someone, but I can't see exactly what that danger is.”

The five people standing around her nodded their comprehension. Charlie had already told Tony and company that Tam had arrived in Big Stone Gap unexpectedly because she'd felt Charlie was in danger and had then seen more danger even after Charlie had survived the ordeal in the school bus, and Michael had firsthand knowledge because he'd been there. Clearly, the horror with Abell had been the additional danger Tam had foreseen. Looking at Tam, Charlie thought,
Accurate again.
Actually, in Charlie's experience, Tam had never been wrong. Sometimes muddled, but never wrong.

“Any help you can give us will be appreciated,” Tony told Tam, and smiled at her. Tam smiled back. Then he looked at Lena and Buzz. “When we get up there, I want you two to interview as many people as you can while their memory of what happened is fresh. Our meeting got blown out of the water, but you can talk to Pugh and whoever else is available. We need to try to nail down exactly what happened in that prison. The who, how, and why of how a bunch of death row convicts were able to break out of a supermax.”

Charlie frowned as a memory surfaced. Speaking slowly as she tried to dredge up the exact words she was remembering, she said, “While we were on the bus, Abell said something to Ware. It was along the lines of if Ware had a problem with what they were doing he could have stayed in his cell and taken a chance on being the next one hit.”

Although she was still being careful not to look at him, Charlie happened to catch the expression on Michael's face from the corner of her eye as she said that. His eyes sharpened with interest.

Crap.
Was deliberately not looking at him even more obvious than looking at him? Who knew?

“Next one hit?” Buzz frowned at her. “You have any idea what he meant by that?”

Charlie was glad of the distraction. “Three death row inmates have died violently while in custody at the Ridge within the last few months. One was a supposed suicide, one was stabbed by another inmate”—that death would have been Michael's; still deliberately not looking at him, she glanced from Tony to Buzz instead—“you two were there for that—and the last one was Walter Spivey, who died in mysterious circumstances in the infirmary after attacking me.”

Everybody except Tam nodded. They all remembered that one, and Tony and Buzz—and Michael—clearly remembered Michael's death as well.

“You think someone's killing death row inmates up at the prison?” Tony asked.

Charlie said, “I think someone's killing convicted serial killers who are on death row at the prison, and I think that's why the remaining serial killers on death row were motivated enough to figure out how to pull off a break out. People tend to forget that, despite their psychopathology, serial killers are generally highly intelligent and resourceful.”

The rattle of a gurney coming through the kitchen distracted them. It was being wheeled purposefully toward the basement door, and Charlie realized that they would be using it to carry out Abell's body.

She shuddered inwardly. She so did not want to be here for that.

Totally by accident, her eyes met Michael's. His expression was inscrutable, but she was sure he could read what she was feeling in her face.

“If you're heading up to the prison, I could use a ride,” Michael said easily to Tony. “My car's up there.” His gaze shifted to Charlie. She looked back at him, hoping that her expression was as impenetrable as his, but fairly certain it was not. “Plus
you
owe me some files. I'll collect them while I'm there.”

The logistics involved in getting all six of them up to Wallens Ridge were enough to make Charlie long for more Advil to combat the resulting headache. First, they had to get past the TV crews and journalists going nuts over the home invasion and Abell's subsequent killing that were camped out en masse in front of the Powells' house. Then, in ways that she feared would abruptly get much less subtle if she ignored them, Michael made it clear that he wasn't about to leave her side, not that she wanted him to. But what caused that to be awkward was that Tony made it equally clear that he wasn't about to leave her in Michael's company without his—Tony's—protection. Clearly the knife-throwing, neck-breaking thing had put Tony on edge about what the supposed Rick Hughes was capable of, and he didn't trust even Lena or Buzz to stand between Charlie and an increasingly viable-seeming serial killer suspect whose company she didn't seem to have the good sense to avoid. Since Charlie emphatically didn't want to be in a car with only Michael and Tony—think ping-pong ball between two paddles, mouse between two cats, that kind of thing—she locked her hand around Tam's elbow and announced that she was riding with Tam to the prison. Michael promptly said he'd come with them, which led to Tony opting for Tam's car, too. Then when that was settled and they'd snuck through the backyard to her driveway and were getting ready to pile into the small white Kia Tam had rented, Tam automatically headed for the driver's seat, Tony held the passenger-side door open for Charlie, and Charlie was faced with the horrifying prospect of two large and deadly men who didn't like each other crammed into a tiny backseat. Her eyes met Tam's over the roof of the car as they exchanged some urgent nonverbal communication. The upshot was that Tony ended up driving, because his badge was the golden ticket that would get them through the prison gate, Charlie was in the front passenger seat because Tony showed an alarming tendency to get all stony-jawed at the idea of Charlie getting in back with Michael, and a surprisingly zen Michael and Tam sat in the back together and, equally surprising, appeared perfectly companionable despite the close quarters. Conversation was sparse for the entire winding road trip up to the prison as each one of them seemed lost in thought. But no wars broke out, and Charlie counted that as a win.

Left by default to drive up in the big black Bronco Tony had rented, Lena and Buzz pulled in beside them as they were getting out of the car in the prison lot where Charlie always parked. Her car, she saw at a glance, was right where she had left it, and she was experiencing a moment of thanksgiving for the spare key she always kept in a magnetic case under the bumper when Lena sprang out of the passenger seat of the Bronco. Shouting, “No!” through the open door at Buzz, who was driving, Lena slammed the door so hard the Bronco shook. She stalked away toward the prison, totally ignoring the rest of them, her face aflame.

Climbing out of the Bronco a second later, a scowling Buzz met four sets of interested eyes and grimaced.

“What the hell?” Tony asked him, throwing out his hands in a gesture of mystified inquiry. “You two were fine fifteen minutes ago.”

Buzz's jaw worked. “I asked her to marry me, all right?” he said, and, thrusting his hands deep in his pants pockets, dropped his head, said something indecipherable under his breath, and kicked the Bronco's rear tire.

“Oh, for God's sake,” Tony ground out, rounding the Kia to glare at Buzz. “Shake it off and move your ass. We have work to do.” As Charlie was already scooting after Lena, who was booking it toward the glass double doors where two corrections officers stood guard, Charlie barely caught Tony's next remark, uttered as he shoved a hand into Buzz's shoulder to urge him forward. “You ever hear of candlelight and flowers, numbskull?”

“Lena.” Charlie looked at the other woman as she caught up with her. Lena's jaw could have been carved from granite. Her eyes focused dead ahead. “Want to talk about it?”

Lena shook her head. They reached the door, which was the main outside entrance to the administrative wing and was located maybe fifty feet away from the stairwell exit that had been used to evacuate the building when it caught fire. The building was not yet back in use and access was restricted, as evidenced by the guards stationed outside the door. Lena flashed her cred pack at the guards to gain admittance and Charlie, who they already knew, nodded as she was allowed to pass as well. Once they were inside and walking through the gray-walled, terrazzo-floored visitor admission center, Lena said in a furious undertone, “I cannot believe he did that.”

“Proposed?” Charlie questioned cautiously as she trailed Lena toward the elevator banks. A glance over her shoulder located Michael and Tam, who, not possessing the necessary credentials, were being forced to wait outside the glass doors for Tony and Buzz to catch up to them. Michael was looking at her hard, and Charlie got from his expression that he didn't want her getting out of his sight.

Considering the number of times she'd nearly died in the last twenty-four hours, this was not exactly paranoia. She reassured him with a little, stop-worrying wave.

“Who does that?” Lena gave the up button a savage jab.

“Somebody who's in love with you?” Charlie tried.

“He doesn't know who he's in love with. He spent years being in love with my sister. He proposed to her, too,” Lena snapped. The fact that Buzz had once been engaged to Lena's older sister, Giselle, was a major stumbling block to their relationship.

“He's acknowledged that he made a mistake.” Charlie could feel herself slipping into professional mode. “The question you need to be asking yourself is: What do you want? Are you in love with him?”

Lena gave her a startled look, but the nearly simultaneous arrival of the elevator and the other four members of their party kept her from replying. Lips thin, Lena said not a word to Buzz or anyone else as they all rode up the elevator together. What with one thing and another, the atmosphere in the elevator was so thick Charlie was surprised any of them could even breathe.

The minute they stepped off, Charlie was hit by the smell of smoke. Although the wing was nonoperational in the wake of the fire, a surprising number of people were present on her floor: investigators from the Bureau of Prisons and the FBI, identifiable by their windbreakers and badges, corrections officers, construction workers, cleaning crews, random strangers about whose function she had no clue. There was no visible damage to the hall, but as they walked toward Charlie's office and the library beyond it the smell of smoke grew stronger.

Charlie shuddered to think about what had happened in that library. The closer they got to it, the colder she felt. That signified the presence of the dead. In significant numbers. She was glad to see the library blocked off and guarded.

One of the guards stationed in front of the library raised a hand in greeting as he saw her. It was Johnson, and as Charlie waved back she remembered something.

She slowed her step, purposefully falling a little behind the group, and a flick of her eyes at Michael had him falling back with her.

In a quick whisper she told him, “When Johnson saw Hughes in my office before the fire, he was obviously rattled by how much he looked like you. He asked me if I thought we had something like a
High Plains Drifter
situation going on. I know it's a Clint Eastwood movie, but other than that I'm out. I have no idea what that means. Do you?”

Michael looked down the hall at Johnson. His face darkened and hardened. His body tightened. Instinctively, she put a hand on his arm only to feel aggression coursing through his muscles. Whatever a
High Plains Drifter
situation meant, clearly it was bad.

He said, “Yeah, I do.”

Charlie would have demanded an explanation, but they reached her office just then, which was where they were going to have Tam do her thing and where Tony had called ahead to have objects belonging to Torres, Ware, and Doyle sent. Tam, Lena, and Buzz walked on inside while Tony stopped at the door and looked around to see where Charlie was.

Of course he caught her with her hand on Michael's arm. Charlie let her hand drop instantly, but it was too late. Tony's eyes narrowed on the point of contact and then rose to her face. Ridiculous as it was, Charlie felt a pang of guilt as she met his incredulous gaze.

For once Michael was oblivious to what was going on with her. “I'm just going to the men's room. I'll join you in your office in a few minutes,” Michael said, without even looking at her. His focus was all on Johnson, and his voice was loud enough to be heard by Tony, too. Then he seemed to recall his surroundings, because he looked down at her and murmured for her ears alone, “Hang with Dudley for a few, babe.”

With Tony's eyes on her, Charlie couldn't answer, and she didn't feel up to even trying to sort out what Michael was planning. She nodded, and as she walked past Tony into her office Michael strode on down the hall. Tony looked after him briefly, but then he followed her inside her office, too.

By the time Tam was finished doing her thing, they had learned that she saw Torres, Ware, and Doyle together in a green Dodge Ram pickup truck that was old and had engine trouble, thus filling the escapees with anxiety. That they had a small, scared-looking boy and a bigger but equally scared-looking boy bound and gagged and tucked away inside the camper attachment that covered the truck bed, that the teens were injured but alive, although that could change at any moment as a feeling of acute danger enveloped them. Doing her best to project herself into the truck, Tam was able to get a quick glimpse of the four lanes of a section of interstate highway falling away in front of the truck, and a sign it was passing that said
Mobile, 52 miles.

No sooner had Tam finished than Tony was on the phone relaying the information to the FBI or the Alabama State Police or whomever it was he relayed that kind of information to. A sense of excitement was palpable in the room; if Tam's information proved accurate, which of course Charlie knew it was, and the pickup could be intercepted, two more hostages would be saved, and the remaining escapees would be recaptured. Only Bree would remain, and Charlie said a silent prayer for her. If she wasn't in the truck with the remaining escapees, and she hadn't yet been found, all of them knew that chances were slim she would be recovered alive. But no one was prepared to give up hope yet. An object belonging to Bree was being driven to Big Stone Gap for Tam to use in trying to locate her. Until it arrived, Tam was going to go back to Charlie's house and nap.

Charlie had made coffee. Having a coffeemaker in her office was surprisingly handy; she couldn't believe that getting one hadn't occurred to her before she'd needed one to collect DNA from Hughes. Tam rose from the comfy chair behind Charlie's desk, sipping slowly at a Styrofoam cup of the brew as she got ready to leave. Lena was on her way out the door, followed by Buzz, neither of whom looked very happy. As far as Charlie was aware, they hadn't exchanged a word since Lena had slammed out of the Bronco. Charlie was just starting to worry about what had become of Michael when she spotted him outside the door that Lena had just opened. He'd apparently been on his way back to her office and had stopped as the door opened.

“There's a big-time confession going down in the room next door,” Michael said to the group at large. “I figure there needs to be some FBI agents there to make it official.”

Lena, Buzz, and Tony, suspending his phone conversation, looked at him sharply.

Michael continued, “Officer Johnson apparently feels the need to get something off his chest. Seems like some of the guards conspired to murder prisoners. He started spilling his guts to a couple of Bureau of Prisons investigators, but I thought maybe you folks might want to get in on it while the getting's good.”

Tony ended his conversation with a terse “Call me when you hear” and, following Michael's jerked-thumb gesture, rushed next door with Lena and Buzz.

Charlie automatically started to follow, but Michael stepped inside her office to block her path.

“Not you, Doc,” he said, and at the look in his eyes Charlie realized she wasn't an FBI agent and didn't really need to hear any confessions at all.

“I'll be at your house if you need me,” Tam said dryly as she stepped around them. “I really need some sleep before I try that again.”

Charlie looked at her and smiled. “
Mi casa es su casa.
I see a lot of work consulting for the FBI in your future, by the way.”

“Cherie, the FBI can't afford me.” That was true—Tam made a great living doing readings for movie stars and other celebrities. But Charlie also knew that Tam would never turn anybody in real need down. Tam and Michael exchanged glances in a kind of silent acknowledgment of each other, and then Tam pulled the door closed behind her and was gone.

“So you want to explain what's happening next door?” Charlie asked.

“In a minute,” Michael said, and kissed her.

She melted against him instantly, sliding her arms around his neck, kissing him back, luxuriating in the feel of his lips on hers, in the scalding heat of his mouth, in the feel of him, so solid and
alive,
against her.

But then she pulled her mouth from his and said, “Spill.”

He made a face at her. “
High Plains Drifter
is a movie about a man who's murdered and comes back in human form to seek revenge on his killers. As soon as I heard Johnson was worried about that, I knew that what I suspected was true and that he was in on it. So I went up to him, and I told him who I really am, and I told him enough details about some things that had happened on the Ridge while I was here to convince him. Then I told him that I was going to drag him to hell with me if he didn't confess everything he knew.” Michael grinned. “He was about ready to crap his pants. One of the few times I've ever really enjoyed being a ghost. He told me everything, and I told him he had to tell the cops. That's what he's doing now.”