Pardee"s phone started playing "Tubular Bells," the theme from The Exorcist. In addition to a certain amount of wit, Pardee also had a keen sense of irony.

"Yes?" Pardee could have communicated with his minions through magical means, but he did not wish to frighten them. At least, not yet.

"It"s Kittridge, boss. One of Chastain"s credit cards finally showed up online, but by the time we got there, she was in a cab. Took her out to JFK. We had no chance to close the deal."

"I very much hope you obtained her flight information." Pardee"s voice contained no hit of menace whatever. It didn"t have to.

"Sure, boss, sure. No prob. She"s on United, Flight 441, nonstop to Chicago. Arrives three forty-five, local-or it"s supposed to, anyway."

"Which airport-O"Hare or Midway?"

"O"Hare. The big one."

"You"re not just guessing about that, are you? Because if you were to guess incorrectly..."

"No, boss, I checked it out, absolutely."

"Very well." Pardee thought for a moment. "I have another a.s.signment for you."

"Great, glad to hear it."

"It"s in New Jersey. A place called Avon, sometimes known as Avon-by-the-Sea. Do you know it?"

"Nah, but we"ll find it, no prob. Winter"s from Jersey, he probably knows where it is. If not, we"ll score a map, someplace."

"All right. Your client is one Judith Maloney." He repeated the name, then provided an address, which he also said twice.

"Got it, boss."

"You didn"t write any of that down, did you?"

"h.e.l.l, no. I"m no amateur."

"Then make sure you do not act like one when you get to New Jersey. Call me when you"ve made the sale."

Pardee terminated the call without any social amenities, then called a number with a Chicago area code. Libby Chastain was one fish he very much did not want to escape his net. Or the gaff to follow.

"Yeah?" It was a man"s voice, businesslike and impersonal.

"You know who this is, Strom."

"Yeah. Yeah, I do." The voice took on a note of eagerness.

"I have more work for you."

Libby Chastain came out of the little tunnel that temporarily connected her plane with the terminal and saw Quincey Morris immediately. But before going to him, she made herself scan the other people who were waiting for disembarking pa.s.sengers from her flight. It wasn"t always possible to tell who wished you ill just by looking, but Libby"s witch sense was finely tuned, and there was always the chance she"d pick up harmful intent in time to do something about it.

But no one seemed to be paying her any attention at all-apart from the tall, dark-haired man in the blue suit, his beard stubble noticeable even this early in the day. She went to him then, and they exchanged a brief hug.

"Quincey, it"s so good to see you," she said softly.

"It"s good to be seen, Libby. At least by you."

As they walked toward the main terminal building, Morris leaned closer and said, "By the way, I spent the last half hour checking out all the people in the immediate area of your gate. I don"t have your infallible instincts, but I didn"t see anybody who looked like trouble."

"That"s good, she said. "I"ve had enough trouble for a while."

"Did you check a bag?"

"I had to. Some of my gear might raise a few eyebrows if I tried to take it through one of the security checkpoints, and I have no desire to have my name end up on some watch list."

"Or witch list."

"That, too. I just hope my suitcase didn"t end up in Omaha, or someplace."

They entered the terminal and followed the signs to the luggage carousels. Neither of them noticed the man, holding an open copy of Forbes magazine, who was seated in a position where he could watch everyone who came out from that set of gates. Once he determined where the man and the woman were heading, Charlie Strom stood up and followed, pulling a phone/walkie-talkie from his jacket pocket.

Strom was a big man, and he walked aggressively, as if there were people determined to get in his way and he was equally determined that they weren"t going to succeed. Apart from the walk, the only thing distinctive about him was his hair, which was white on the sides and dark on top. On someone twenty years younger, it might have been a fashion statement, but in Strom"s case it was a genetic quirk that showed up in his family every other generation or so. Being conspicuous was a bad thing in his line of work, but some perverse pride kept him from dyeing it a uniform color. Most of the people who learned what he did for a living didn"t usually get much time to ponder his appearance, anyway.

Strom held the device to his ear, his big paw covering it to m.u.f.fle what might come through the earpiece, and pushed the "Talk" b.u.t.ton.

"Lee." He made his rough voice as soft as he could.

Another voice, male and a little higher than Strom"s, came back almost instantly. "Yeah."

"She"s heading toward the baggage claim. And she"s got some guy with her."

After a moment, the voice came back. "Cop?"

"Hard to say. He"s too well-dressed for CPD. Could be federal, maybe."

"s.h.i.t."

"Yeah, I know."

"Well, you weren"t gonna burn her in there, anyway. Too many eyes." Another pause. "What you gonna do?"

"If he"s a Fed, he won"t be alone. He"ll have somebody in a car waiting. I"m gonna hang back, see where they go once they pick up her bag. Stay loose, kid."

"Gotcha, Charlie."

"And be ready to move-fast."

There is an elegant, expensive apartment building in Philadelphia"s Main Line area. It boasts state-of-the-art security-and, unlike many such places, the boast is justified. This is why Hannah Widmark lives there. It is vital to her that her dwelling s.p.a.ce, and its contents, be protected while she is away. When she is at home, of course, no extra protection is necessary.

In contrast to the building"s ritzy facade, Hannah"s apartment is stark, even Spartan. Her bed is a mattress on the floor. Her desk, which is also where she takes her meals, is a card table, with a folding metal chair behind it. There is no television, radio, or any other form of entertainment to be found there.

Despite the general spa.r.s.eness, there are two areas of the apartment where money has been spent generously. One is the large steel gun case, with its electronic lock that requires a nine-digit pa.s.s code to operate. This impregnable armoire contains firearms and ammunition, laser sights and illegal sound suppressors. It also holds a number of other objects and devices not immediately recognizable as weapons-but they are.

The other place in the apartment where Hannah has spent money is the combination exercise room and dojo. It contains one of the best exercise bikes made, a treadmill that might belong in an NFL locker room, and a Stairmaster. There is also a Bowflex machine and a selection of free weights.

In the middle of the room, hanging from the ceiling by a stout chain, is a full-size punching bag that would not look out of place in a gym where Mike Tyson used to train. Off to one side is a device shaped like the upper half of a man"s torso, but made of ballistic-grade black ceramic. At various points on the dummy"s chest, neck, and head are recessed lights, which wink on and off at random when the device is turned on. The idea is that someone wearing boxing gloves will try to hit the area marked by a light before it winks off and another one comes on. It operates at four speeds, and this one is set at the highest.

Hannah Widmark has broken three of them.

In the bare living room, Hannah sits cross-legged on the floor, cleaning and oiling the components of a stripped-down firearm, which she has laid out on a sheet of oilcloth. The parts comprise an M-40A3 rifle, the model that has been issued to Marine Corps snipers since 2003. It is not available for sale to the general public.

On the mantle opposite from where Hannah sits is a rare touch of domesticity: next to a small stuffed toy bear with a dirty face, there are two photos in polished wooden frames. One shows a man and woman side by side, arms around each other"s waist. The other shows the same man and woman in a group shot with two children-a girl and a boy, who appear to be about six and eight years old, respectively. The woman in the photos bears a striking resemblance to Hannah Widmark, but she differs from the woman sitting on the floor in two significant ways: she does not have the long scar that runs along Hannah"s left jaw line, and she is smiling.

The cell phone on the carpet next to Hannah rings. She opens it, glances at the display, then puts it to her ear and says, "Yes?" Pause. "Yes, I"m available." Another, longer pause. "Let"s not discuss it on the phone. I"ll be there tomorrow, and I"ll meet you wherever you like, any public place. And bring a picture of her with you." Pause. "Yes, I understand that she"s dead." Hannah"s gaze shifts to the framed pictures across the room, and something pa.s.ses across her hard face so fast it might never have been there at all. "Bring a picture anyway."

Chapter 8.

"Annie Levesque, huh?" Detective Pierre "Pete" Premeaux looked across his desk at the two FBI agents and shook his head slowly. "Crazy Annie."

"Is that what people call her?" Colleen O"Donnell asked. "Crazy Annie?"

"Some do." Premeaux picked a Starbucks cup out of the clutter on his desk and drained what was left of the contents. "But not to her face."

Fenton nodded. "We"d heard that the locals are wary of her," he said. "We were wondering why."

Premeaux crumpled the cup, tossed it toward a wastebasket twenty feet away, and missed. "No disrespect intended, Agents, but why do you care?"

"She"s beginning to look like a viable suspect in a couple of unsolved homicides," Colleen told him.

Premeaux stared at her. "Those two kids," he said flatly. "Wilson and Dufresne."

"You don"t exactly sound surprised," Fenton said.

"No, I guess I"m not," Premeaux said. "The M.O., with the organs removed like that, had "occultist" written all over it, but there was never evidence to connect any of it with Annie."

"And yet you thought of her," Colleen said. "What prompted you to do that?"

Premeaux tilted his chair back slowly. "There was something... weird... that went down around here, about ten years ago. I was new on the force then, and it wasn"t my case, anyway. But everybody was talking about it, cops and civilians both. Made the papers, too-bits of it, anyway."

"We"d heard something about that," Colleen said. "We were hoping you could enlighten us as to the details."

Premeaux looked at her, then at Fenton, then back. "You know, it occurs to me that murder ain"t a federal crime."

"You"re right, it"s not," Fenton said. "Usually."

"But it might be," Colleen said carefully, "if it were part of a larger conspiracy involving similar murders taking place in a variety of locations, and crossing state lines."

The detective"s bushy eyebrows went up, then slowly came back down. "I"d been hearing some stuff about that, lately. Nothing official, you understand, just the grapevine." He shifted his weight and let his chair come level again. "Kids are being killed all over, aren"t they? And their organs taken. While still alive."

"Officially, we"re not allowed to confirm or deny that," Fenton said. "But, unofficially..." He let his voice trail off.

"If that information were to get into the media, even locally," Colleen said, "it would land us in some seriously deep s.h.i.t with our boss."

"Yeah, I follow," Premeaux said. "You don"t got to worry about that. Not with me." Then he swiveled his chair toward his computer"s keyboard. "Let me take a quick look at the file. Don"t want to get my facts wrong."

A few minutes later, he turned back to face them. "It was eleven years ago," he said. "I was close."

"Something about kids egging her car, wasn"t it?" Colleen said.

"Yeah, and not just hers. These four junior high a.s.sholes decide it"d be fun to throw eggs at a bunch of parked cars. So, one Friday night, a little after dark, they stop at Price Chopper, buy four cartons of eggs, and head for the K-Mart, which is close by. The place is still open, there"s quite a few cars parked in the lot, and so these morons let fly. All four cartons worth. Then they take off, most likely giggling like schoolgirls."

"Being an a.s.shole comes easy at that age," Fenton said. "Adult level of testosterone meets kid-level judgment."

"Yeah, tell me about it," Premeaux said. "Lots of us do stupid s.h.i.t at that age, but most of us don"t deserve to die like those kids did."

"So, what happened, exactly?" Colleen asked.

"Well, as you probably figured out already, one of those cars that got egged was Annie"s, that old Caddie she was driving back then. The responding officer took down the license numbers of the cars with egg on "em, in case the owners wanted to press charges, later."

"Pressing charges a.s.sumes the perps are in custody," Fenton said. "If I can use the word "perp" to refer to kiddy s.h.i.t like this."

"Oh, they were in custody quick enough," Premeaux said. "One of them was ID"d by a neighbor, who was driving into the lot just as the kids were tear-a.s.sing out. She reported what she"d seen, once she heard about what had happened. The kid was brought in for questioning. I wasn"t there, but I imagine they had a confession out of him in five minutes, and the names of the other kids in five more. Kids that age, they don"t usually stand up too well to pressure."

Fenton smiled, a little. "Not exactly hardened criminals, huh?"

"Never been in trouble before, any of them. So, you can imagine how it went for them."

"Um, I"m guessing community service and a stern talking-to from the judge," Colleen said.

"Yeah, pretty much," Premeaux said. "I think their parents had to pay for a bunch of car washes, and those kids were probably grounded until they were, like, thirty." He stopped, and the levity was gone from his voice when he went on, "Or they would"ve been, if they"d lived that long."

"So how does Annie Levesque tie into this?" Colleen asked. "I mean, apart from the fact that her car was one of those that got egged."

"Here"s where it starts to get weird," Premeaux said. "As part of their punishment, each kid was ordered by the judge to write a letter of apology to every one of the car owners involved. Me, I might"ve said one letter per person, and all four kids sign it. But the judge wanted to make it tough, I guess. So, each of those kids wrote a letter to Annie Levesque saying how sorry he was, just like they wrote to seventeen other people. Now, I figure the other seventeen read the letters, tossed "em, and that was that. But the ones sent to Annie all came back, marked Return to Sender."

"Wrong address?" Fenton asked.

"Nope, it was her mailing address, all right, same one she"s used for years and years. Now, some of this stuff I"m gonna tell you wasn"t in the report, but it"s things I heard at the time, from other cops, okay?"

Fenton shrugged. "Sure, fine."

"You"d a.s.sume that the post office had sent the letters back unopened. But when the kids, or their parents, opened the envelopes, there were a couple of things different. One was that each kid"s signature had been cut off from the bottom of the letter."

"Oh, dear," Colleen said. Premeaux looked a question at her, but she shook her head.