Devlin's Defiance: Book Two of the Devlin Quatrology (44 page)

He hung up the
phone, added a couple of notes to his files and
headed
up to the above-the-bridge deck, where Pam was making copious notes
in a thick looseleaf notebook.

“
Sorry,
Pam, but the teams came up empty on the florist shop.
Totally
clean, family business for 75 years, no new identities, no breaks in
history, nothing. Just a few parking tickets on their delivery van.”

“
Ah, but
where did they get those tickets?”

“
Looking
for a Son of Sam thing, Pam? Sorry; no pattern there,
nothing
of any significance.”

“
How many
tickets in all?”

“
In the
last ten years, only fifteen.”

“
Maybe
they're being too careful, way too careful. That could be suspicious
by itself.”

“
A
sleeper cell, Pam?”

“
Yeah,
Jake; it's possible.”

“
Possible,
sure. We haven't written them off yet, just looking at
other
stuff more closely, like his travel, phone and email records.”

“
And I'm
correlating that all with my journal and my memory.”

“
Any
luck?”

“
Nothing
conclusive yet. A few things mesh, but they're part of his normal
routine.”

“
Oh,
well. We'll all keep at it.”

- 115 -

March
30, 2013
9:41
a.m. local time

Bonita Beach, Florida

“
Hey,
Gordy, got a question for ya.”

“
Can it wait a
minute, Vito? I gotta get up to the john, quick.”

“
Sure, Gordy,
sure.”

Five minutes later,
Gordy returned and found Vito sitting with a new companion, a pretty
young blonde woman whom Gordy had seen several times before, but had
never met.

“
Okay, Vito,
what's up? And who's this?”

She said, “Hi.
I'm Debbie,” and held out her hand, which Gordy shook.

“
Debbie? Oh,
geez, I owe you an apology.”

Tilting her head and
wrinkling her brow, she asked, “For what?”

“
For the way I
treated you in my book -- well, not you, actually; your namesake.”

Vito laughed. “He's
got a character named Debbie, and she's kind of a” --

“
No, no, don't
spoil it for her, Vito.”

“
No, don't,
please,” Debbie concurred.

“
Okay, okay.”

“
So, Vito, what'd
you wanna ask?”

“
Is it true that
you're gonna kill me and Danuta off in the sequel?”

“
Where'd you hear
that?”

“
Norm told me.”

“
Hmm. Well, I
was thinking I needed to kill someone off, and I may have mentioned
you two. Is that a problem?”

“
Well, yeah,
especially with all the stuff you wrote that actually came true.”

“
But that was
just accidental, not intentional.”

“
But it still
came true.”

Debbie asked, “What
stuff?”

Vito replied,
“Hurricane Sandy, a new Pope, first female Secret Service
director, um” --

“
Wait, wait. You
really wrote about that stuff?”

“
Yup, but again,
not intentionally. And I called Hurricane Sandy Hurricane Valerie,
off by two letters.”

“
But it
was
at the end of last October.”

“
Yeah, Vito, it
was; but I didn't know that when the book came out.”

“
And that thing
with the umbrella hitting you.”

“
Well, that did
sorta freak me out.”

“
What was that?”
Debbie interjected.

“
Oh, I wrote this
scene where – let's see; how can I say this? – where a
woman asks a guy on the beach about a scar on his left thigh, and he
claims it was made by an umbrella that got loose and hit him, needed
13 stitches.”

“
Oh, wow. I've
seen lotsa those get loose; idiots leave 'em open and walk away or go
in the water.”

“
Yup. Anyhow,
the day after I wrote that scene, an umbrella did get loose and hit
me, but on the right shin, no blood, no injury, just a coinkydink.
I'm not superstitious, but that did sorta freak me out. But if
Hurricane Gabrielle is a disaster this summer, that'd freak me out a
lot and I might just stop writing.”

“
But, Gordy, I
am
superstitious. So I'd really like it if you could keep from killing
me off in the sequel.”

“
Tell ya what,
Vito. I'll change that part, but I lose a pretty cool car chase.
No, wait, it's okay; I think I can just cut a part of it off and keep
you two alive. Okay?”

“
Okay, and
thanks.”

“
No problem,
really. Nice thing about writing fiction, I can do whatever I want
to do with it. But lemme get back and write that down before I QH
it.”

Debbie piped up,
“Before you what it?”

Vito and Gordy spoke
simultaneously, “Quarterheimer; forget.”

Debbie chuckled.
“Quarterheimer. That's good.”

Gordy said, “Yup.
Sometimes it feels like Thirdheimer's, even Halfheimer's.”

Debbie laughed louder,
and Gordy smiled.

“
Glad you like
that, Deb – oh, may I call you Deb?”

“
Sure.”

“
Anyhow, Deb,
nice to meet you, and thanks for beautifying the beach.”

Debbie blushed, visible
even through her light tan. “Thank you.”

“
Gotta run now,
though. Have a great day – oh, sorry; I don't mean to sound
like I want to control your life. Have a great day, if you want to.”

Debbie chuckled
again while Gordy headed back to his lounge, but before he got there,
two 40ish women stopped him.

“
We
overheard you talking with that guy up there, and if you want
to
use our names in your book, we'd love it,” one of them said.

“
And if
you want to kill one or both of us off, that's okay; we're not
superstitious,” the other added.

“
You
sure?” Gordy asked.

“
Sure
we're sure.”

“
Okay, if
you've got cool names.”

“
Rebecca,
but my friends call me Becky or Becks,” one said.

“
Camelia,
Cam to my friends” the other said.

“
And if
you want to use my kids' names, you can,” Becky added. Tiffany
and Blake.”

“
Those
are cool names; I'll see what I can do.”

“
Great.
I'll tell my husband.”

“
What's
his name?”

“
Nate .”

“
Another
cool name. Like I said, I'll see what I can do.”

He started on
to his lounge, but an older woman sitting on a nearby macramaed chair
piped up and said, “My name's Fiona. Can you use that?”

“
Wow;
that
is
a cool one.”

“
I know;
you'll see what you can do.”

“
Fiona,
you not only have a cool name, but you're also psychic.”

“
Naw,
just got a good hearing aid, sonny. Now you go write all those names
down before you forget 'em.”

“
Definitely
psychic, Fiona.”

He hurried back
to his lounge, wrote in his notebook, lit a small cigar with his
magnifying glass, and lay back down, closing his eyes and chuckling.

- 116 -

April
4, 2013
11:38
a.m. local time

Northwest of Eureka,
Montana, USA

Bullets whizzed
by on either side of the Cowgirl's head, one close enough that she
could feel its heat on her ear, but she did not pull her 30-30 from
its scabbard on the side of her stallion. She knew that the chances
of hitting someone from atop a galloping mass of horseflesh was less
than one in a dozen, so she saved her ammunition for when the chances
would be better.

She also knew
that the chances of hitting someone while facing
forward
and shooting blindly over one's shoulder from a distance of more than
a hundred feet, as her target was doing, were at best one in a
thousand.

She also knew
that the target thought that by crossing the border into Canada, he
would be safe. But she knew that he didn't know that borders meant
nothing to her. Back in Europe, she had tracked targets across many,
many borders before terminating them, and one poorly protected
boundary might complicate in minor ways disposal of the corpse, but
little else.

The target had
now shot six bullets back at her, and she knew he was packing only a
revolver, so now the worst he could do was throw the gun at her, with
little chance of that accomplishing more than causing her to either
knock it aside or duck away from it. Or maybe just catch it and save
it for later, if the opportunity presented itself.

“
C'mon,
Shacody, now's our chance,” she said into her trusty steed's
ear, digging her spurs into his flanks. Shacody responded as he
usually did, picking up speed, narrowing the distance between pursued
and pursuer to 90 feet, then 80, 70, 60, 50. Then 60, 70, as
the
target goaded his horse to also speed up. Then back to 60 as she
coaxed more speed out of her mount.

Ahead, a stand
of fir trees bordered the meadow through which
they
were galloping, and the target rode into them no more than ten
seconds before she did. But when she followed him
in, he had completely disappeared.

She discovered
at that moment that the tracking skills she had learned growing up on
a Wyoming reservation were now inadequate, and, stymied, she stopped
her horse cold and listened intently. But all she could hear was her
winded mount's panting and the beating of her own heart.

“
Where
the hell did he go?”

- 117 -

April
4, 2013
9:27
a.m. local time

Bonita Beach, Florida

“
What the
hell? Did you see that, Ro?”