Dogs (14 page)

“I do not know this address. What says this email?”

Tessa squeezed her eyes closed. All at once she was dizzy—when had she last eaten? She fought off the vertigo and recited as accurately as she could remember.

“The email said, ‘Salah is dead, which is unfortunate, but I will work with just you instead, Tessa. He owes me this. He wanted it for me. Did you study your Bible? Solomon said that a living dog is better than a dead lion. But I prefer 2Kings 8:13.' That's a Bible verse about using dogs as servants to—Ruzbihan, are you there?”

Silence, and then over the new buzzing on the line, his voice again, loud and sharp in Arabic. She recognized the curse. It was one Salah had used only in extreme situations, and had looked shame-faced afterward.

“Ruzbihan?”

“The Christian Bible,” he said, his accent abruptly thicker, so that Tessa had to strain to catch the words. “The email, it comes then from that one.”

“Which one? Who?”

“Our classmate. Richard Ebenfield. He has converted Salah at the Sorbonne, that one, from Islam to Christianity. He is very crazy.”

“Crazy? How? Is he by any chance a microbiologist?”

“What?”

“A…a scientist. Who works with diseases, maybe.”

Ruzbihan made a rude sound. “He was not. He was nothing. He did not go to the classes, did not sit the examinations, did not finish his studies. Tessa—you are FBI?”

“No. I quit. Left. This danger is personal.”

“Go back to your FBI. Tell them all this. Also, Tessa—”

“Yes?”

“Do not say my name to your FBI, please. I have talked with you because you were Salah's wife. But do not say my name to your FBI, or to the London authorities. Do you understand this?”

And Tessa did. Ethnic paranoia cut both ways. “Yes,” she said.

“You promise me this?”

“I promise. One more question, please, Ruzbihan. Do you know where Ebenfield is now?”

“I have not seen Richard since Mogumbutuno a few years ago. I do not want to see him. Good-bye, Tessa. Please do not call again.”

“But you—”

“Good-bye.” The phone clicked.

Perhaps his paranoia was justified. On the other hand, perhaps she had not shown enough paranoia. Richard Ebenfield, crazy American who had not finished his studies at the Sorbonne, could probably not have gotten Tessa's and Salah's name into the intel chatter in the Mideast. Ruzbihan, a well-connected Arab whom Tessa had never met, might have been able to do so. Ruzbihan's family dealt internationally in copper. They had influence and connections. Was everything Ruzbihan had just told her a lie?

Or was she the paranoid?

She fished out the rest of her quarters and called Switzerland.

No answer at Aisha's apartment in Geneva. Aisha was with a medical team at the World Health Organization; she could have been sent anywhere in the world. And it was 2:00 A.M. in Geneva. Tessa was not going to get any more information there tonight.

She went back to Starbucks, set up the laptop again, and searched the web for “Richard Ebenfield.” Nothing. No address, no search-engine hits, no Web presence at all. Electronically, Ebenfield didn't exist, at least not under that name.

The cell phone in her purse rang. Damn—she had forgotten to turn it off! That meant that Maddox could find out exactly where she was. She pulled out the phone; it displayed her own number. The damage was already done, so she answered.

“Tessa? What the hell do you think you're doing?”

“Trying to find information, John. And I have some for you. That email may have come from one Richard Ebenfield, an American who was Salah's roommate at the Sorbonne, and whom Salah hadn't seen since. Ebenfield may be a religious nut of some variety, and I have it on good authority that he may be crazed. Check him out.”

“On what good authority? Who did you talk to?”

“I can't tell you that,” Tessa said, and knew how it sounded. She was already under suspicion. This could only make it worse. But the Bureau had resources she did not. They could find Ebenfield.

Maybe.

“I'm sending a car for you,” Maddox said. “Give me your address and stay right there.”

“I can't do that, John,” Tessa said. She was already turning off the laptop, sliding it into the pocket of Jess's coat, moving toward the door. “Think—if I had stayed at my house, you wouldn't even have Ebenfield's name. I couldn't have gotten it with you watching suspiciously over my shoulder. And I'll feed you anything else I discover, I promise. But I'm not coming in.”

“Damn it, that's an order!”

“But I'm not an agent anymore.” Then she was gone, walking rapidly toward the door, sliding her cell phone into the trash bin on the way out the door, disappearing around the corner of the building into the night.

Short-term moving
, she thought, picturing the jovial truck driver who'd given her the ride into Frederick. Now she was running, making good time on the cold deserted streets, sure of at least her next stop.

If not of anything else.

Allen lay quietly in bed, his face turned to the wall. Waiting. When the door finally opened, he watched the growing line of light slide down his clown wallpaper. Red clown hair, ruffled shirt, big fake hands holding a balloon, baggy pants…the wallpaper was too babyish and anyway Allen hated clowns.

“Allen? Are you asleep?”

He scrunched his eyes shut and blew softly through his nose.

Satisfied, his mother went quietly from the room and closed the door. Allen felt bad, in a way; he could hear from her voice that she'd been crying again. His father wasn't home because nobody was allowed back into Tyler, and his parents had had a big fight on the phone about that, although Allen couldn't see that it was Daddy's fault. The government
said.
Still, Allen knew he should have stayed up and comforted his mother, like the other times his parents fought, but he just couldn't. Not this time.

He gave her more achingly long time to take her pills and get to sleep. What if she noticed that the bottle held less pills than it was supposed to? But he guessed that she didn't notice because she didn't come back into his room, and eventually he decided she must be asleep by now.

It hurt to walk. When he'd stepped on that shard of glass in the basement, going down to Susie, a piece of it had gone through his sock and into his foot. Allen had locked himself in the bathroom and tried to wash it with soap and warm water, but the soap stung too much. Now his foot was swelling up and the skin around the cut was red, hard, and hot. He forced his foot into a hard-soled slipper, nearly crying out with pain, and kept going. Down the stairs, across the foyer, out the front door.

Outside it was spooky and much colder. Allen was afraid to walk behind the bushes—anything might be in there!—but he made himself do it so he could crawl through the basement window. His mother hadn't tried to fix the glass. That was the kind of thing his father always did. When Allen dropped onto the dryer he
did
yell, it hurt his foot so much. Tears sprang into his eyes. But he had to keep going.

Susie was awake inside the filing cabinet, whimpering and barking softly. Good thing he came when he did! He pulled open the drawer and she stumbled out. Allen put his arms around her.

“Susie, Suze—are you okay? Can you see, girl, can you?” The weird, milky film was still in her eyes. But she didn't seem blind. She whined and licked his face and gave her bark—two short quick yaps—that said she had to go out.

“I can't take you out, Suze, I can't. There are mean dogs out there. Come on, girl, come over here.” He led her to a far corner of the cellar. “Go on, Susie, piddle here. It's okay.”

Susie raised her eyes doubtfully to his.

“I know you don't like to piddle inside the house, but this time you have to. You have to!”

Susie whined and jiggled her hind legs.

Allen looked desperately around the basement. Nothing he could see, nothing he could…wait!

Hobbling to the pile of boxes filled with Christmas decorations, plus all the wadded tax forms he'd scooped out of the filing cabinet, Allen pulled open box after box until he found the pine garlands his mother put on the mantel every year. They were special garlands, very expensive she said, so soft and springy they looked real. Allen spread them in a little mat on the floor and pushed Susie onto it.

“See, girl, grass! Piddle on the grass!”

Susie gazed at him with disdain and whined again.

Allen jiggled her collar a few times, but she wasn't a toilet and this produced no water. He didn't know what to do. Susie had to piddle—and maybe poop, too—or she'd burst. But where? How?

He stuffed the garlands back into the Christmas box, which was patterned with elves smiling like stupid clowns. By now Allen had to stand on one foot, the other hurt so much. He just slightly touched the toes of his slipper to the floor for balance.

“Come on, Suze.” The dog followed him to the laundry room. Allen closed the door while he swept all the glass into a corner. On the other side of the door Susie barked so loud he was sure somebody would hear. But no one came and he finished sweeping as fast as he could on one foot. Then he let Susie in, lifted her onto the dryer, climbed painfully up himself, and shoved her through the window, keeping a firm grip on her collar.

Immediately she squatted in the bushes, piddled, and pooped.

When she was finished, Allen pulled her by her collar back through the window. But Susie didn't want to come back in. She squealed and tugged backward against her collar. What if she escaped? A sick dog could bite her, even kill her! Allen gave the collar a frantic pull and Susie tumbled into him through the window, harder and heavier than he expected. He lost his balance and fell off the dryer, and both of them crashed to the floor.

Allen screamed. It
hurt.
For a second everything went black, but then it got better and he could see again. Susie! The dog lay on her side next to him, whimpering, and when he tried to touch her she growled at him.

“Susie! Is anything broken? Are you all right?
Susie
…” It was an anguished howl.

Susie inched toward him and licked his hand.

Slowly Allen got to his knees. He couldn't get any higher. Susie stood, too. From his pocket Allen took another pill and a piece of cheese. After she'd gobbled it down, he struggled, still on his knees, out of the laundry room to the filing cabinet.

But Susie wouldn't get in. She growled and even snapped when he tried to make her. So he sat by the metal cabinet, the dog on his lap, until she fell asleep, and then he stuffed her back in the bottom drawer. He could hardly do it, his body hurt so much. Every time he breathed, his chest hurt him. He tried to breathe just a little bit, because that was less painful.

Somehow he got back up on the dryer, through the window, and into the house. By then he was crying. Allen burrowed into his bed and pulled the covers over his head, praying desperately to God that his chest would stop hurting, that Susie hadn't broken any of her old bones, that pretty soon everything would somehow be all right.

Tessa ran the mile and a half through the dark residential streets of Frederick to her sister's house on Delmore Lane. She had only a limited time before Maddox thought to send agents to Ellen's house. Halfway there, she stopped to bend over briefly and breathe. Her stride was off from carrying Salah's laptop.

Ellen and Jim's fifties-style split level sat on a side street, shaded by now bare maples, bordered by the flower beds Ellen loved. The house showed only one light, in the living room. Tessa approached from the backyard next door, scanning for possible Bucars. None yet, as far as she could tell. The living room curtains weren't drawn. From one side she peered carefully into the window.

A teenage girl lolled on the sofa, eating nachos from a bag and watching television. A babysitter. Better than Tessa had hoped.

Both front and back doors were locked, as were all the windows. But sometimes people weren't so careful with the second story. It had been warm earlier today—warm enough to leave the backyard littered with toys—and Ellen might have opened windows to air out bedrooms. All that infant vomiting.

In the darkest corner of the backyard, Tessa shrugged out of Jess Langstrom's jacket, pushed it and the laptop under a bush, and brought a tricycle close to the back wall under a window. Balancing on the bicycle seat, she could just reach the eaves of the house's lowest, half-underground level. Her feet found the narrow upper window framing and she pulled herself to the roof, panting a bit.

She used to be better at this. At twenty-eight, she'd qualified for elite hostage-rescue training. But thirty-five wasn't twenty-eight and there had been slacker—not slack, but slacker—years in between.

The roof gave onto no windows, but there was one just around the corner, at the house's front. More dangerously visible, but necessary. Tessa reached around and felt with her fingers. The window wasn't locked.