The Botanist (21 page)

He couldn’t do it, though. His father was right about Cody’s neglect in calling them. Cody clenched his fists. He couldn’t contain the rage, and it seeped out of his pores and his tear-ducts, making his arms shake and his vision blur. When he spoke, his voice was low and barely controlled. He forced his words through clenched teeth, but had to keep stopping so that his voice didn’t break.

“No, Dad. I’m
not
coming with you right now. My partner died tonight. And the man who murdered him is . . . hiding . . . somewhere in the desert. I have funeral arrangements to make, the press to deal with, and a killer to catch.” Cody hung his head for a moment, letting his hands and lungs release their energy.

His father’s taut, angry face had relaxed to the point of blankness.

“Tell Mom I’m
so
sorry.” A tear spilled over Cody’s lower lid. “I didn’t mean to make either of you worry. It was unintentional. And I’ll come and see her . . . as soon as I can.”

As he spoke, his father’s eyes widened with . . . could that be sorrow? Shame? Or just pity?

Cody didn’t have the strength to stand around and try to explain why his deceased-partner’s family had to come first right now. He stalked away, leaving his father looking forlornly after him.

Chapter 33

Twenty-four hours later, Alex decided to check herself out of the hospital. The doctor wasn’t happy about it, but he said as long as she didn’t sleep for more than two hours at a time for the first twenty-four hours after her concussion, she should be fine. She figured she would be awake most of the day, and even when she did sleep, she’d probably be put in the second of the town’s safe houses. She could get whichever officer stayed with her to wake her every few hours until morning.

Actually, she was hoping to have an excuse to stay up all night. Now that Tanya had planted the seed in her mind, she couldn’t stop thinking about it. When the doctor grudgingly said he’d get her discharge paperwork, Alex turned to the two officers who were guarding her door. She noted that neither of them was young. They were both seasoned beat cops. Their uniforms said they were from a unit in St. George.

“What’s your name, officer?” The man she spoke to was six inches taller than her, with dark hair and ears that stuck out like Yoda’s.

“Michaels, ma’am. My partner is Hanson.”

“Please, call me Alex. Where is Mt. Dessicate’s police chief? I need to speak with him.”

“I believe he’s gone back to the station, ma’am. Now that you’re being discharged, I should probably call and get orders from him.”

“You can call if you like, but regardless of what he says, I need to speak with him in person. Tell him I want you to take me to the station so he and I can talk privately.”

“I’ll tell him, ma’am.”

Forty
minutes later, the squad car Alex sat in the back of pulled into Mt. Dessicate’s police station. The number of reporters and camera crews hanging out on Main Street had doubled since the first day she’d arrived. Someone
did
recognize her as the victim of the latest attack, and a barrage of strangers and electronic equipment came flooding toward her.

A dozen uniforms set themselves up in a line between her and the press. Michaels and Hanson each had her by one arm and hustled her protectively into the building.

The captain met her in the lobby and took her hand.

“Alex, how are you feeling?”

“Fine,” she lied.

“Come into my office.”

Michaels and Hanson took up posts on either side of the door, which the captain shut before helping Alex into a chair in front of his desk.

“All right. I’m listening.”

“Captain, I know this is a terribly insensitive thing for me to say at a time like this, when you’ve just lost one of your own, but I, more than anyone else, need this to be over.”

The captain gave her a compassionate look. “I understand, Alex. We all want this to end, but you’re the one he’s after. You have every right to feel that way.”

“It’s not just that, Captain. Yes, he’s after me for some incomprehensible reason, but Tom was there to protect me.”

The captain put a hand up to forestall her. “Alex—”

“Please don’t give me the ‘it’s-not-your-fault’ speech. I know it wasn’t my fault, in that
I
didn’t kill him, but obviously anyone who tries to protect me is in danger. This guy is desperate to get at me. I don’t pretend to know why, but maybe we can use that to our advantage.”

The Captain’s eyes narrowed as she spoke. He looked wary. “What do you mean?”

“Most criminals are cowards, right? They wouldn’t walk into a safe house and take on a cop. I mean, Captain, he didn’t even have a gun.”

“It depends, Alex. Depends on the type of criminal and on how much he wants what’s in that house.”

“Exactly! I think he’s more than just desperate. I think it’s some kind of psychosis: he feels compelled to get me. This guy has never zeroed in on a victim before, right?”

“Not that we know of,” the captain corrected. “Besides, most of his victims, from what we can tell, never got away from him. He took them off the highway, and they never had a chance.”

“But that’s my point. He doesn’t want one that ‘got away.’ He feels compelled to come after me until he gets me. I don’t think he can help himself, even if he knows there are cops protecting me.”

The Captain frowned. “What’s your point?”

Alex took a deep breath and settled back in her seat, squaring her shoulders. “I have a plan.”

Chapter 34

Cody spent several hours at Tom’s house. As soon as he arrived, almost trembling with how different everything was from the last time he’d been there, Hank threw himself into Cody’s arms, sobbing into his shoulder. A fresh wave of tears misting Cody’s vision, he picked Hank up and took him into the living room. They wept together, Cody rocking the boy back and forth. He felt like he ought to say something comforting, but he couldn’t think of anything. He couldn’t make his mind form coherent thoughts. Hank eventually cried himself to sleep and Cody laid him on the couch, covering him with a throw.

Margaret came in and sat down opposite him. She gave Cody a grateful look. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, but she was calm.

Cody had a hard time looking her in the eye. “I’m sorry, Margaret,” he finally blurted out. “I’m sorry he was there instead of me.”

Margaret shook her head, wiping away a runaway tear as though it were merely a stray wisp of hair. “It’s not your fault, Cody. The captain told me what happened—that you had something else to attend to and there was no one else to stay with that woman. What’s her name?”

“Alex,” Cody whispered, but he didn’t think Margaret really heard him.

“Besides, if you’d been there, it would probably be you we would need to make arrangements for.”

Cody didn’t answer. Tom was a good cop, but he was older than Cody and carried more weight. Cody tended to think that perhaps, had it been him in the safe house with Alex, he could have done more—moved more quickly, had more strength—and that the night might not have ended in tragedy. But Margaret was right: that might not be true. The assailant might have taken him by surprise just as he had Tom.

Running through that line of thinking would only drive Cody crazy, and neither argument would bring Margaret any comfort now.

Cody cleared his throat. “Speaking of arrangements, what can I do to help?”

Margaret shrugged. “Deana and Yvonne and Patricia have already been in touch with me. They’re taking care of the pleasantries—flowers, food for the wake, that sort of thing. They’ll sit with me and the kids tonight.”

“Good.” Deana and Yvonne were Frank and Court’s wives, respectively. Patricia was the captain’s.

A moment later, Margaret met his eyes. “Maybe . . . could you talk to Linda? Find out when she’ll have things taken care of, and what she needs from me?”

“Of course. I know she’ll need his dress uniform, but I’ll ask her what else.”

“I’ll have it dry-cleaned,” Margaret managed thickly. “Then I’ll have to iron it, of course. It’ll take me a day or two to get it to her.”

Cody doubted Tom’s fancy uniform needed to be cleaned or ironed. Most cops took prodigious care of their dress blues, and the Mt. Dessicate police hadn’t had an occasion to wear them for months. But who was he to contradict Margaret in her grief?

“What else can I do?”

“I think everything else is taken care of.”

“I didn’t mean the arrangements, Margaret.”

She looked at him for a long time. Then her eyes went to Hank, sleeping peacefully on the couch beside Cody.

Margaret shrugged again. “Hank’s in love with you, Cody. Always has been.”

“And I’ll be here for him. Whenever he needs me.”

She gave him a small smile, and it was painful to watch. “I appreciate that, Cody, but you have your own life to live. You can’t always be here with us.”

“That’s true. But I can be sometimes. And I will be, as long as I’m not a burden.”

“You know you’re not. Hank will have a hard time with this. I think he’ll have questions about his father, about how he died, about why
this
was Tom’s chosen profession. They’re questions I don’t know how to answer.”

Cody didn’t think anyone, even most cops, knew how to answer them. The job was a calling, one most cops couldn’t get away from even if they wanted to. He didn’t know how he could explain that to a boy Hank’s age, or how to put such things into words at all. He dreaded the day when he would have to.

“I’ll be here to answer them for him. I’ve been where he is.”

“You have?”

“It wasn’t my father that died, but my true hero was always my uncle.”

Margaret nodded. “He died in the line of duty?”

“Yes.”

“Is that why you became a cop?”

Cody considered that. “I probably would have become one anyway, but it instilled a passion.”

“Do you think Hank will follow in Tom’s footsteps?” She studied the coffee table as she spoke.

“Would it be a bad thing if he did?”

Margaret didn’t answer right away, and Cody was relieved when Margaret finally shook her head.

“No. I just hope these tragedies aren’t cycles in a family of cops.”

“They aren’t,” Cody assured her, though he really had no idea what the statistics on such things were. “After all, I’m still here.”

She smiled appreciatively at him, then looked down at her hands.

They sat in silence for several minutes. Then Margaret’s face crumbled, and she hung her head. Cody stood and went to sit beside her on the couch. He wrapped his arms around her, and she cried into his chest.

After a time, Hank stirred. He woke, saw them, and the remembrance of all that had happened seeped back into his face. His complexion went from bright and curious to gray and terrified in seconds. Hank swung his legs over the side of the couch, then crossed to where Cody and Margaret sat. He put one pudgy finger under Cody’s eyelid and dragged it gently downward over Cody’s wet face and under his chin. Hank watched the tear his finger was pushing along until it left Cody’s face. Then he hugged his mother’s shoulder.

She put her arm around him, and the three of them cried together.

It
was after four when Patricia showed up with dinner for the family. Cody doubted any of them would eat for several days, but with Patricia there to watch over Tom’s family, he excused himself to return to the station.

He barely noticed the time or the miles pass as he drove into town. The extra squad cars and news crews lining the streets didn’t register at all. It wasn’t until he got into the lobby of the station that he took notice of his surroundings.

There was a bustle of activity in the station that was . . . constructive almost. Bodies moved with purpose rather than chaos. Clusters of people stood around various tables and computer monitors, making plans, testing equipment, and going over maps.

A man breezed by Cody. It was Frank. Cody grabbed his sleeve.

“Frank. What’s going on, man?”

Frank looked surprised to see Cody standing there. His red-rimmed eyes became wary. “Um . . . maybe you should go talk to the captain, Cody.”

Cody’s eyes narrowed. “About what?”

“Cody!” The captain called from the doorway of his office, motioning him over. Cody gave Frank a suspicious look, but Frank looked back at him levelly. Cody heard a familiar voice amidst the din and craned his neck to see around Frank. Alex was sitting at a desk with Court. They were pouring over a map of the desert north of the city.

“Frank, what’s she doing here? Who let her out of the hospital? Shouldn’t she be resting?”

“Uh, first of all, you should know that Alex is not a woman that anyone
let’s
do anything.”

“But—”

“Just go talk with the captain, Cody.”

Heaving a sigh, Cody crossed the lobby. The captain shut the office door behind him.

“What’s going on, Cap?”

“Now, Cody, I’m going to tell you right off to calm down.” The captain perched on the edge of his desk and indicated a chair, but Cody ignored him.

“About
what?”
What at first had been wariness, then worry, was now panic spreading through his chest.

The captain studied him for a few seconds before answering. It felt like an hour. “We have a plan.”

“Great. Best news I’ve heard all day. What is it?”

“We’re setting a trap for the Botanist.”

That didn’t sound so bad. Suspicious, he asked, “What kind of a trap?”

The captain didn’t answer right away, his eyes wandering back toward the lobby. Cody followed his gaze and found Alex, still bent over a map. He was still worried about her. She ought to be resting.

Then it dawned on him. His head snapped back to meet the captain’s gaze.

“Tell me we’re not using her for bait.”

The captain sighed, looking very tired.

Cody sprang to his feet. “Why would you even consider a plan like that?”

“Because it’s the only one we have. If you have a better one, Cody, believe me, I’m all ears.”

Cody studied the floor furiously.

“That’s what I thought,” the captain said gently. “I don’t need to tell
you
that we need to get this guy. I would have thought you’d be on board with anything that had even a remote chance of working.”

Cody looked at the captain. It was true that he, maybe more than anyone, wanted to bring this coward to justice, but not at Alex’s expense. Hadn’t she been through enough?

“If you really thought that, then why were you afraid to tell me this? Why start by telling me to stay calm?”

The Captain didn’t answer right away.

“She’s a civilian, Captain. She’s hurt, she’s traumatized. How can you ask her to do this?”

“I would never ask a civilian to do something like this, Cody. She came to us with it, offering to help.”

“And that makes it right?”

“You’re right. Under other circumstances, I wouldn’t even consider it. But we don’t have any idea where this guy is. We have no idea where to start looking. Apparently, he’s willing to come inside the city limits and hurt people to get at her. He’s an imminent threat to the town, Cody, and we’ve got to get him into cuffs. Now.

“As long as she’s willing, I’m taking her up on her offer. We have to draw him out. And we know he’ll come for her.”

Cody shut his eyes for a second. The horror of the entire situation was becoming too much for him. Tom’s family at home, crying their eyes out; Alex in danger once again; every cop in the southern part of the state wanting so desperately to catch this guy that they were abandoning all protocol.

“And if she changes her mind?”

“I don’t think she would have suggested it only to change her mind a few hours later.”

“But what if she did?” Cody insisted.

“This isn’t something we can force her into. We need her fully cooperative and alert for this.”

“But she’s not alert. She has cracked ribs and a concussion. She ought to be resting.”

The captain sighed and got to his feet. “The decision’s been made, Cody. Unless she changes her mind, this is happening. Tonight. She’ll be surrounded by cops. We’ll keep her safe. And with any luck, we’ll have this guy by dawn.”

Cody
wandered out into the lobby, practically shaking with helplessness. He felt like he was climbing walls, only he wasn’t confined. Except that he was. He couldn’t find the killer, he hadn’t been able to save Tom, and he couldn’t stop Alex from putting herself into a lethal situation. The captain could be downright mulish when he put his mind to something. Cody couldn’t stand it—any of it.

His eyes fell on Alex, who was being tutored on what to expect from several different scenarios that might possibly play out once they got into the desert. Her face was bruised and her eyes looked tired, but her smile came easily and frequently. Cody had a hard time tearing his eyes from her.

After a while, someone came to stand beside him.

“Hey, Cody.”

He turned to Court. “What exactly is the plan, here?”

“We’re going to put her in some clothes that look like the same ones she was wearing yesterday. We’ll even spatter them with red paint. Then we’re going to put her back into his van, and let her drive aimlessly around the desert for a while.”

“Seriously? Why would that work?”

Court shrugged. “I don’t know if he’ll believe the ploy, but Alex has a point: he seems desperate to get at her, and he’s escalating, which means he’s no longer thinking clearly. Even if he knows it’s a trap, I think he’ll make a grab at her anyway. He can’t help himself.”

“And where will we be?”

“Close by. All around. We’ll have men hiding in fox holes and crevices; we’ll have squad cars and emergency vehicles hidden under nearby overhangs. We’re gonna put a wire on her so that we can hear what’s happening, and the second she sees him, she’ll tell us.”

“Yeah, but the media already broke the story.”

“Not all of it. They broke the story that a cop was killed by this guy, and a woman was snatched. It hasn’t been made public, yet, that she got away. And anyway, if he lives in the mountains out there, he may not have a media outlet. He may not be following the investigation at all.”

“We don’t know that.”

“No,” Court admitted, “but I think it’s a real possibility.”

“Even so,” Cody persisted, “what about the fact that he probably
does
live out there? He
knows
all of the overhangs and crevices. What if he watches us get all our guys get into place? He may be ten steps ahead of us.”

“Maybe, but I think you’re giving him too much credit. If he lives out there somewhere, I don’t think he has a state-of-the-art security system. You can’t plug something like that into red rock. He may know the area better than we do, but he can’t watch hundreds of square miles of terrain all at once. We’re already moving people into place.”

“Now? In the heat of the day?”

“Yeah. Some of them are dressed as hikers. They’ll pitch tents and then move into position when it gets dark. Others are driving miles out of their way, just so they can approach from the other side of the range. They’ll use night vision goggles to find where they need to be. Trust me, Cody, this will work. He won’t know they’re there.”

“What if he doesn’t take the bait?”

Court shrugged. “He may not. But if not, we won’t be any worse off anyway.”

Cody nodded. He was out-voted. It would be better, now, to become a part of it. It might be the only way he could protect Alex. Unless . . .

“So what can I do to help?”

“Ask the captain where he wants you. When you have a minute, I’ll show you the route she’ll be driving. It’s a loop, but we’ll have people placed all along it.”