Part 51 (1/2)

Enough said.

”What are you going to tell him?” I asked.

”That it took a while to track you down, but I finally found you,” she said.

”Then what happens?”

”Like I said, you go somewhere safe. And that won't be your house in Connecticut.”

”The Bureau Hotel, huh?”

”Now with free HBO,” she said jokingly.

”Very funny. Well, kind of funny. No, actually, not funny at all.”

The Bureau Hotel was what agents called the various safe houses across the country that the FBI used. They were mainly for trial witnesses who needed protection, but sometimes, as in my case, an agent was forced to check in.

”Seriously, though, you should decide what you want to do about your boys,” she said.

”I already have,” I said. ”If someone's trying to kill me, I hardly want them at my side, no matter where I'm being stashed.”

”Should they still be at camp, though?”

”Yes-but they're about to get two new counselors, if you know what I mean.”

She did. ”I'll make the arrangements from your house,” she said.

I thought for a moment about Director Barliss and his perfectly aligned pushpins up at Camp Wilderlocke. I tried to imagine someone telling him that he was about to have two young FBI agents joining his staff for a bit. Other than that, though, there wasn't much to smile about.

If only to take my mind off everything, I turned on the radio to get the traffic report for the approaching Whitestone Bridge. The station was 1010 WINS-”All news, all the time.”

Amazingly, my timing couldn't have been any better.

If I didn't kill us first, that is.

”Look out!” yelled Sarah.

I whipped my head up from the radio to see the back of a Poland Spring delivery truck filling up my entire winds.h.i.+eld. Had I been a nanosecond later on the brakes, we would've rear-ended it for sure. Boom, smash, air bag city.

And all I could say to her, pointing at the radio, was, ”Did you hear that?”

Chapter 80

I CRANKED UP the volume, all the way to eleven. It was a news story about the murder of a young couple.

Killed on their honeymoon.