The Winner, Page 35

  out an envelope. “There’s ten thousand dollars in here. Pack your bags, go to the airport, get on a plane, and get the hell out of here. Call me when you get to wherever you’re going and I’ll send enough money to keep you in hotels and restaurants for as long as you want.”

  “I don’t want money, LuAnn. I want the truth.”

  LuAnn pushed back the urge to scream. “Dammit I’m trying my best to save your life.”

  He dropped the card onto her front seat. “You warned me and I appreciate that. But if you won’t help me, I’ll get it from somewhere else. One way or another, this story is being told.” He looked at her ominously. “If this person is half as dangerous as you say he is, you might want to think about getting the hell out of here. My butt may be in the crosshairs now, but it’s only my butt. You’ve got a kid.” He paused again and right before he turned to leave he said, “I hope we both make it through this, LuAnn. I mean that.”

  He walked across the parking lot to his car, got in, and drove off. LuAnn watched him go. She took a deep breath, trying to calm her shaken nerves. Jackson was going to kill the man unless she did something. But what could she do? For one thing, she wasn’t going to tell Jackson about her meeting with Donovan. She looked around the parking lot for any sign of him. But what was the use? He could be anyone. Her heart took another jolt. He could’ve tapped her phone lines. If so he would know about Donovan’s phone call, that they had planned to meet. If he knew that, it was highly likely that he had followed her. Then Jackson would already be tracking Donovan. She looked down the road. Donovan’s car was already out of sight. She slammed her fists into the steering wheel.

  Although LuAnn didn’t know it, Jackson had not tapped her phone line. However, as she drove off, she also had no inkling that directly beneath her seat a small transmitter had been affixed to the floorboard. Her entire conversation with Donovan had just been heard by someone else.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Riggs turned off the receiving unit and the sounds of LuAnn’s BMW coming through his earphones vanished. He slowly took off the headphones, sat back in his desk chair, and let out a long breath. He had anticipated obtaining some information about LuAnn Tyler and her discussions with the man he now knew to be Thomas Donovan, a newspaper reporter. The name was familiar to Riggs; he had seen the guy’s byline in past years. However, Riggs hadn’t anticipated stumbling across something that had all the earmarks of a major conspiracy.

  “Damn.” Riggs stood up and looked out the window of his home office. The trees were stunning, the sky a pale blue that was both dazzling and soothing. To the right a squirrel scampered up a tree, a chestnut secured between its jaws. Farther back, through the thickness of the trees, Riggs could make out a slender procession of deer headed by a six-point buck as they made their way cautiously toward the small spring-fed pond situated on Riggs’s property. So peaceful, so serene, all that he had hoped for. He looked back at the receiving device he had used to listen in on LuAnn and Donovan’s conversation. “LuAnn Tyler,” Riggs said out loud. Not Catherine Savage, not even close, she had said. New identity, new life, far, far away. That was something Riggs could certainly relate to. He eyed the phone, hesitated, then picked it up. The number he was calling had been given to him five years ago, for emergencies, just as, unknown to Riggs, Jackson had provided one to LuAnn ten years ago. Just for emergencies. Well, Riggs decided as he punched in the numbers, he supposed this qualified as such.

  An automated voice came on the line. Riggs left a series of numbers and then his name. He spoke slowly in order to let the computer verify the authenticity of his voice patterns. He put down the phone. One minute later it rang. He picked it up.

  “That was fast,” Riggs said, sitting back down.

  “That number gets our attention. What’s the situation? You in trouble?”

  “Not directly. But I’ve come across something I need to check up on.”

  “Person, place, or thing?”

  “Person.”

  “I’m ready, who is it?”

  Riggs took a silent breath and hoped to God he was doing the right thing. He would at least hedge his bets until he understood matters a little better. “I need to find out about someone named LuAnn Tyler.”

  LuAnn’s car phone buzzed as she was driving back home.

  “Hello?”

  The voice on the other end of the line made her breathe easier.

  “Don’t tell me where you are, Charlie, we can’t be sure this line is safe.” She checked where she was on the road. “Give me twenty minutes and then call me at the prearranged spot.” She hung up. When they had come to the area, they had identified a pay phone at a McDonald’s that would receive incoming calls. That was their safe phone.

  Twenty minutes later she was standing at the pay phone, snatching it up on the first ring.

  “How’s Lisa?”

  Charlie’s tone was low. “Fine, we’re both okay. She’s still bumming, but who can blame the kid.”

  “I know. Did she talk to you at all?”

  “A little. Although, I think we’re both the enemy as far as she’s concerned right now. That little girl’s playing it close to the vest. Chip off the old block, right?”

  “Where is she?”

  “Crashed on the bed. We drove all night, and she didn’t sleep much, just stared out the car window.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Right now we’re at a motel on the outskirts of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, just across the Maryland state line. We had to stop, I was falling asleep at the wheel.”

  “You didn’t use a credit card, did you? Jackson can trace that.”

  “You think I’m a novice at being on the run? All cash.”

  “Any sign that you’ve been followed?”

  “I’ve varied my route, gone the interstate, back roads, lots of stops in very public places. I’ve checked every car that even looks remotely familiar. No one’s onto us. How’s it on your end? You hook up with Riggs?”

  LuAnn blushed at the question. “You could say that.” She paused and cleared her throat. “I met up with Donovan.”

  “Who?”

  “The guy from the cottage. His name is Donovan. He’s a reporter.”

  “Aw, crap!”

  “He knows about the twelve lottery winners.”

  “How?”

  “It gets complicated, but basically because none of us declared bankruptcy. In fact we all became a lot richer through shrewd investment advice. I guess that’s pretty unusual with lottery winners.”

  “Damn, I guess Jackson isn’t infallible.”

  “That’s a comforting thought. I’ve got to go. Give me the number there.” Charlie did so.

  “I brought the portable cell phone too, LuAnn. You’ve got the number, right?”

  “Memorized.”

  “I don’t like it that you’re all alone in this. I really don’t.”

  “I’m holding my own. I’ve just got to think things through a little. When Jackson shows up again, I want to be ready.”

  “I’m not sure that’s possible. The guy’s not human.”

  LuAnn hung up the phone and walked back to her car. As unobtrusively as she could, she scanned the parking lot for anyone looking remotely suspicious. But that was the problem: Jackson never looked suspicious.

  Charlie hung up the phone, checked on Lisa, and then went to the window of the ground-floor motel room. The building was constructed in the shape of a horseshoe so that Charlie was looking out not only at the parking lot but also at the motel units on the other side of the parking lot. He had a habit of checking the parking lots every thirty minutes to see who had pulled in after them. He had selected fairly isolated places that would make it easier to flush out someone who was following them. Despite his sharp scrutiny he could not have seen the pair of binoculars focused on him from the dark recesses of the motel room directly across from his. This person’s car was not in the parking lot because he was not a paying guest of the mote
l. He had broken into the room when Charlie and Lisa had gone out to eat. The man put down the binoculars and jotted some words down in a notebook before taking up his sentry once again.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  The BMW pulled into the front drive. LuAnn sat in the car and stared up at the house. She had not gone home. After driving around for a while, she had decided to come here. The Jeep was there, so he must be as well. She got out of the sedan and walked up the wide steps of the Victorian.

  Riggs heard her coming. He was just finishing up his phone call, the paper in front of him covered with notes, more information than he had ever wanted to know. His gut was cramping up just thinking about it all.

  He opened the door to her knock and she passed through the doorway without looking at him.

  “How’d it go?” he asked.

  LuAnn drifted around the room before settling down on the couch and looking up at him with a shrug. “Not all that well, really.” Her voice was listless. Riggs rubbed his eyes and sat down in the chair opposite her.

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Why? Why in the hell would I want to get you involved in all this?”

  He paused and briefly considered what he was about to say. He could walk away from this. She was obviously giving him the opportunity to do so. He could just say you’re right and escort her to the door and out of his life. As he looked at her, so tired, so alone, he spoke quietly and intensely.

  “I want to help you.”

  “That’s nice, but I really wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  “How about ten years ago, Georgia, and you’re running from the cops for a murder you didn’t commit.”

  She stared over at him, biting her lip. She wanted desperately to trust the man; it was an almost physiologically compelling need. And yet, as she stared down the hallway to where his study was, where she had previously seen the information he had obtained on her so easily, so quickly, the doubts came flooding back to her. Jackson was suspicious of the man. Who was he? Where had he come from? What had he done in his past life?

  When she looked back over at him, he was watching her closely. He read the uncertainty, the suspicions there.

  “LuAnn, I know you really don’t know me. Yet. But you can trust me.”

  “I want to, Matthew. I really do. It’s just—” She stood up and started her ritualistic pacing. “It’s just that I’ve made a habit the last ten years of never trusting anyone. Anyone other than Charlie.”

  “Well, Charlie’s not here, and from the looks of things, you’re not going to be able to handle this alone.”

  She stiffened at the words. “You’d be surprised at what I can handle.”

  “I don’t doubt that. Not at all,” he said in a sincere, if disarming, manner.

  “And getting you involved means, ultimately, placing you in danger. That’s not something I want on my conscience.”

  “You’d be surprised at how accustomed I am to dangerous things. And people.”

  She stared at him, a glimmer of a smile on her lips. Her deep hazel eyes were intoxicating to him, calling up the fresh memory of their lovemaking.

  “I still don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Then why are you here? In spite of how terrific this morning was, I doubt if you’re here for a nooner. You’ve got other things on your mind, I can tell.”

  She sat back down and clasped her hands together. After thinking the matter over a minute she started speaking earnestly. “The man’s name was Thomas Donovan. He’s a reporter of some kind. He started investigating me.”

  “Why? Why you? The murder?”

  LuAnn hesitated before answering. “That was part of it.”

  “What was the other part?”

  LuAnn didn’t answer now; she looked at the floor. Imparting personal information to anyone other than Charlie went against every instinct she possessed.

  Riggs decided to take a shot. “Did it have to do with the lottery?”

  She slowly looked up, the astonishment starkly on her face.

  “I knew your real name; something clicked. You won a hundred million dollars ten years ago, a lot of stories about you back then. Then you disappeared.”

  She studied him warily, alarm bells ringing. His face, though, was one of complete sincerity, and finally that look subdued her suspicions, at least temporarily.

  “Yes, I won that money.”

  “So what did Donovan want? Your story on the killing?”

  “Partly.”

  “What was the other part?” he asked persistently.

  Now the alarm bells started ringing again, and this time Riggs’s honest features did not silence them. LuAnn rose. “I’ve got to be going.”

  “Come on, LuAnn. Talk to me.”

  “I think I’ve said more than I should have.”

  Riggs knew far more than she had already told him, but he had wanted to hear it from her. His source for the information on LuAnn had naturally desired to know why he wanted it. He had lied, or gotten close to it. He wasn’t going to give LuAnn Tyler away, at least not yet. He had no reason to trust her, and many reasons not to. But he did trust her. He did believe in her.

  As her hand closed over the doorknob he called to her.

  “LuAnn, if you change your mind, I’ll be here.”

  She didn’t look at him, fearful of what might happen if she did. She wanted to tell him everything. She wanted his help, she wanted to make love to him again. After all these years of fabrication, of lies, deceit, and constant fear of exposure, she just wanted to be held; to be loved for herself, not for the enormous wealth she possessed.

  Riggs watched the BMW pull out of his driveway. When it had disappeared from view he turned and went back to his study. Because of his inquiries into LuAnn Tyler, Riggs knew the Feds would undoubtedly get around to dispatching some agents to Charlottesville to talk to him or at least get the local FBI office involved. But because of his special status, they would have to jump through some bureaucratic hoops before that could be accomplished. He had some time, but not much. And once the Bureau boys showed up, it was over for LuAnn Tyler. All of her diligent work over the last ten years to remain hidden Riggs could blow up in the next few days. A very strong emotion told Riggs he could not allow that to happen, despite what he knew about the woman. In the course of his past career, deception had become a way of life. So also had reading people, telling the good ones from the bad, to the extent you could. LuAnn was a good person, Riggs had long ago concluded. Even if she didn’t want his help, she was going to get it. But she was obviously involved with some very dangerous people. And now, Riggs thought to himself, so was he.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  When LuAnn arrived home it was late; the household staff had gone, and Sally Beecham would not return until tomorrow. She went in the house through the garage, punched in the alarm code, and threw her coat and purse down on the kitchen island. She went upstairs to shower and change. She had a lot of things to think through right now.