“Description of the driver?”
“A woman. Dark hair tied back, aviators.”
“Oh,thatwoman.”
“You know her?”
“No! You need to work on your descriptions if you’re gonna be a star witness in all this.”
“I was panicking! I’d know her if I saw her again. Could they have been the FBI, undercover or something?”
“Hardly their style. But I guess the Feds got their search warrant. And since you gave them the slip, they decided not to play nice about it.”
“Igave them the slip? You gave it to them on my behalf.”
“You came willingly.”
“Well, now that we can’t get my computer, I’m not much use to you, so maybe it’s time to drop me off at the Montrose Police Station.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, distracted by the blackboard menu. “Coffee?”
“Now?”
“As good a time as any.”
“Actually, yes,” Alice said, salivating. “Double espresso.”
When he returned with a takeout bag and two coffees, they moved the bike to a sheltered area hidden from the road by a stand of pines, and he took off his helmet and began changing the license plate again.
“Carter?” she said as she removed her helmet. “Couldn’t help noticing you were a little noncommittal back there, when I suggested you drop me at the police station. I know the desk sergeant. I’m sure she would?—”
“I almost envy you your faith in authorities. Didn’t you read the book you’ve just written? Murder, corruption, blackmail?”
“It was … fiction,” she said, hating the whine in her voice.
“The people after you certainly aren’t,” he said, mumbling through a mouthful of burger. “I wouldn’t be going home if I were you. And we don’t know who we can trust in the FBI orthe CIA or the cops. Anyway, the fact that we can’t get your computer makes you more valuable to me, not less.”
“I can’t imagine how.”
“You probably don’t know what you don’t know.”
“Can’t argue with that.”
“For starters, are you sure Nika died of cancer?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“How?”
“How did shedie?”
“How are you sure it was cancer? Was there an autopsy? I’m not being weirdly morbid,” he added, after noting Alice’s expression. “Former spies don’t always die of natural causes.”
“Well, I took her to oncology appointments, and sat with her while she had chemo, whenever I could get off work. They don’t give that to people who don’t need it. Plus, I was with her at the hospital almost until the moment she passed. Are you thinking of those Russian poisoning cases? What do they call it—the Moscow Plague? Pretty sure it wasn’t that. I know what cancer looks like. Her struggle wasn’t as drawn out as some, but by the end…”
“By the end?”
Alice perched on a thick wooden post. “She looked like she was in her seventies, not her thirties. I guess there was no need for an autopsy at that point.”
