LUCAS TOOKMattson aside before he left the hospital: “I need to make sure you’re okay with this.”
“Weather’s a good friend. She helped me a lot after my... problem,” Mattson said.
“How about a grand a day?” Lucas asked.
“Lucas, that’s not...”
“Yes, it is,” Lucas said. “You’ve taken a leave, I’ve got the money. Is that good?”
“That’s better than good,” Mattson said. “I’d do it for free.”
“I know. It’s nice for all of us that you don’t have to.”
—
SHE WENT BACKto Weather, and Lucas and Letty walked out of the hospital with Flowers. In the parking lot, Flowers said, “You need anything, let me know. Anything. I can always take some undertime. If Catrin needs somebody to spell her...”
Letty got a handful of Flowers’s shirt and pulled him in and kissed him on the lips, and let the kiss linger. “Thank you.”
Lucas said, “Hey... Hey! The guy’s practically married.”
“He could still fool around,” Letty said. “I mean, God, it’s like you don’t even live in the twenty-first century.”
“Hey!”
—
LUCAS FINALLY MADEa call to Rae Givens, told her to jack up Bob. “I’m headed back to Washington day after tomorrow.”
“Ooo. We get to shoot somebody?”
“That could happen,” Lucas said. “Try to pretend you’re not happy about it.”
—
LUCAS GOTWeather settled at home, watched her for a day until she got annoyed—“I’m unhappy enough about this neck brace that I’m going to take it out on you, and I’m too tired to fight, so go to Washington and fix this,” she said.
Lucas and Letty went to the airport together, Lucas headed east, Letty west, and when they’d gotten through security, they sat at Lucas’s gate until it was time for him to board the plane. She gave him a squeeze when he got in line, and said, “Call me every night and tell me what’s happening. In case I have to come out there...”
“I’ll be okay,” he said. “I don’t want you out there under any circumstances.”
Letty could be as cold as anyone Lucas had ever known. She stepped back, and said, “There’s only one circumstance that would take me out there. Think about it.”
He thought about it on the plane. She’d be out to Washington if he were killed. She’d bring a gun. In some ways, she was a typical lighthearted college girl; in other ways, she wasn’t.
Not at all.
—
BOB AND RAEwere waiting when he got in, and they met in Lucas’s room, where he told them all about the accident.
When he was done, Bob said, “This... You can’t do this kind of thing out of your hip pocket. They had to do some intel work;they must have had some computer access to spot the drunk... If he was living with his girlfriend, he wouldn’t even have an address of his own. How’d they find him?”
“Probation records,” Lucas said. “If they have a good computer guy, he could get into state files...”
Rae nodded. “We’ve had that problem on the federal level. The files are designed to provide a fast response to people who aren’t computer jocks. For a serious hacker, getting in there would be child’s play.”
“And we’re dealing with people who probably have access to federal computer systems,” Lucas said.
