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people had been trying to do to him during his hurried flight across the
Southwest.
Now they d gone so far as to kidnap a sweet, totally innocent young girl.
Yes, Jake was discovering that it was possible for him to feel real anger. The
anger was still small, still contained. Nothing like Arriaga s barely
repressed fury, but anger nevertheless. As he sat there and wondered what to
do next and watched the anguish fill Arriaga s face, the anger continued to
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grow within him.
Somerset turned off the tape recorder. The gown she was wearing was yellow
with orange trim. It plunged in front at a sharp angle, creating what Huddy
liked to refer to as the view from Toroweep Point, Grand Canyon. It was open
to a point not far below her navel. Only a thin orange ribbon held it together
at waist level.
Huddy lay on the bed in his underwear, considering both the contents of the
tape and the nightgown.
That s the latest, she told him.
We should have picked him up in Abilene, Huddy murmured. Or in Benson. Or
outside Phoenix. Everything s getting so complicated. It all seemed so simple,
so easy at first. Just pick him up and deliver him to Navis for testing. He
laughed hollowly.
She sat down on the bed next to him. You re making a career out of worrying,
Benjy. Everything s under control. You heard. The cops don t have the
slightest idea what s happened to her.
Yeah, but now FBI....
Cops in suits and ties, she said soothingly, caressing him. Let Mama
Somerset handle things. She was a little miffed at his preoccupation with
Pickett, especially since they hadn t seen each other in days.
What if they find the bugs we ve put in the Ramirez house?
Now why on earth should they start looking for telephone taps? she said
irritably. You heard what the agent s theory was. They re all looking for
out-of-town car thieves.
Pickett must have some idea that we re behind it all.
Maybe, maybe not. You told me yourself the old man s not too bright. Not
that it matters. She put her arms around his neck. Tomorrow morning we ll
find some way to isolate Pickett from the rest of the girl s family. Then
we ll get in touch with him. All you have to do is mention the grandniece and
he ll do whatever we want him to. Don t you see, it s over? Finished. I admit
it s been more trouble than we an-, ticipated, but none of that matters in the
end so long as we re successful. And we have been successful.
You ll pick him up and escort him to Hobby Airport, fly him back to L.A. and
turn him over to your pet mad scientist, and that will be the beginning of
things for us, not the end. As to the grandniece, we ll just let her go. She s
so doped up she ll never be able to tell anyone who snatched her or why. And
since she hasn t been harmed, Somerset shrugged, I m sure that her family
will want to forget about the whole business as quickly as possible.
As far as the FBI and the local cops are concerned, that ll be the end of
the case. There s no injured party, there are no leads, the parents will be
satisfied just to have their daughter back, and everything will be filed and
forgotten. Then, if Navis can learn how the old man does it, we ll be heading
for heights that ll make the presidency of CCM look like a consolation prize
for the losers at a Phi Delta sorority party.
No, if about it, Huddy said. Already he felt better. Somerset never failed
to make him feel better. We ll get what we need out of him. I m taking all
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restrictions off Navis. He turned to face her, finally relaxed enough to
think about something besides Jake Pickett.
I always did like that gown.
What part do you like the most? She sat back on her haunches and smiled at
him.
The parts that aren t there. He reached for the orange ribbon.
Endless, the dream seemed. On and on it went, liquid and black, with her as
the nexus afloat in a sea of nothingness. A
dark ocean buoyed her from beneath. Stars pressed close, sometimes too close.
It was warm and soft and somehow still not very relaxing.
Occasionally the stars shifted, and once the dream was gently shattered by
the intrusion of huge, distorted planetary bodies that assumed the form of
human faces. These globular shapes seemed capable of conversing with one
another in some profound planetary tone. Their words were unintelligible.
Fortunately they didn t stay long, letting her slip back into the depths of
the fuzzy, uneasy dreaming, to drift alone on the supportive back of the
emptiness.
Unexpectedly the stars started to fade from the dream sky, the black ocean to
evaporate. Dark waves no longer moved gently beneath her, though her support
remained soft and comforting. The waves went away altogether and she grew
afraid the empty sky might swallow her up. Then it too began to move, falling
away from her eyes, retreating into focus. The sky lightened, became a
ceiling, and she knew that the stars had lived only on the backside of her
retinas.
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