They were open and exposed — targets to anyone who wanted to take them out.
“I’m not liking this,” Jolaine said.
No one answered, and that was fine.
As they closed to within one hundred feet of the house, a rectangle of light appeared in the center of the structure. It grew to reveal the silhouette of a man standing in the opening. From his posture, he might have been holding a pistol or he might not have. Jolaine reached under her shirt and drew her Glock from its holster.
“Do you know this guy?” Jolaine asked.
“No,” Sarah said.
“Then how do we know—”
“We know,” Sarah said, cutting her off. “The system works. Trust it.” She reached across the console and grasped Jolaine’s arm. “And trust your training. All of it.”
Jolaine jammed the brakes and the transmission, threw open her door. Shifting her Glock to her weak side — her left — she brought it to bear on the figure in the doorway, using the structure of the car for cover.
“I’m not armed,” said a male voice from the doorway. He sounded a lot like the voice she’d spoken to on the telephone. “Put your firearm away, please. We have a patient to treat.”
With that, the man approached. The farther he moved away from the light of the doorway, the more invisible he became, but he kept his hands to his sides, his fingers splayed. She broke her aim and lowered her weapon, but she did not re-holster it. Not yet.
“Where is she?” the man asked.
“Are you Doctor Jones?”
“I think we both know that I am not,” the man said. “The real name is Wilkerson. Doug Wilkerson. I’m a good guy.” Even in the dark, Jolaine saw him smile. “I’d shake your hand, but you look like you might shoot me.”
Wilkerson had a youthful look about him. He had thick dark hair that could have used some serious combing at this hour, and a thin face that looked as if it hadn’t smiled in a while. His voice had a reedy, almost adolescent quality to it.
“I very well might,” Jolaine said. She tried to keep her tone light, but she was stating the truth. She’d done a lot of shooting tonight. One more wouldn’t hurt a bit.
“So, since you have the firepower, tell me what you want me to do.”
The passenger-side door opened, startling both of them. “I’ve been shot,” Sarah said. “Forget what she wants. Patch me up before I bleed to death.”
Wilkerson acknowledged her with a glance, but otherwise, his eyes remained locked on Jolaine. “And who are you?” he asked.
“I’m Jolaine Cage,” she said. “And I think this is Sarah Mitchell.”
“You think?”
She shrugged with one shoulder. “On a night like tonight, I assume that I don’t know anything. The boy in the backseat is Graham Mitchell. That I know for sure.”
Illuminated now by the BMW’s dome light, Jolaine saw the doctor’s face darken. “Ah, the boy.”
Graham opened his door. “Right here,” he said.
Wilkerson glowered at Sarah. “You didn’t say anything about children.”
“I thought we agreed to talk about that later,” Jolaine said.
“I don’t want children here.”
“I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want to be here, either,” Jolaine said.
“Do you think this is a good time for humor, Ms. Cage?”
Jolaine didn’t understand the dynamic of what was going on. “We need to get Sarah inside,” she said. “I’ll help.”
She holstered her pistol, then reached back into the car for her M4, which she slung over her shoulder, muzzle down. She walked around the front of the car to join the doctor. Graham climbed out, too.
“Stay in the car, kid,” Wilkerson said. “You’re not coming in.”
“We’re not having this discussion now,” Sarah said. “Not while I’m bleeding to death.”
Jolaine was prepared to push Wilkerson out of the way if it came to that — the guy had a wiry look to him, like he might have done some time in the military, but he didn’t look like much of a fighter. “I’ll help you carry her inside,” she said. “You can help, too, Graham, if the doctor doesn’t want to.”
The boy moved slowly. Jolaine wondered if the reality of the situation was just beginning to settle on him — if he was just beginning to recognize the trouble they were in. His eyes had a look of hyperconcentration, as if examining a particularly difficult math problem. He responded to commands, but he seemed focused on a spot that only he could see.
Jolaine took Sarah’s left arm while the doctor took her right, and together they hefted her to a standing position and gave her a moment to settle herself.
“Can you do this?” Wilkerson asked. “Can you walk?”
Sarah nodded, but Jolaine questioned the sincerity. Pallor had given way to ashen gray, and her eyes seemed recessed into dark holes. Her body trembled with the effort of standing, and her skin felt cool and wet. These were the early signs of shock, and shock was a giant step toward death.
“We need to move,” Wilkerson said. “While she’s still conscious.” He pointed with his forehead to the door he had just exited. He and Jolaine walked in step as they navigated the walkway, and then the two steps that led to the stoop, and the one step that led to the foyer. It wasn’t until they reached the dim illumination of the porch light that Jolaine saw the blood trail. They were running out of time.
CHAPTER THREE
Washington, DC, was a city that wallowed in opposites. Everybody in this town had an opinion, and given twenty seconds and an ounce of alcohol, they’d be more than happy to share it with you. It was a town of blind ambition, flexible ethics, and no sense of either shame or loyalty. For all those reasons and more, Jonathan Grave hated the place.
Yet here he was at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, dressed like a penguin, paying a ridiculous price for a meal and a show, all in support of the Resurrection House Foundation. Founded anonymously by Jonathan via one of many cutout companies that he’d established for any number of reasons, Resurrection House was a residential school for the children of incarcerated parents. Officially run by Saint Katherine’s Catholic Church in Fisherman’s Cove, Virginia, the main building had begun life as Jonathan’s childhood mansion. Thanks in no small part to the relentless marketing by Father Dom D’Angelo, pastor of St. Kate’s and resident psychologist and headmaster, Rez House, as it was called by the locals, had become one of the “in” charities in Washington. The annual fund-raiser had become a place to see and be seen.
Among the four hundred people in attendance at the black-tie gala, Jonathan knew of only two who were aware of his involvement with the foundation, and they had been sworn to secrecy. In Jonathan’s worldview, philanthropy that was broadcast through the media was a publicity stunt in disguise. He’d rather be an anonymous guy in the crowd.
If he really had his druthers, he wouldn’t be here at all, but at home wearing shorts and a T-shirt, either reading a book or retooling his guns.
Ah, his guns. He missed the feel of the Colt 1911 .45 on his hip. This being the District of Columbia, where security was tight because of the dignitaries in attendance, and only bad guys enjoyed the privilege of being able to defend themselves, he had no choice but to join the ranks of bad-guy bait.
As ugly as the town was in its soul, he had to admit that it was home to a lot of beautiful places. Among them, he thought, was the Kennedy Center, but there were plenty of folks who would argue the opposite. The most common rap the place took was that it looked on the outside like a giant Whitman’s Sampler candy box, and that the red-on-red-on-red interior made it look like a high-ceilinged whorehouse.
Clearly, the critics had never visited a real whorehouse.