“What?” he asked, now angrily scanning the room. “Dammit, I knew it!”
“They’re coming now!”
“Go out the back stairs and take your car, like we talked about. Take it and run. Now, Barbara!” Steven ordered.
“Come with me,” she pleaded.
“I’ll be right behind you,”
She gave us one last, fleeting look before running out.
“What’s going on?”
Steven rummaged through his duffel bag and brought out a folded-over envelope. He leaned in close and whispered softly, “Put this in your purse.”
“What is this?”
“Look for your star.”
“What are you talking about? I don’t understand—”
“Lynn, the Argentum theory—“
The door thudded. A second later, it smashed open, and agents dressed in SWAT jackets swarmed in. Steven moved past me, holding up his hands.
“You got me, OK? You got me. Don’t hurt her.”
“We have no intention of hurting her,” one of the agents said, seizing Steven and cuffing him.
“Dr. Richards, you are under arrest on a charge of domestic terrorism and kidnapping,” declared another agent, her voice muffled under the full protective mask she and the others wore. “Where is William Chance?”
“This won’t silence me,” Steven grunted, grimacing in pain. “Don’t believe them, Lynn!”
They turned him around, and he twisted back to me. “Remember what I told you!”
The agents forced him out the door and into the hall. He stumbled, and they yanked him around the corner.
I started to follow. “Please, don’t—”
“Mrs. Roseworth, I’m so sorry,” said the female agent, her ponytail now loose from where it was tucked into her shirt. “Are you all right?”
I nodded once. “I’m sorry it came to this. We had to follow you until Dr. Richards could be found. We knew he would, at some point, reach out to you. Senator Roseworth said you used to work for him.”
“My husband knows?” I asked, dazed.
“He does as of tonight, when we told him we were moving in. I want you to know we’re going to find that woman, his accomplice. We’re tracking her now. She may know the location of your grandson. Let’s go, your family is anxious to see you.”
She took off her mask, and slipped a cigarette between her lips. I blinked in recognition.
“I know you don’t like cigarette smoke.”
“But you’re Tom’s press person,” I stammered, thinking that it wasn’t that long ago when she sat at my kitchen table. “Why are you wearing an FBI jacket?”
“Let’s get you home,” she said, sneaking a quick drag and gently taking my arm.
TWELVE
“I’m sure you are more than capable of driving,” Deanna said, the red and blue lights of the police escort flickering on her face, “But after what you just went through, I thought it might be best for you to rest a bit. I know I’ve asked you already, but do you need anything? I have an extra water in my backpack.”
“Where are you taking him?”
“Likely the Davidson County jail. He’ll be booked there.”
I kept watching the snow that was starting to fall. “May I ask your actual name?”
“It’s Deanna. Deanna Ruck. I used my real name when I was assigned. There was no need to tell your husband otherwise. He thought I was a specialist in crisis communications.”
“Why did you have to lie to him?”
She tapped on the steering wheel. “Your husband will understand. Sometimes the FBI does things in order to protect and serve important people in Washington.”
“Why not come clean from the beginning that you were an agent assigned to him?”
“Because I wasn’t assigned to him. I was assigned to you.”
I looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“We identified Dr. Richards as a possible suspect pretty quickly. We’ve seen the map of your property he kept in his safe, along with the articles about your family. I know you’ve seen them too. We thought he might reach out to you.”
“You followed me to Champaign?”
“We found William’s jacket in the basement of Dr. Richards’s house. We have a team there now, looking for any trace of him.”
“Why would he leave William’s jacket there?”
“Because he was on the run, Mrs. Roseworth. Our intelligence shows he’s been involved in this antigovernment group linked to domestic terrorism. He obviously has some sort of obsession with you and your family, and he harbored some kind of vendetta towards your husband. He thought if he kidnapped William, he could hurt the senator.”
“What you’re saying doesn’t make sense.”
“It makes perfect sense.” She looked at me briefly. “It needs to make sense.”
I let that one sink in. “What does that mean?”
“No one has to know that you went in search of him. No one has to know about your relationship. It’s really going to be in the best interest of everyone involved that you have a long talk with your friend Roxy and decide that keeping all this quiet will allow your family to move on. Questioning our investigation would only force us to disclose everything.”
I sank back into the seat. “You all really think this is going to work?”
“What do you mean?”
“You get your suspect, and I get my family back? The problem is that it isn’t true, and I’ll never know what happened to my grandson.”
“Dr. Richards kidnapped your grandson, Mrs. Roseworth. We have William’s jacket and enough evidence to convince any jury. If he starts to blather on about his alien abduction theories, everyone will think he’s insane.”
“William wasn’t wearing a jacket.”
“Did I say jacket? I meant pajama top.”
I turned back towards the window, closing my eyes.
“I’m glad we could ride together, Mrs. Roseworth. Your family has already been briefed on all this: How one of Dr. Richards’s operatives contacted you and insisted you come alone to get information on his whereabouts. How you bravely went, hoping to get information, and how we trailed you without your knowledge. You’re a real heroine in all this. You might even get a profile in People magazine.”
“I don’t read that magazine.”
“I know you’ll do the right thing, Mrs. Roseworth. Your husband is home from Washington, and your entire family now knows. They’ll be waiting for you. After you catch up with them, you’ll encourage your friend Roxy to sit up with you until you fall asleep. The two of you can use that time to get on the same page.”
“Or what?”
“It’s not even pleasant to talk about that.”
“You can really save the pleasantries at this point.”
Deanna turned up the heat a bit. “It’s a shame she isn’t better about hiding all those plants her husband grows in their garden.”
“He has cancer,” I said quickly.
“And there’s all those people to whom she sells the weed—”
“She doesn’t sell. She gives it away, for medicinal purposes.” My chest was now tight.
“Drug trafficking is serious business in Tennessee. She’ll go to prison. Think about it, OK? Let’s all get on the same page. Plus we’ve been watching Dr. Richards for some time, and we have recording devices in that hotel room. You know what was said between you, and what a disaster that would be for your family to hear. You want to spare them that kind of embarrassment.”
“He didn’t tell me anything. You and your agents came just as he was about to tell me where he thought William was.”
“He would have lied to you, Lynn, to keep you hoping, to throw you off his track.”