She grew very still.
"I'm glad we're both still alive."
"I wonder if you could be more pleased than Grubster here." The damned cat was purring so loudly she'd had to raise her voice. I sat back, tapped my fingertips against the steering wheel for a moment, and said, "That was excellent shooting."
"Thank you."
I smiled at her and wondered just how much of a smile it had turned out to be. "At least now I know what you lied about. You're a cop, Laura. Since you were a reference librarian at the Salem Public Library, it means you were undercover. Isn't that right?"
A myriad of expressions crossed her face, from doubt, to dread, to guilt. I guess she finally realized it was just too late to go in any direction but toward the truth.
"Laura? You really can trust me. I have no intention of hurting you, or compromising your case, or blowing your cover, or getting you into trouble with your superiors. You've just got to deal me in. We've been through too much together for you to leave me blowing in the breeze any longer. I don't want to be helpless, and that's what I am if you keep me in the dark. Come, it's time."
I took her hand as I watched her take a very deep breath. I watched her come to her decision. I swear her eyes turned two shades lighter because she knew the incessant lying was over. "Yes," she said. "Yes, I'm a cop."
I just nodded for her to continue. Grubster continued purring at high volume, his tail thumping up and down.
"They wanted to kill me," Laura said, her fingers tightening in Grubster's fur. "If I hadn't turned to get some more sunflower seeds for Nolan-"
I quickly took my gun from between us on the seat and eased it back into my shoulder holster. "Meet me halfway," I said as I smoothed down my jacket, and she did. I pulled her against me, Grubster between us again, and lightly pressed her head against my shoulder. I pulled back, touched my forehead to hers, and cupped her head with my hands. "You've been alone in this for too long. You've got me in it now.
Can you imagine what you and I can accomplish together?"
"There's really nothing more to accomplish. My cover's blown now. That's another reason for me to tell you the truth. My orders don't make sense anymore." "Tell me then. All of it." "I'm DEA, Mac. Even when I called my boss from the hospital and told him I'd been poisoned, that obviously my cover was blown to hell, he told me to lie low for a couple of days, that he'd try to find out what they know and how they'd found out. Of course I told him about you. That made him even more adamant. He said we'd worked too hard to have this case blown by the FBI. I'm sorry I had to lie to you, Mac.".
"This guy sounds like a real winner. For God's sake, they tried to poison you."
"I was getting to be a pretty good reference librarian. I read just about all the assigned texts for a degree."
"What's your real name?"
"I'm really Laura. They just changed my last name. My real last name is Bellamy. I've been undercover for over four months now. It involves drugs, of course."
"And it has to do with Paul and Jilly," I said slowly, looking closely at her. She paled and hesitated because what she was about to say was going to bring me pain.
"Just spit it out."
Grubster meowed loudly. "It's all right, Grubster. Take a nap. You've been through a lot." She closed her eyes a moment and ran her fingers through his fur. His loud purring soon filled the car again.
"About five months ago an electronic surveillance unit picked up a rumor that a new drug was being developed, one that is highly addictive and cheap to produce."
"A drug dealer's wet dream."
"Yes. A man called John Molinas was said to be bragging about it. We think Molinas is a major drug distributor, but we don't have anything solid on him. He's been in business in the past with a cartel headed by Del Cabrizo."
"I've heard of him."
"Del Cabrizo occasionally comes to the United States just to shove a finger in our face. And now the reason I'm here. The word was that there was a wealthy local man involved. It's none other than Alyssum Tarcher."
I must admit I was staring at her now. "Tarcher involved with Del Cabrizo?"
"There's more. John Molinas is Alyssum Tarcher's brother-in-law. That's probably why Tarcher's involved in this thing."
"A real kicker," I said. "I knew Tarcher was powerful, but this? He's a damned crook too?"
"Evidently so. All of this came as a bit of a surprise to us too. You see, John Molinas hasn't been active for a few years as far as we could tell. Maybe he got religion, maybe he got cancer, we just didn't know.
But when we threw Alyssum Tarcher into the mix, it didn't take us long to find out that Dr. Bartlett and his wife, pharmaceutical researchers, had just moved to Edgerton from Philadelphia into a house that Tarcher sold them for a nominal price. We put two and two together and put pressure on their employer in Philadelphia, VioTech, to tell us what they had been working on. Paul and Jilly had been working on some sort of memory drug. It sounded nuts, but still, our people went over all the research Paul and Jilly had submitted. It was obvious why VioTech had pulled the plug. Whatever else the drug did, it was toxic as hell, turned some lab animals completely nuts. They'd sunk millions of dollars into a drug that was going nowhere.
"Still, why had the Bartletts suddenly moved to Edgerton? We found out that Paul had grown up there, but there wasn't anything to draw them back."
"Alyssum Tarcher was behind it," I said.
"Right. I set up in Salem posing as a reference librarian because there was no better way I could get closer to Edgerton, to the major players there. I did go to Grace's Deli to see if she needed help, but she didn't. I couldn't just move to Edgerton. Everyone would have known I was up to no good. It's too small and tight a community."
"Why the library?"
"God, I'm so sorry, Mac. The reason I became a reference librarian was that we found out that Jilly Bartlett was coming to the library in Salem. At least three days a week, like clockwork. Our surveillance showed-oh God, Mac, I'm so sorry about this-she was meeting a lover there, always in the reference section. If I became the reference librarian, I'd have a good chance to meet her, to make friends with her, and I did. The regular reference librarian got a very nice open-ended holiday, with pay."
I had only heard one thing. "A lover? Jilly met a man in the library three days a week?"
"Yes. He's a local thoracic surgeon. No one could find out how they'd met, but as yet we have no reason to think he's involved in anything going on down in Edgerton."
I looked up to see a police car cruising slowly by, his eyes on us. I waved and turned the ignition key.
"Let's go to that McDonald's we passed. I need some breathing space and then a cup of coffee."
The McDonald's was about three miles back up the highway off Exit 133. It was tucked between a Denny's and a Wendy's, with three gas stations completing the grouping.
Grubster slept through being put back into his carrying case. Nolan didn't even squawk once when Laura slipped his cover over the cage.
Over Big Macs and coffee, I said, "You've been undercover for four months. What have you come up with?"
"You mean against Jilly and Paul?"
"Believe me, I don't give a damn about Molinas or Tarcher or this Del Cabrizo character."
"Again, Mac, I'm sorry, but the truth is that Jilly lied to me from the beginning, told me she was here because she wanted to get pregnant. She told me she was the uneducated one in the family. I don't know if she did this to protect herself or me.
"I like Jilly. When you told me she was in a coma, it really hit me hard because I do like her so much.
She's funny, lights up a room when she swings in, her skirts swishing, her hair bouncing. We did get close, but not close enough that she ever really let me in."