Using the chair back, Tim pushed himself to his feet and followed her.
Will waited on the porch, ensconced in a tube of dry air afforded by a black umbrella. He held a briefcase. Emma huddled behind his shoulder.
Tim wasn't sure what to expect until Will's face softened. He said, "Christ," and extended his fingers halfway to Tim as though reaching for something.
The Hennings followed him and Dray in and sat.
Will took in the patches of stained gauze on the floor, the line of prescription bottles on the coffee table. He ran a hand over his face, tugging at the bags beneath his eyes.
"This thing didn't go down like we wanted it to."
"No," Tim said. "It didn't."
"We received a troubling e-mail purporting to be from Leah."
Will removed his laptop from the briefcase, set it on the coffee table, and booted it up. Dray plugged in the modem cord to a phone jack, and he logged on.
Emma kept her face lowered, hands twisting in her lap.
An e-mail popped up from customercare@getwiththeprogram. com.
Mom and Dad. Please leave me to make my own decisions. I am fulfilled. If you send another kidnapper after me, I will press charges. Leah. Tim sat quietly, poking at his interior lip sutures with his tongue.
Will's face contorted, just for an instant, and then he coughed into his fist, regaining control. He looked at Tim, still struggling with his grief. "You gave her a lot. No matter what's happening up there, I have to believe that's doing her some good."
Emma gathered the lapels of her raincoat and said in a distant, almost pensive voice, "Well, she's lost now."
"Don't underestimate our daughter." Will's ready conviction seemed to surprise everyone in the room, including himself. "That e-mail doesn't mean anything. For all we know, TD was breathing over her shoulder when she wrote it."
"You're right." Tim grabbed the laptop and pulled it in front of him, knocking over some prescription bottles. He studied the screen, then clicked through the routing information, the jumble of words and numbers at the bottom of the e-mail. A hyperlink stood out in blue.
Tim caught Dray's eye, excited, and clicked it.
Another screen popped up. if Tim's alive tell him not to come up here for me. many more protectors. skate's on me almost all the time. i'm working on the website in the mod, have snatches of time alone when skate takes a leak or delivers TD his phone cord. what do you need to get a full force up here? do NOT write back here – send to my hotmail address. Tim stood up too quickly, sending a jolt of pain through his knee. "We've got to forward this to Tannino and Winston, have the Electronic Surveillance Unit take a spin through it to see if we missed anything. We'll send her a list of the evidence we need."
"How will she get it to you?" Will asked. "It's not like she can fax it out. The phone cords are guarded, and it sounds like she's only alone for minutes at a time."
"And from what you've said, there's no way she'd be left alone even for a minute when the modem's plugged in," Dray said. "If she was, she could easily have sent a private e-mail and erased its trail. The fact that she encoded a hyperlink probably means she prepped it when she was offline, then piggybacked it in when Skate or someone provided the phone cord."
"And sat watching over her," Will added.
"Then how will she get our response?" Tim asked.
"You can set a computer to autodownload your mail whenever you log on," Dray said. "I do it at the barn sometimes. She could have it saved to a hidden file and read it when she's alone and offline."
"Maybe we e-mail her back, have her hide the evidence somewhere we can pick it up," Tim said.
"They're on her twenty-four/seven," Dray said. "Plus, even under normal circumstances, no one leaves the ranch."
"Say you arranged a rendezvous when everyone's sleeping," Will said. "You could sneak back on the ranch for a handoff, then come back with a warrant and get her at that point."
"A meet would put her at too much risk." Tim pointed at the screen. "She's clear that I shouldn't go up there."
"Maybe you don't have to." Dray's brow was knitted, the idea still dawning. "Maybe we don't go to her. Maybe we wait for TD to bring her to us."
Tim, Will, and Emma looked at her blankly. Dray was smiling now, excited. "Come on, guys. Get with The Program."
Within thirty minutes of Tim's call, Winston Smith and Tannino had come up with their wish list. In addition to evidence supporting the host of mail charges – the one sure thing – they wanted any information on the Dead Link files, which now certainly included Tom Altman. Thomas and Freed added numerous financial records they hoped would give them a toehold, and the return e-mail was sent out from Will's computer and phone line by Roger Frisk, one of the ESU deputies. The e-mail included instructions for Dray's plan – where they'd retrieve Leah, what signal she should wait for – as well as suggestions as to how she might smuggle the evidence off the ranch when she left.
When asked to help, Bederman agreed immediately, a devious gleam taking hold in his eyes as Tim and Dray relayed the details.
Tim decided to drop in on Reggie alone. His room was hardly sparkling, but the furniture had emerged and the trash had been cleared out. Clothes remained strewn across the floor, but the carpet was visible in patches and the bed was made. Reggie followed Tim's incredulous stare around the room, trying to restrain a proud grin.
Tim's limp and scars didn't seem to register with Reggie until Tim recounted what had gone down. Reggie's face grew gray and tired; Tim was sad to see his levity depart. When Tim asked him to participate, Reggie nodded morosely, and Tim had to ask him again to make sure he understood the request. Only after Tim left did he realize that Reggie's brown paper bag of drugs hadn't been readily apparent.
Aside from a physical-therapy session each morning – an interminable hour in the clutches of a springy gum-smacker named Cindi who persisted in treating him like an osteoporotic centenarian – Tim spent his time with Dray, Reggie, and Bederman, organizing their game plan, and on the phone with the marshal and Winston Smith, running through various contingencies.
Tannino had transferred Tim to disability, a clever move to keep his deputization active. The external stitches came out of Tim's lip on Tuesday, leaving an angry snake of a scab along his chin. He eventually conceded that Cindi's perky instruction was effective; he was getting more ambulatory, though he wouldn't be swing dancing anytime soon.
Still they hadn't heard back from Leah, though Tim had Will checking his e-mail every hour.
Wednesday after his physical therapy, Tim went into Ginny's bare room to stretch. As he sat on the carpet, leaning forward over his purple knee to bring a burn to his hamstring, it struck him that he was tired of holding the room in fearful reverence.
The yellow-and-pink wallpaper was sun-faded, the top corner of one strip lifted away from the wall. He walked over, reached up, and smoothed the thumb-size tab back into place. Stubbornly, it sagged away again. It would need regluing.
An urge overtook him, and he grasped it and ripped. The band of paper swooped from his hand to the wall like the train of a dress. He stared at the messy diagonal tear, expecting to be overcome by remorse or sorrow, but he felt only a bizarre giddiness.
He hobbled around, snatching away great strips, watching the painted flowers puddle at his feet. Popping a handful of Advil to appease the ache in his knee and sides, he retrieved his wide-blade scraper and a platform ladder and stripped the gummy residual down to the drywall.