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  “Sounds like a plan.”

  Vic set the hook. “We’ll dock by sunset, go out to eat and sling a few, then head back. Think of it as an advance vacation. I don’t think you’ve used your vacation days this year.”

  Melvin Brody pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose. “No, I haven’t. All right. Sure. Not like I have anyone expecting me at home.”

  Vic knew Brody was divorced, with no kids.

  “Meet me in the parking lot around three,” he said. “Let’s kick back. Screw Slattery.”

  Melvin grunted his agreement.

  Vic changed his clothes on the boat. White ducks, striped polo, and a white canvas captain’s cap with braid trim. Just like all the other jerks. It was important to blend in.

  They pulled out of the Columbia Island Marina right on schedule.

  Melvin Brody had put on a sweater. He was sitting at the stern, spread out on a seat with a waterproof cushion, his arms resting on the rail. He looked like he couldn’t believe his good luck.

  He even waved to a couple of cute girls coming in.

  What a jackass. Vic steered clear of the smaller craft, turning the wheel and throttling down to minimize the wake as he swung the boat into the channel.

  He heard Brody whoop. “This is the life!”

  “There’s beer in the galley,” Vic called to him. “And you can warm up the burritos right now.”

  “A galley. That’s a kitchen, right? I’d love a burrito. Hell, I could eat two. Spicy if you have ’em,” Brody joked.

  “Then you’ll love these. I added a little something to the filling.”

  The other man heaved himself up from his seat and walked uncertainly to the ladder leading down into the cabin.

  Vic slowed the engines so Brody wouldn’t stumble. They were well under way. At some point he turned to see the other man chomping on a burrito and swigging a beer.

  A few minutes later the paper wrapping floated past Vic, caught in the updraft. He turned around and saw Melvin toss the beer bottle overboard. What a pig.

  His passenger went back for seconds, hollering, “Want a burrito?”

  “No.” Vic turned around, looking out at the water again. A lot of pleasure craft were out at the close of day, but keeping a good distance.

  Melvin Brody belched so loudly Vic heard it over the low engines. Your last meal, he thought. Enjoy it.

  He gave the throttle a hard shove and they picked up speed. He had no reason to dawdle. Two burritos laced with crushed downers ought to do it—the spices would cover the bitterness of the pills.

  The bay was flat and he didn’t see too many other boats. None were close enough that anyone waved.

  An hour later Mel fell out of his seat with a heavy thump.

  Vic cut the engine and jumped down from the bridge. The unconscious man’s head rolled on the textured fiberglass of the inside deck, his body limp. He shoved him under the seat and used a bailer filled with heavy tools and a thick coil of rope to keep him there.

  The water was calm. They hadn’t passed the Cape Henry lighthouse yet. They might hit some chop beyond it, in the open ocean.

  Vic returned to the bridge, taking the boat through the buoys with no problem, doing a visual check on Brody now and then.

  With the lights of Virginia Beach dwindling behind him, he idled until nightfall, bobbing on the calm sea. He stayed far away from the fishing boats, tiny bright spots on the water.

  Brody didn’t stir. Vic killed his running lights fore and aft before he moved farther out and switched off the engine. He left the bridge again and went down into the galley, opening a cabinet where he’d stowed duct tape and a spool of thin, strong rope. Below that were flat weights left over from a training machine. There were several ten-pounders and some fives.

  The moon was a sliver in the dark sky. It was all the light he needed. He stripped Brody in seconds, setting aside the wallet and watch and putting the clothes in a pile. The man groaned, his flabby chest heaving with the effort to breathe. But his eyes stayed closed.

  Vic threaded the thin rope through the heavy weights, tying them at the ankles and Brody’s neck, double-wrapping everything with duct tape. He’d use the lighter weights to sink the clothes and the emptied wallet separately.

  Best to burn the credit cards and ID, he thought. He had a steel bucket and lighter fluid on board. He could make a small bonfire safely enough and get it over with. He hated the nasty smell of burning plastic.

  He pulled out the gangplank next to the cleats and set it next to Brody. With one shove, he rolled him onto it and stood, rubbing his back.

  He was a little out of practice.

  Brody didn’t move or make a sound although he was still breathing. Barely.

  Vic lifted one end of the gangplank, dragging it to the rail and resting it there at a low angle.

  Then he moved back to lift the other end and tip it toward the sea. It didn’t take long. For a heavy guy, Mel didn’t make much of a splash.

  He put the gangplank back and went to get the bucket. The weights were coated with plastic—he might as well burn the cards into one. He tossed a five-pounder into the bucket, adding the cards, and squirted lighter fluid over everything, standing back when he threw in the match he’d scratched. The cards melted quickly into a twisted black glob as the fluid burned out, adhering to the weight.

  Good enough. The bucket needed to cool. He bundled the clothes and wallet with a weight and tied it. Then he went back up on the bridge.

  He headed back to the channel, going slow, stopping twice before he reached it to throw in the last of Brody’s personal items.

  The buoys blinked as he passed between them. It would be another hour before he turned north into the Lower Potomac. Not a problem. The boat had enormous gas tanks, more than enough for the round trip to the ocean and back. He wouldn’t have to refuel.

  Vic had time to think.

  He was getting sick of SKC and Slattery. And he was aware that killing Brody might backfire, even though it would be days before anyone missed a loser like him.

  Maybe it was time he left the States, period. He’d had offers. There were laws against U.S. citizens helping to train foreign armies. But he didn’t care about his citizenship. He knew several countries that would issue him a new passport and provide him with a new identity. He could live like a king wherever he wanted to.

  All he had to do was choose. He would make a couple of calls next week, explore his options. He didn’t have to get on a plane. A launch or some other small craft could meet him outside the territorial limit and take him to a waiting ship. It was no big deal to blow up a fiberglass boat like this one.

  If not for a certain green-eyed vixen, he would go.

  He wanted to finish with her. Kenzie took up too much of his mental energy, more than any other woman he’d ever wanted. The others were merely all right. None had sparked his imagination the way she did.

  He wanted to see how far he could go with her and find out what really made her scream. He wondered what she was doing right now.

  The checked tablecloth was set and the covered platter in the middle smelled like fried chicken, the kind that was made in a skillet, not the kind that came in a paper bucket.

  “Sit down, honey,” Carol invited. “It feels so nice to have three at the table again. I miss Adam.”

  “He’s your one and only son,” Kenzie said,

  “And he took full advantage of that fact sometimes,” Carol remembered with a laugh. “I don’t think he ever set the table or picked up a plate in his life. It’s my own fault.”

  “What goes around comes around,” Norm said, coming into the kitchen. “He just got a job as a busboy.” He kissed his wife on the cheek.

  “He didn’t tell me that.”

  “You were out when he called.” Norm lifted the lid off a pot of green beans. “Don’t overcook these,” he said.

  Carol handed him a long-handled spoon. “You watch them.”

  Norm grinned at Ke
nzie and stirred the pot.

  She looked around for a serving dish and found one on a shelf at eye level. Carol kept an old-fashioned kitchen, with lattice-look wallpaper and open shelves with scalloped trim. Everything was at hand and easy to find. Kenzie set the serving dish by the stove to warm.

  “Oh, no!” Carol grabbed a pot holder and opened the oven door, quickly pulling out a baking sheet dotted with fluffy biscuits. She set the sheet on a wire shelf over the stove to cool.

  “Good save,” Norm said. He left the spoon in the pot and grabbed a hot biscuit from the sheet, tossing it from hand to hand.

  His wife intercepted it. “You’ll burn your mouth.” She put it in a napkin-lined basket on the table and picked up the baking sheet again to slide the others in with it.

  “It smells a little like Thanksgiving in here,” Kenzie said happily.

  “We may do a chicken this year instead of a turkey,” Norm said. “I mean, if Adam decides he wants to celebrate with his friends.”

  Kenzie laughed. “He’ll come home, with seven bags of laundry.”

  “I’m sure you’re right about that,” Carol said.

  Neither of the Hamills said anything about where he would sleep if he did. Kenzie thought it was nice of them. They were nothing but nice to her.

  Earlier that evening Carol had come upstairs to apologize for not inviting her to dinner in the time she’d been there, and insisted she join them.

  The issue of where she would live next wasn’t ever mentioned. They knew something about the stalker, of course, and a little about the possible SKC connection. Norm had been fine with the vest testing. But that didn’t mean they expected her to stay indefinitely.

  “You know, I’ll probably have a new place of my own well before Thanksgiving. I might even share an apartment with my friend Christine.”

  “Now, how is she doing?” Carol asked warmly. “That poor girl. I feel for her parents, I really do.”

  Kenzie updated them before they sat down, and both Hamills were glad to hear of Christine’s improvement.

  Then Carol said grace and three amens resounded.

  They tucked into excellent fried chicken and green beans that were only slightly overcooked. Norm made sure everyone had a biscuit before he took two.

  Kenzie helped Carol clear away and wash up while Norm brushed Beebee’s glossy coat. The kitchen was clean in no time.

  “Mind if I go along when you take him out?” Kenzie asked Norm.

  “Of course not.”

  She went to get the leash, handing it to Norm to clip to the dog’s collar.

  The night air had a hint of a nip, but it was refreshing after the hearty meal. She’d walked these streets plenty of times, but only during the day.

  “I love these little brick houses,” she said. “They’re alike but all different too.”

  Windows golden with warmth shone out into the darkness. She could see lamps, the occasional picture, and once in a while a person moving around the interior.

  “This neighborhood went up right after World War Two,” Norm said. “Returning GIs bought most of ’em.”

  Norm was walking beside her with Beebee out in front.

  “Look at the pumpkin cut-outs,” she said, pointing to a picture window. “Some kids are having fun.”

  “Halloween is a big deal around here. It’s a family neighborhood, always has been.”

  The children were all indoors now. She and Norm turned down a different street, keeping a companionable silence. She was content to wander. Norm’s burly presence kept thoughts of the stalker at bay.

  They went around a corner and a roar of voices startled her. Kenzie stumbled against him. It was like walking into an upholstered wall.

  “Easy there.” He laughed. “It’s only a party. College football, I guess.”

  She looked where he pointed and glimpsed part of someone’s back deck crowded with guests. The bluish light of a television she couldn’t see flickered over their watching faces.

  They continued on, matching Beebee’s pace. He stopped now and then to sniff favorite spots, then kept on moving. Orange streetlights came on, but there was nothing warm about their odd glow with so few leaves on the trees to soften it.

  The silence seemed to thicken, until the sound of running footsteps behind them made her move closer to Norm. She realized he was on alert too, looking quickly around.

  A jogger passed them, white earbuds preventing him from hearing their hello or saying one of his own.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I’m kind of jumpy.”

  Norm sighed. “You have reason to be.”

  “I wish I didn’t think so much about—something happening.”

  She figured he would understand what she didn’t say. Carol had told her a little about his years on active duty and how long it took after that for him to feel halfway normal.

  “I guess it depends. Once you get scared deep down, the feeling stays with you. Doesn’t take much to start it up, either.”

  Kenzie nodded. She took his arm and he patted her hand.

  “Give it time, Kenzie.”

  “How long?”

  “I can’t say, not for you. For myself, well—my war ended before you were born.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Linc padded barefoot across the threadbare carpet of his motel room, cup in hand. The new coffeemaker he’d bought worked okay. Throw in a milk cow and a sandwich machine and he’d be set for another day of slogging on his laptop.

  Superheroes had all the luck, he thought. Swinging on spiderwebs, saving the day with a few punches, and wrapping it all up in thirty action-packed pages. Plus the love interests tended to be easy to impress. Unlike Kenzie.

  He put down the cup and slung his long frame into his chair.

  He had to tighten the parameters to keep on searching. Gary Baum had inadvertently given him a tip that should help. SKC upper management was mostly ex-military or former military contractors once deployed overseas, according to the reporter. That meant he could pull up a lot of information.

  The Department of Defense issued Common Access Cards to allow authorized military personnel and certain civilians access to its computers and systems worldwide. Whether they were still entitled to use them didn’t matter.

  The Active Directory recognized his laptop. It shouldn’t take him too long to get into the mother lode of data—the CAC database—and get to work. Linc had never done it, but he was counting on his high-level security clearance. If he was denied access, he could call Dana Scott and ask her to patch him in.

  Gee whiz, Mike Warren would be proud. Linc didn’t have to hack into SKC servers.

  Common Access Cards had photos for general ID, so sharp that the eyes on the enlarged original could be matched to an iris scan. They were packed with encrypted data for each holder. And there were a lot of them—he had one—with about three and a half million active and unterminated cards in circulation.

  Piece of cake.

  He had copied a company phone list from Christine’s computer to obtain names, company titles, and departments. He’d start with Melvin Brody, her boss, and check every name in her department.

  Compare names to faces, and faces to the drawing Kenzie and Harry Cowles had come up with. The only part of the stalker’s face she’d seen clearly every time was the guy’s eyes.

  Linc found his photocopy of the police sketch and propped it up next to his laptop.

  Then he headed into the CAC database and got through the SSL handshake to verify his identity. The security clearance confirmation took longer. That didn’t rely on passwords.

  In fifteen minutes, he was in. Linc entered Melvin Brody’s name in the search slot and sipped his coffee.

  He looked at the face in the photo. Too old and too heavy. Brody had jowls and a tired look. His eyelids drooped and his eyes were watery blue, with none of the intensity of the sketch.

  His bio seemed routine. A stint right out of college in the National Guard, never called up, but then
there had been no need. A veteran of manufacturing management jobs around the Midwest, with better titles and salary boosts as the years went by. Married, divorced, no kids. He didn’t live too far from Christine or Kenzie. Employed by SKC since the company was founded at twice the money of his last job. A step up for him.

  Linc clicked out of Brody’s file and entered the next name on the phone list for the same department.

  Nothing panned out. Not everyone had a CAC card, though. Christine Corelli didn’t. The military connection seemed to be limited to higher-ups.

  He decided to do the same thing with them. The problem was that SKC had a lot of chiefs of this and vice presidents of that.

  After a few hours of reading dutifully through their data, he was losing hope. Linc checked the phone list. There were only ten top execs left.

  His cell phone rang. Restricted number. Linc picked up.

  “Linc Bannon.”

  His boss said hello in a dry voice. Not Chet. His lady boss.

  “Dana! Pleasure to hear from you.”

  She ignored his attempt at manly charm. “Do you plan on visiting Fort Meade ever again?”

  “Yes.”

  “I mean in my lifetime, Linc. It’s been days. Project 25 can’t move forward without your input.”

  “Nice to know I’m needed.”

  “I don’t have to pat you on the head, you know. I can fire you.”

  Linc tried to think of a reasonable, logical way to stall her. There wasn’t one. Dana was smarter than he was anyway. He gave up.

  “When do you want me back?” he asked.

  “Right now, actually. Don’t forget your pencil case.” Dana hung up.

  He walked through a Fort Meade building, feeling somewhat ill at ease. He really hadn’t been gone that long, but the orderliness of the place seemed unfamiliar to him.

  Here, he had defined responsibilities and a measure of control over the project he’d been assigned to. In the real world, trying to protect Kenzie and Christine from the crazy who was stalking them both, he had neither.

  He took a moment to compose himself before he knocked on the door of Dana’s office.