[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.She spent Christmases and holidays with her father, of course.But she married Carter Bartram, the dynamic young CEO of a rapidly growing biotech firm.She still kept in touch with Professor Abramson, distantly, professionally.She met him at scientific conferences, and once in Washington, D.C., where he won an award for his groundbreaking research.When Abramson’s wife died of cancer, Shannon was tempted to fly to Massachusetts.Instead, she sent a sympathy card and a large donation to the National Cancer Society.Then her husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer.It took several years, and they tried every treatment known to science, but in the end the cancer killed him.Shannon used the money she inherited to build the Bartram Research Laboratories, on a hilltop in her late husband’s native Oregon.By now she was a handsome woman in her late forties, with a generous figure and short-cropped hair that was kept golden blond by her stylists.She dressed well.She personally directed the work of the Bartram Labs, following the published research of Professor Abramson and other leaders in various fields of biochemistry.And now Luke Abramson was stepping out of the sedan she had sent to fetch him.She stood on the top step of the main entrance to her laboratory facility, resisting the urge to rush down and greet him.Luke looked trim and fit.His hair seemed darker than she remembered it.He looked almost like the man she had fallen so girlishly in love with, all those years ago.Then she saw Luke help a little girl out of the car.And behind the child came a slim young woman with high cheekbones and glossy dark shoulder-length hair.Nottaway PlantationJERRY HIGHTOWER FELT tired.And exasperated.The story that Lorenzo Merriwether was telling smelled like a dead prairie dog to him, but he couldn’t shake the man out of it.They were sitting in Merriwether’s so-called library.It looked more like a picture gallery to Hightower.The owner of Nottaway Plantation was trying to look relaxed, but Hightower sensed an inner tension.Merriwether was wearing a soft maroon velour pullover shirt over a pair of chinos.And an osteopathic white plastic collar around his neck.For the tenth time, Hightower asked, “How did Abramson come to this place? You said you’d never met him before he arrived at your door.”Merriwether had a phony smile painted on his face as he leaned back in the wing chair he was sitting on and crossed his long legs carefully.Hightower thought the man was stalling for time to think up an answer.“So?” he prodded.“A friend phoned me and asked me to take him in.”“A friend? Who?”“I’d rather not say.”“Would you rather be arrested for obstructing an investigation?” Hightower said it softly, gently, almost as if he were asking about the weather.But the threat was there.Merriwether’s smile dimmed a fraction.“Look.My friend heard that Abramson was traveling with his sick granddaughter and needed a place to stay for a week or so.That’s all there is to it.”“How’d your friend know Abramson?”Merriwether spread his arms in a gesture of helplessness.“Don’t ask me.”Hightower stared at the man for several moments.Pointless, he told himself.This guy has his story down pat and he’s not going to budge from it.“All right,” he said, trying to switch from bad cop to good cop.“Why did Abramson leave and where did he go?”“Something spooked him.Maybe he was afraid to stay in one place for too long.Maybe he was afraid you’d catch up with him.”Smart, Hightower thought.Put the blame on me.Pointing at the collar, he asked, “Does your neck injury have anything to do with his leaving?”Merriwether chuckled faintly.“This? This comes from playing basketball with kids twenty years younger than me.”“Where’d Abramson go?”“Don’t know.He and the woman doctor with him were clever enough to do their talking out on the verandas of their rooms, where we couldn’t pick up their voices.”“You mean you had their rooms bugged?”Suddenly uncomfortable, Merriwether nodded mutely.And winced at the motion.“Why?”“All the guest rooms are bugged.It’s kind of a hobby of mine.”“Like a Peeping Tom.”“Listening, not peeping.”“And you don’t want to tell me who your friend is, the one who asked you take Abramson in?”“Rather not.”“Then let me have the CDs from your bugs.” Before Merriwether could object, Hightower went on.“Maybe the tech guys at our lab can get more out of them than you can.”“Maybe they can,” Merriwether agreed.Reluctantly.* * *HIGHTOWER FELT DEAD beat as he drove through the gathering darkness of night, down Interstate 10 toward New Orleans, skirting the edge of Lake Pontchartrain.He’d started the day in Minneapolis, had to switch planes twice before finally landing at Baton Rouge for his frustrating late-afternoon interview with Merriwether, and now was heading for the FBI office in New Orleans.Sleep can wait, he told himself.Dinner can wait.The CDs in his jacket pocket might be important.He’d phoned the New Orleans office and alerted them that he was coming in with evidence that had to be examined immediately.The clerk he talked to complained that it was almost quitting time for the lab, but Hightower promised to get overtime pay for whoever checked out the CDs.The clerk agreed to find a technician who would wait up all night if he had to, under those terms.It was well past eight P.M.by the time he parked in the fenced-in lot behind the bank building that housed the FBI office.Hightower’s last meal had been the miserly snacks offered on the last leg of his flight from Minneapolis, early in the afternoon.He felt hungry, tired, and angry at himself for not being able to shake the real story out of Merriwether.There’s more going on here than a runaway grandfather, he realized.At the root of it all was a sick eight-year-old child, probably scared half to death, far from her mother and father.Hightower thought of his own nieces and how frightened they would be under the same circumstances.If the New Orleans office can’t find anything on the CDs, I’ll have to send them to Washington.I’ll find a motel after I drop these discs off at the local office.He’d heard tales in his childhood of Navaho warriors of old and their initiation rites, enduring hunger, thirst, privation in the burning sun of the desert.All I’ve got to do is postpone dinner for a few hours.And then get some sleep.It’s been a long day
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]