Part 48 (1/2)

AS ALEX WATCHED Carston's housekeeper walk through the automatic doors into the huge supermarket, she took a few slow, deep breaths, trying to center herself. She examined her face in the visor mirror and was rea.s.sured by the illusion Val had created. Alex was sandy blond today, quite believably so. Her makeup appeared understated, despite all the coverage. Alex was happy to see that her nose was settling into its new shape, probably permanently. Every little bit helped.

A few other shoppers parked and entered, and Alex knew it was time to move. One more deep breath. This wasn't that hard. Just a normal shopping trip for now.

Inside, the market was busy. It was a diverse group of patrons, and Alex was sure she wouldn't stick out. She was suddenly reminded of Daniel's catastrophic shopping spree in Childress, and she was surprised to find herself smiling. She blamed her reaction on nerves.

Despite the traffic, it wasn't hard to find the woman she was looking for. The housekeeper was wearing a bright yellow cotton wrap dress, and the color stood out. Rather than follow her through the store, Alex worked the opposite pattern and crossed paths with her every other aisle. It put Alex in the woman's sight line more often but seemed more natural, less creepy. The woman-who appeared to be about fifty from close up, in good shape and fairly attractive-paid Alex no attention. Meanwhile Alex filled her cart with random items that seemed innocuous-milk, bread, toothpaste-and then added the few items that mattered.

Carston liked these small bottles of organic orange juice. They must expire quickly, because the housekeeper bought a few every trip but never stocked up. Alex grabbed three-the same number as in the housekeeper's cart-and put them in the front child seat of her own.

She wheeled over to an empty aisle-no one was looking for birthday cards or office supplies this morning-and then uncapped the small syringe in her pocket. It was a very slender needle, and it left almost no mark behind when she pushed it through the plastic of the orange juice bottle, just under the screw-off cap. She kept her body turned toward the cards, as if she were looking for the perfect sentimental phrase. When she was done, she grabbed a glittery congratulations card in hot pink and put it in the cart. Maybe she'd give it to Kevin when he finished his mission. It was the kind of glitter that would stick to someone for days.

She and Barnaby had called this drug simply Heart Attack, because that's what it caused. Sometimes after the interrogation was over, the department needed to dispose of a subject in a way that looked natural. After about three hours, Heart Attack broke down into a metabolite that was nearly impossible to trace. A man of Carston's age, in his physical condition, and factoring in the high-stress job-well, Alex greatly doubted that anyone would look too carefully at the cause of death, at least in the very beginning. Sure, if he were twenty-five and ran marathons, it might look more suspicious.

Alex moved to the bakery next, because it was near the cas.h.i.+ers and had an un.o.bstructed view of the shoppers waiting to pay. It took about ten minutes as she pretended to dither between a baguette or ciabatta rolls, but then the housekeeper appeared from aisle 19 and got into the checkout line. Alex threw the baguette in her cart and joined the next line over.

This was the tricky part. She'd have to stay pretty close to the woman as they left the store. Alex's inconspicuous black sedan was parked right next to the minivan. As the woman was loading her groceries, Alex was going to trip with her arms full of bags and fall into the minivan's b.u.mper. It shouldn't be too hard to leave her juice in the back of the car. Hopefully snagging the woman's juice bottles would be possible, but if not, she a.s.sumed the housekeeper would load them all into the fridge, even if she didn't have the right number.

Alex eyed the conveyor belt next to hers, double-checking that the juice was there. She spotted what she was looking for and glanced quickly away.

As her own purchases slid across the scanner, her brows furrowed. Something was off. Something wasn't matching the mental picture. She glanced back at the other conveyor belt, trying to pin it down.

The bagger was packing a box of Lucky Charms. The housekeeper had never bought that kind of cereal for Carston, as far as Alex had been able to see. Carston was a creature of habit, and he ate the same fiber-heavy cereal every morning. Sugary marshmallows with plastic prizes were not his MO.

Another quick peek, head down. The usual coffee beans, the low-fat creamer, the quart of skim milk, but there was also a half a gallon of whole milk and a box of Nilla Wafers.

”Paper or plastic, miss? Miss?”

Alex quickly refocused, pulled her wallet open, and grabbed three twenties. ”Paper, please,” she said. The housekeeper always got paper.

Her mind was turning over and over as she waited for her change.

Maybe the housekeeper got groceries for herself while she was shopping for Carston. But if she got her own milk, she'd have to carry it inside and put it in Carston's fridge until she was done for the day, so it wouldn't spoil in the heat. And she'd never done that in the past.

Was Carston expecting guests?

Alex's heart pounded uncomfortably as she followed the woman through the automatic front doors, her two bags both gripped in her left hand.

She needed Carston to be the one who enjoyed that bottle of OJ. But what if a friend grabbed it instead? A friend who was twenty-five and a marathoner? It would be obvious what she had attempted. Carston would change his habits, beef up his security. And he would know it was Alex, without a doubt. That she was alive, and nearby.

The hunt would begin again, closer than ever.

Should she go with the odds? The juice was Carston's thing. Probably he wouldn't offer it to someone else. But what if?

As her mind raced through the possibilities, a small piece of meaningless information-or so she'd categorized it-popped into her head and suggested a new prospect.

The zoo. The daughter had kept going on and on about the zoo. And all the calls, every day, some of them hours long. What if Erin Carston-Boyd wasn't always in such close touch with her father? What if Alex, in her hurry to get to the important calls, had fast-forwarded through vital information-like a pending visit from his daughter and granddaughter? The DC zoo was famous. Exactly the kind of place you'd take your out-of-town granddaughter. Just like Lucky Charms was exactly the kind of cereal an indulgent grandpa would have on hand for her breakfast.

Alex sighed, quietly but deeply.

She couldn't risk poisoning the child.

Now what? The coffee beans? But Erin would drink coffee, too. Maybe another kind of toxin, something that looked like salmonella?

She couldn't wait until the family went back where they belonged. Deavers and Pace would be dead by then-if they weren't already-and Carston would be on high alert. This was her one chance to stay ahead of the panicked reaction. There would be six bottles of juice, only one poisoned... odds were Carston would drink it... it was unlikely the child would be hurt...

Ugh, she groaned mentally, and slowed her pace. She knew she wasn't going to do it. And she couldn't go back to his favorite sidewalk cafe and add an extra ingredient to his chicken parm; he'd surely given up that habit once she'd contacted him there. She'd be stuck with something really obvious and dangerous now, like borrowing Daniel's rifle and shooting Carston through his kitchen window. Her chances of getting caught-and killed-would be much, much higher than she'd planned.

Kevin was going to be disgusted with her. Only one person on her list, and she'd already blown it. She couldn't resent that reaction; she was disgusted with herself, too.

As though he could read her mind, just then Kevin called. She felt the vibration in her pocket, then pulled the phone out and read the number. She hit Answer and put it to her ear, but didn't say anything. She was still too close to the housekeeper, and she didn't want the woman to hear her voice and turn, getting another, closer look at the blond woman shadowing her. Perhaps the housekeeper was still the way in. Alex couldn't afford to be noticed.

Alex waited for Kevin to start in on her, irrationally sure he had somehow sensed that she was failing; Way to drop the ball, Oleander, in the half shout that was his normal volume.

Kevin said nothing. She pulled the phone back to look at the screen. Had they been disconnected? Had he dialed her by accident?

The call was live. The seconds counted upward in the bottom corner of the screen.

Alex almost said, Kevin?

Four years of paranoia stopped her tongue.

She pressed the phone to her ear and listened intently. There was no ambient sound of a car or movement. No wind. No animal sounds, no human sounds.

Goose b.u.mps erupted on the backs of her arms, raised the hair on her neck. She'd walked past her car, and now she had to keep going. Her eyes darted around while she kept her head still; she focused on a dumpster in the back corner of the lot. Her pace quickened. She was too close to the center of her enemy's power. If they were tracing this call, it would not take them long to get here. She wanted to run, wanted it badly, but she kept herself to a quick, purposeful walk.

Still no sound from the other end of the line. The cold, heavy hollow in the pit of her stomach grew larger.

Kevin wasn't going to suddenly start speaking to her, she knew that. Still, she hesitated for one more second. Once she did what she knew she had to do now, it was over. Her only connection to Kevin was severed.

She hung up. The numbers at the bottom of the screen told her the call had lasted for only seventeen seconds. It felt like much more time had pa.s.sed.

She walked around the side of the dumpster, where she wasn't visible from the parking lot. She couldn't see anyone, which hopefully meant no one could see her.

She set the groceries on the ground.

In the lining of her purse, she had a small lock-picking kit. She'd never had to use it for its real purpose, but it came in handy now and then when she worked with some of her smaller reflux rings and adapters. She pulled the thinnest probe, then used it to pop the SIM card tray out from her phone. Both card and tray went into her bag.

Using the hem of her T-s.h.i.+rt, she carefully wiped the phone down, handling it only through the fabric. The tether of the s.h.i.+rt's length made it hard to get the phone through the side hatch on the dumpster; it was too high up. She had to toss the phone when she couldn't reach far enough, but she got it through in one try.

Alex grabbed the paper bags, spun back around, and walked quickly to her car. The minivan was just exiting the lot. She couldn't tell if the housekeeper had noticed her side trip. She took the longest strides she was capable of as she hurried back.

The phone was gone, but she could almost see the seconds still ticking away in the corner of the screen. There were two possibilities now, and one of those possibilities gave her a very tight deadline indeed.

CHAPTER 27.

Alex, he just pocket-dialed you,” Daniel argued.