The Face of Deception (20 page)

“Hush, go to sleep. That's what you need right now.”

“Don't tell me what I need. What I need is to find out where you are so that I can bring you home. Maybe then I wouldn't have these crazy dreams about you.”

“They're not crazy and you're not crazy. You're just stubborn.”

“And you're not?”

“Sure, I'm your daughter. I'm entitled. Go on to sleep, and I'll just stay here and keep you company for a while.”

“So I won't be alone?”

“Yes, so you won't be alone.”

SEVENTEEN

NAVAL MEDICAL CENTER
BETHESDA, MARYLAND
7:45
A.M.

“I
am
hurrying, Lisa.” Scott Maren's hand tightened on the phone. “For God's sake, I have to be careful. You've got media crawling all over this place. I've switched the teeth X rays, but it's not going to be as easy to switch the DNA samples.”

“But you can do it?” Lisa asked. “You've got to do it, Scott.”

“I'll do it,” he said wearily. “I told you I'd take care of you.”

“Do you think I'm worried only about myself? It's you. I feel so guilty that I let you help me. No one must know.”

“It's not your fault. I bought into it.” He had bought into it over twenty years ago, when Lisa had come to his apartment and they'd become lovers. She hadn't been married to Ben then, and their affair had lasted only a year, but the short duration hadn't mattered. He'd loved Lisa since they'd met that first year at Stanford. In spite of the nightmare she'd brought into his life, he loved her still. The pattern was set and couldn't be broken. “It will be all right.”

“I know it will. You've never failed me.”

“And I never will.”

“Let me know when it's finished.” She paused. “I'm very grateful, Scott. I don't know how to repay you.”

“I didn't ask to be repaid.” But Lisa had made sure that he had benefited after Ben's death. Honor, fame, money. But they weren't enough. When she left the White House he would see that she came to him as she should have all those years before. She didn't realize that they were bound closer now than they had ever been before.

“I don't know what I would have done without you, Scott.”

Lisa in bed. Lisa laughing at his jokes. Lisa with tears in her eyes as she told him she was going to marry Ben. “I'll let you know when I have news for you.”

“Good-bye, Scott.” She hung up.

“Dr. Maren?”

He turned around to see a red-haired young man in an orderly's uniform standing in the doorway. “Yes? Am I wanted?”

“Not that I know about.” The young man came into the office and closed the door. “My name is Gil Price. I'd like to talk to you.”

BAINBRIDGE
8:40
A.M.

Chris Teller's laboratory was located in a small building on the outskirts of Bainbridge. Its clapboard walls were covered with ivy and it looked more like a Yale fraternity house than a science lab. Even the sign on the lab was so small, Eve would have missed the building entirely if she hadn't been closely following Gary.

TELLER LABORATORIES
.

“This is the home of state-of-the-art science?” Logan murmured.

“Everything isn't the way it appears on the surface. Gary trusts him, so I do too.” She parked beside Gary's Volvo in the parking lot and waited. When Gary got out of his car and came toward her, she asked, “Do you want us to go in with you, Gary?”

“If you want to blow any chance I have,” he said dryly. “This may be a small southern town, but they do have television sets and newspapers. Stay here. I may be a while.”

She watched him walk briskly into the building. His step was eager, vigorous . . . young. Ivanhoe going into the fray against the Black Knight, she thought apprehensively.

“Easy.” Logan gently pried her clenched fingers from the steering wheel. “He's not going to face anything more than rejection in there.”

“Right now. We should never have let him come.”

“I doubt if we could have stopped him.” He leaned back in the seat. “What's the process? You said it might take days even if Kessler can persuade him to accelerate. Why does DNA identification take so long?”

“It's the radioactive probe.”

“Probe?”

She raised a brow. “Are you trying to distract me, Logan?”

“Yes, but I really don't know the process.” He shrugged. “Except what I learned in the O. J. Simpson trial. And that courtroom hardly provided a definitive, unbiased course on DNA.”

“The DNA strand we took from Ben will be dissolved in a solution of enzymes that target specific points on the strand and cut it into fragments. A small amount of DNA is put in a tray with a special gel, then a current of electricity is sent through the gel. The current pulls the fragments along and arranges them by length and weight.”

“And where does the probe come in?”

“The technician transfers the fragments to a nylon membrane and the radioactive probe is applied to it. The probe seeks out and marks specific points on the DNA. X-ray film is placed over it for several days to develop. When that's done, the DNA will appear as dark bands on the X-ray film.”

“And that's the DNA print?”

She nodded. “That's the DNA profile and there's only a one-in-a-million chance that anyone else might have the same profile.”

“And there's no way of accelerating the probe?”

“There's one method I've been hearing about lately, but it's been slow to catch on in the laboratories. It's called chemiluminescence. The radioactive probe is replaced by a chemically activated probe that interacts with chemical reagents that then release light in the form of photons.”

“What are photons?”

“Particles of light. Whichever area of the X-ray film they strike will be exposed, and the result is the same dark bands of DNA you'd see with the radioactive probe method. Most of the big labs have started using chemiluminescence, but I don't know if this small lab has. Gary will tell us. Keep your fingers crossed.”

“I hoped—”

“I told you it might not be overnight.”

“Several days . . .”

“Stop repeating that,” she said sharply. “I know we don't have that much time. Maybe Gary will have good news.”

“I hope so.” He paused. “You're clenching again.”

She deliberately loosened her grip on the steering wheel. “And you're not helping.”

“I'm trying,” he said quietly. “I'll do anything I can. Do you want me to go into the lab and send Kessler away? I'll do it. Hell, I'm aching to do something, anything. I'm tired of standing aside and letting everyone else take the risks.”

Oh, God, another Ivanhoe. She would never have thought it of Logan. But maybe she should have, considering that year of agonized frustration he'd spent with his dying wife. He was not a man who would easily accept or recognize defeat.

“Well?”

He was trying to hide his eagerness, but it was there. Beneath that cool, tough exterior lay a desire to smash something.

Jesus, men were idiots.

“Don't you dare. I've no desire to end up in jail or some loony bin because you're bored and want to loose all your Neanderthal instincts.”

She could see he was disappointed, but he shrugged philosophically. “I don't believe Neanderthals were ever bored. Their brains were too undeveloped, their life span too short, and they spent most of their time just keeping alive.”

“The comparison is close enough to be apt.”

He made a face. “Ouch. Which part?”

He was no Neanderthal. He was smart and charismatic and she was learning that the code guiding his life was as inflexible as the one that guided hers. She looked away from him. “You were telling me the truth, weren't you? It really wasn't politics. You're doing this because you think you're saving the world.”

“Hell, no. I'm doing it because I'm afraid not to do it. Because there's a chance that the sky could fall and I don't want to look back and know I stood aside and let it happen.” He took her chin in his hand and turned her head to look into her eyes. “I'd feel responsible. Like you, Eve.”

“Hair shirt?” she whispered.

“I don't believe in them. You do what you can and then you go on.”

His touch was disturbing. His words, the way he thought . . .
He
was disturbing. She turned her head and gazed out the window. “Or you learn to live with your hair shirt.”

“That option is unacceptable,” he said harshly. “Choosing a career like yours was probably the worst possible thing you could have done. Why didn't someone stop you? Why didn't Quinn keep you on that island until you healed, until the memory dimmed a little?”

She looked at him in wonder. He was so wrong. Why couldn't he understand? “Because he knew it was the only way I'd survive.”

“Is this surviving? You're a workaholic, you have no personal life, you're the most driven woman I've ever met. You need—”

“Back off, Logan.”

“Why the hell should—” He drew a deep breath. “Okay, I'll drop it. It's none of my business, right?”

“Right.”

“Then, dammit, why does it
feel
like my business?”

“You're used to running things.”

“Yeah, that's it.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “My organizational instincts. When I see waste, I dive in and try to get rid of it.” He stabbed savagely at the numbers on the keypad. “And, Christ, am I seeing a wasteland in you.”

“My life isn't a waste. Far from it. Who are you phoning?”

“Gil.”

“Now? Why?”

“It's past time I heard from him.” He pressed the send button. “And I need a distraction at the moment. Big-time.”

So did she, she thought, relieved. The past few minutes had been too intense and upsetting, and her present life was already in such chaos.

“What's happening?” Logan said into the phone. “Why the hell haven't you contacted me, Gil? Yes, I am surly, dammit.”

He listened. “Don't be stupid. It could be a trap. Maren's already killed one man.”

Eve stiffened.

“Don't do it.” He listened again. “Yes, she's here. No, I won't let you talk to her. Talk to me.”

Eve held out a hand.

He muttered a curse and handed her the phone. “He's an idiot.”

“I heard that,” Gil said. “John's a little testy, isn't he? That's why I wanted to talk to you. I really don't need to be yelled at in my present state.”

“What state is that?”

“I'm walking a tight line. Maren is one cool customer.”

“You spoke to him about the deal?”

“He denied everything and pretended he didn't know what I was talking about.”

“That's a logical reaction. I didn't think it would work.”

“But I think it did work. I could see I was hitting the bull's-eye. Maren didn't call the hospital security guards. That's a good sign. I told him to think about it and meet me at a designated place on the Potomac near the C and O canal. Tonight at eleven.”

“He won't come. He'll talk to Lisa Chadbourne and they'll set a trap for you.”

“Maybe.”

“No maybe.” Her hand clenched on the telephone. “You and Logan told me she probably persuaded him to kill for her. Do you think he's going to believe she'd betray him?”

“He's a very smart man. It's not easy to fool him. It's hard for me to believe he'd let her talk him into killing Chadbourne in the first place. I think I can make him see that he has to cut his losses and get out before he's history.”

“Don't meet him, Gil.”

“I have to meet him. If I wrap up Maren, we've got Lisa Chadbourne. I'll let you know how it goes.” Gil hung up.

She handed the phone back to Logan. “He's going to do it.”

“He's an idiot,” Logan said between his teeth.

“You said he was a professional and knew what he was doing.”

“I never said his judgment was infallible. The meeting tonight is a mistake.”

She thought it was a mistake too. Unless Lisa Chadbourne's hold on Maren had weakened, there was no way he'd betray her. And she would never allow that hold to be broken.

Until she broke it herself.

“She's going to be angry.”

“What?”

“Lisa Chadbourne. I think she probably regards Maren as her property. She's going to be angry that we're trying to take him away from her.”

“It's hardly reasonable she'd feel possessive of a man she intends to dispose of.”

“Who's to say she's always reasonable? She has emotions like everyone else. She's going to be on edge and maybe a little panicky when she finds out we're close to Maren. It will be a surprise. She won't have realized we'd made that connection.”

“Gil could be right. Maren might not tell her.”

“You don't believe that.”

He shook his head.

“Then what are we going to do?”

“You're going to wait here with Kessler. I'm go-ing to fly up to Washington and go with Gil to that meeting.”

“You could be recognized.”

“Screw it.”

“Or caught in the same trap.”

“Ditto.” He got out of the car and went around to the driver's side. “I'll need the car. I'll drive to Savannah and hop a plane from there. You drive back to the motel with Gary.”

She slowly got out, then reached into the backseat and retrieved Ben's case. “What about the test results?”

“You get them. You said it might be days.” He slipped behind the wheel. “I'm no help here anyway.”

And Ivanhoe had action to be taken and a castle to be won.

She wanted to hit him.

“Phone and let me know what happens.” She opened the passenger door of Gary's Volvo. “Providing you're alive to do it.”

“I'll be alive.” He started the car. “I'll be back tomorrow. You should be safe.” He frowned. “Should isn't good enough. I can't take the chance. I'll call Kessler from the airport and get him to pay one of Teller's security guards to go to the motel and keep watch until I get back.”

“And what excuse is he going to give Teller?”

“Kessler's been pretty innovative so far. Let him worry about it.”

“Timwick's probably still camped out at Duke, and it'll take time for anyone to track us here. This is definitely off the beaten path as far as forensic labs are concerned.”

But she was no longer certain that the Duke diversion had worked. Lisa Chadbourne wouldn't focus totally on Logan; she had too much respect for women.

“A security guard parked out front at the motel won't hurt. Be sure and lock your door,” Logan said. “And call me if you notice anything suspicious. Anything.”

“I'll be careful.”

He hesitated. “I have to go, Eve. Gil is my friend and I brought him into this.”

She got into the Volvo and put Ben's case on the floor. “So go.” She gave him a cool glance. “I don't need you, Logan. I've never needed you. I'll handle this myself.”