“Your home?”
She nodded, her eyes excited in a way he hadn’t seen them before.
Under the headache, Dryden felt the familiar cool pulse at his temples. It felt like it had at times the night before—double or triple the intensity he’d been used to in recent days.
He thought of the woman waiting in the dark alley. Waiting along the escape route he’d been considering for hours before that.
“They can hear my thoughts, too,” he said.
Rachel nodded again. “They came from Fort Detrick, like me. They said the three of us got away from there, about five years ago, and we’ve been in hiding since then. They told me a lot about it, and I told them about the last few days. They believe me, but they still want to talk to you. They want to know for sure they can trust you, and then they’ll take the cuffs off. Is that okay?”
Dryden shut his eyes hard. Compressed them repeatedly. It was the next best thing to rubbing them.
“Send them in,” he said.
“Thank you.” She got up to go.
“Wait,” Dryden said.
Rachel stopped. Turned back to him.
“Holly Ferrel,” Dryden said. “You heard something in her thoughts, right at the end. Right before we had to run for it.”
The happiness receded from Rachel’s eyes.
“What was it?” Dryden asked.
“She was thinking about a phone call she had to make. An important one. She was rehearsing the first part of it, over and over, the way people do.”
“What was she saying?”
“This is Holly Ferrel. I need to speak with Martin Gaul.”
Dryden stared. First at Rachel and then at nothing, trying to get a grasp on what it might mean.
*
A minute later the two women came into the room. Dryden saw them in detail for the first time. Both were in their thirties, lean, medium framed, medium height. Dryden got himself seated upright on the couch and faced them. One was blond, the other somewhere between blond and brunette. Their appearance was oddly unremarkable—it was, at least, far less remarkable than it could’ve been. Dryden got the impression they took great care to make themselves forgettable.
There was a second couch facing him across the small room. The two women sat on it.
“I’m Audrey,” the blonde said. “This is Sandra.”
The hostility they’d shown in the alley was long gone. They seemed sympathetic, if not quite regretful. Which was fine—it was stupid to regret things that had seemed necessary at the time.
Sandra nodded at the thought. “We just didn’t know who you were,” she said. “We’d been monitoring the area around Holly Ferrel’s house, and when the two of you showed up it was pretty hard to miss.”
“We can’t hear Rachel’s thoughts,” Audrey said, “any more than she can hear ours. But we could hear your thoughts, and most of the time you were thinking about her. We could tell she was there with you, and that you seemed to be helping her, though we weren’t sure why. We decided to just get her the hell out of there and get the details afterward.”
“Our questions won’t take long,” Sandra said. “Answer ours and then we’ll answer yours. Most of them, anyway, for the time being. Fair enough?”
Dryden nodded.
*
It took half an hour. They walked him through the same story they’d no doubt heard from Rachel. Everything from the boardwalk to the town house. Then they asked him about his past. His career. He saw no reason to hold anything back.
When they’d finished, Sandra took a key from her pocket and removed the cuffs. Dryden worked his shoulders in slow circles, easing out the cramps.
“You’re probably starving,” Sandra said. “We’ll tell you our side over lunch. While we get it ready, Rachel wants to show you around the place.”
*
Dryden had guessed the residence was a house, to the extent he’d thought about it. It hadn’t crossed his mind to think otherwise. The moment he stepped to the den’s doorway, he saw he’d been wrong.
Beyond the den was a broad living room with a wall of windows. Beyond the windows was Chicago, seen from what had to be eighty stories up. The view faced south across the tops of skyscrapers from a position near the north end of downtown. It was early afternoon, and the city gleamed in sunlight under a rich blue sky.
“We’re in the Hancock Center,” Rachel said. “This apartment takes up the entire eighty-third floor.”
Dryden looked at her, then at Audrey and Sandra, still standing just inside the den.
“This place is a hideout?” he asked.
“You’d be surprised how well it works,” Sandra said. “Rich people have shaped the law to suit their privacy needs. In some ways it’s easier to anonymously own a place like this than a split-level ranch in the suburbs.”
“There’s one other reason to live here,” Audrey said, “but if you’re lucky you won’t have to find out what it is.”
Rachel tugged Dryden’s arm, anxious to show him around. He turned to follow her—
“Wait,” Sandra said.