getting the shaft. Do something.” Another silence from Dietrich, and for a moment Hayes felt a chill again. Had he gone too far?
Then Dietrich said, “You might be right. Okay, let’s look at the situation. You must have tipped your hand again and done something to put you on the run. Michaels and the FBI aren’t going to stop looking for you now. That means we have to find a hideout for you where you’ll be safe until the heat dies down.”
“All I need is money to get me out of town.”
“You already took half the money for the job. You have to finish it before you get any more. No, that’s not the solution.” He paused. “I know a safe house where I can send you for the next few weeks until we can regroup and finish what they paid us for. Then we’ll come out of this with a gigantic bankroll and can hit the trail. But you can’t be driving around in your own car, they’ll track you in a heartbeat. Where are you now?”
“Fifth and Main.”
“Pull over to the curb and I’ll be there to pick you up in ten minutes and take you to the safe house. You should be okay there.” He added caustically, “Providing I can trust you to not blow your cover like you did this time.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Hayes said defensively. “I only did what had to be done. It was that Kendra Michaels witch. She’s pure bad luck. I knew it from the minute I saw her flying off that damn fire escape into the factory window. She’s not going to ever give up on us.”
“Really? That’s a bad attitude, Hayes,” Dietrich said silkily. “You should have known and accepted that she might cause us problems. If you’d done the research I did, you’d realize that the minute Oceanside became involved there was a chance she might be, too. Now you have to look on the bright side: She wants you so badly, she might get reckless and make mistakes. That’s always a way to turn bad luck into good.” He added softly, “Then you just have to make the preparations to remove her altogether.”
* * *
“Shit!” Metcalf’s voice crackled over the earpiece Kendra had been given. “We’re inside his place, but the subject is gone. I repeat, the subject is not in the apartment. Keep watch on all building exits. We have reason to believe he was just here. All stations, report in.”
Kendra listened as the stationed agents reported in, one by one, from each building exit.
No sign of their man.
Kendra shook her head. Lynch’s unease had definitely been justified.
After another few minutes of back-and-forth chatter on the radio, Metcalf’s defeated voice finally came over. “All stations, keep an eye on the building next door. To the west. We have indications that our subject jumped from a stairwell landing to a window next door. There are two torn screens. We may have lost him.”
After another few minutes, Metcalf’s voice came back on the frequency. He didn’t sound happy. “The apartment is clear. Roberts, bring Dr. Michaels up, please.”
Special Agent Roberts, whom Lynch had booted from the lockpicking detail, slid open the van’s side door. “You heard him.” His voice sounded as disgusted and surly as Metcalf’s. “It sounds as if Hayes slipped away from us, Dr. Michaels.”
“Well, at least you didn’t miss anything by being stuck down here with me,” she said ruefully as she jumped out of the van. “I’m feeling pretty flat, too.”
“I didn’t mean to be rude,” he said quickly. “I respect you, very much, I just wanted to—”
“I know.” She stopped him mid-sentence. “You just wanted to be where the action was. Me too.” She smiled. “So let’s go see if there’s anything we can do to salvage this botched operation, Special Agent Roberts.”
“Right.” He smiled back at her. “But please don’t mention to Metcalf that the word ‘botched’ was used.”
* * *
Kendra stepped into the one-bedroom apartment, which was swarming with FBI Evidence Response personnel. A photographer covered every inch of the place while techs lifted fingerprints and swabbed for DNA trace evidence from a telephone handset, doorknobs, windows, and the refrigerator handle.
Lynch and Metcalf stood in the small dining room area, populated only by a four-seat dinette set and a low-hanging light fixture. The rest of the apartment was just as sparse, with a single sofa and coffee table situated opposite a fifty-five-inch flatscreen television on a black lacquer stand.