She appeared calm, self-assured without being overconfident. The limbs were held loosely, but Robie could sense an inner tightness, signaling that they could be deployed as needed in a second. She seemed to balance herself on the balls of her feet, her weight equally distributed, whereas most people stood either too far forward or back on their feet. This would delay them maybe a second or two in movement. In most people’s lives that wouldn’t matter.
In the lives of Reel and Robie it mattered a lot.
The lips were fuller in this picture. The lipstick was red, nearly as red as that edge of something in the photo. Robie turned the photo at various angles to see if it helped him to discern what the thing could be.
It didn’t.
He put the photo down and turned to the book, a history of World War II. He paged through some of it looking for marginalia that Reel might have left there, but found none.
And even if there had been something left in the book, Robie had to assume that the agency would have already deleted it somehow. That they had left the book, gun, and photo told Robie that they had found nothing in them. Otherwise the items wouldn’t have been left in the locker for Robie to examine. He was convinced that they wanted him to find and kill Jessica Reel. But he was beginning to doubt whether they wanted him to find out the truth behind her actions.
He laid the book aside, rose, and looked out the window. Reel was out there somewhere, probably working out the details of her next hit. Julie was out there somewhere, probably doing her homework. But maybe she was also thinking of their encounter yesterday.
And Nicole Vance was out there trying to find Reel, though she didn’t know it. That situation was only going to get more complicated.
Two hours later, while he was still staring down at the items he’d taken from Reel’s locker, his phone buzzed. He looked at the message on the screen. Janet DiCarlo wanted to see him. But not at the last place they met. It was out in Middleburg. Probably her house, from the look of the address.
Robie responded to the message, pulled on his jacket, locked up Reel’s gun, book, and photo in his wall safe, and headed out.
He hoped DiCarlo was ready to give him some answers. If not, he wasn’t sure what his next step would be. But he could sense Reel pulling farther and farther ahead of him.
CHAPTER
29
IT WAS GROWING DARK AS he set out, and the drive took over an hour with traffic. Robie picked up speed but then had to slow down as he wound his way through some small towns on the way to DiCarlo’s house. He wondered how the woman enjoyed the commute every day from here. He assumed she didn’t. Most Washington-area commuters spent years of their lives sitting in traffic plotting intricate ways to kill their fellow rule-breaking motorists.
Robie slowed as he approached the turnoff. It was a long, winding gravel road that split two tall pine groves. The house was brick, old, and there were three cars parked in the front motor court.
Considering what had happened to Jim Gelder, Robie had expected to be stopped before now, but maybe they had seen who he was on long-range surveillance. He turned off the car and got out, making no sudden movements because he didn’t want to be shot.
Two men appeared from the shadows. They were Robie’s height, hard and muscled like tree knots. They checked his ID, let him keep his weapon, and escorted him into the house. They led him down a narrow, dark hall to a door and then departed.
Robie knocked and a voice inside told him to enter.
He opened the door and walked in. DiCarlo sat behind her desk. She looked worried and disheveled.
That was the first thing Robie noticed.
The second thing he noticed was the pistol resting on top of the desk.
He paused at the doorway. “Everything okay?” he asked, although he knew it clearly wasn’t.
“Please sit down, Mr. Robie.”
He closed the door behind him, walked across a small square oriental rug, and sat in the chair opposite her.
“Your security perimeter is a little soft,” he noted.
Her expression told him that she was aware of this. “The two men out there I would trust with my life,” she said.
Robie quickly read between those lines. “And they’re the only ones you trust?”