guessed only a dozen so far, but there would be more. Soon Front Half would be deserted except for the children currently in residence there. Maybe it was already. But Zeke, Chad, Doug, and Dr. Richardson would stick; they were loyalists. And Gladys Hickson. She would stick as well, maybe after all the others were gone. Gladys wasn’t just a scrapper; Stackhouse was becoming more and more certain that she was an out-and-out psycho.
I’m psycho myself for staying, Stackhouse thought. But the brat’s right—they’d hunt me down. And he’s walking right into it. Unless . . .
“Unless he’s playing me,” Stackhouse murmured.
Rosalind, Mrs. Sigsby’s assistant, stuck her head in. Her usually perfect makeup had eroded over the course of the last difficult twelve hours, and her usually perfect graying hair was sticking up on the sides.
“Mr. Stackhouse?”
“Yes, Rosalind.”
Rosalind looked troubled. “I believe Dr. Hendricks may have left. I believe I saw his car about ten minutes ago.”
“I’m not surprised. You should go yourself, Rosalind. Head home.” He smiled. It felt strange to be smiling on a night like this, but it was a good strange. “I just realized that I’ve known you since I came here—many moons—and I don’t know where home is for you.”
“Missoula,” Rosalind said. She looked surprised herself. “That’s in Montana. At least I suppose it’s still home. I own a house in Mizzou, but I haven’t been there in I guess five years. I just pay the taxes when they come due. When I have time off, I stay in the village. For vacation, I go down to Boston. I like the Red Sox and the Bruins, and the art cinema in Cambridge. But I’m always ready to come back.”
Stackhouse realized it was the most Rosalind had said to him in those many moons, which stretched back over fifteen years. She had been here, Mrs. Sigsby’s faithful dogsbody, when Stackhouse had retired from his service as an investigator for the US Army (JAG), and here she still was, and looking about the same. She could have been sixty-five, or a well-preserved seventy.
“Sir, do you hear that humming noise?”
“I do.”
“Is it a transformer or something? I never heard it before.”
“A transformer. Yes, I suppose you could call it that.”
“It’s very annoying.” She rubbed at her ears, further disarranging her hair. “I suppose the children are doing it. Is Julia—Mrs. Sigsby—coming back? She is, isn’t she?”
Stackhouse realized (with amusement rather than irritation) that Rosalind, always so proper and so unobtrusive, had been keeping her ears peeled, hum or no hum.
“I expect so, yes.”
“Then I’d like to stay. I can shoot, you know. I go to the range in the Bend once a month, sometimes twice. I have the shooting club equivalent of a DM badge, and I won the small handgun competition last year.”
Julia’s quiet assistant not only took excellent shorthand, she had a Distinguished Marksman badge . . . or, as she said, the equivalent of. Wonders never ceased.
“What do you shoot, Rosalind?”
“Smith & Wesson M&P .45.”
“Recoil doesn’t bother you?”
“With the help of a wrist support, I manage the recoil very well. Sir, if it’s your intention to free Mrs. Sigsby from the kidnappers holding her, I would much desire to be a part of that operation.”
“All right,” Stackhouse said, “you’re in. I can use all the help I can get.” But he would have to be careful how he used her, because saving Julia might not be possible. She had become expendable now. The important thing was the flash drive. And that fucking too-smart-for-his-own-good boy.
“Thank you, sir. I won’t let you down.”
“I’m sure you won’t, Rosalind. I’ll tell you how I expect this will play out, but first I have a question.”
“Yes?”
“I know a gentleman is never supposed to ask, and a lady is never supposed to tell, but how old are you?”
“Seventy-eight, sir.” She answered promptly enough, and while maintaining eye contact, but this was a lie. Rosalind Dawson was actually eighty-one.
10
Quarter of twelve.
The Challenger aircraft with 940NF on the tail and MAINE PAPER INDUSTRIES on the side droned north toward Maine at 39,000 feet. With a helping push from the jet stream, its speed was fluctuating gently between 520 and 550 miles an hour.
Their arrival at Alcolu and subsequent takeoff had gone without incident, mostly because Mrs. Sigsby had a VIP entry pass from the Regal Air FBO, and she had been more than willing to use it to open the gate. She smelled a chance—still slim, but there—of getting out of this alive.