Dead Wrong (33 page)

The walking tattoo returned, toothpick bobbing from the corner of his mouth, to serve their drinks and ask if they were ready to order. Sarah chose a feta and tomato omelet. McCarthy opted for scrambled eggs with diced ham.

Soon as the waiter left Sarah asked, “What’s next?”

“I’m not sure. Need to think about this. Right now I’m too tired and hungry to really concentrate.” Suddenly, his exhaustion came crashing down on him. And he knew if he didn’t get some sleep, his judgment might become seriously flawed, if it hadn’t already. He considered going to his boat, but rejected that option as too obvious. The police surely had run his name though a variety of computer databanks and would know about it.

Sarah glanced at the cup of hot water she between her hands, a faint blush coloring her cheeks. “My condo’s just down the street. If you don’t mind the mess, you could stay there.”

Good suggestion, but would it be safe? Had Sikes already figured that out? Probably. And because Wyse knew he was linked to Sarah via Baker’s workup, he might reach the same conclusion. So, he had to assume Sikes was aware of her. But Sikes likely didn’t have the manpower to watch every possible place McCarthy could hide. Instead, Sikes would have to narrow the options down to the most likely spots, like Davidson’s office. And if her car had been identified out at Gas Works park, the police might also be looking for her.

McCarthy shook his head. “Too risky.”

“We could find a hotel.”

“You comfortable with that?”

“I don’t see any other option. Do you?”

They sat in awkward silence for several moments, Sarah playing with the tea bag, raising and lowering it in the steaming water. Finally she said, “Next question. What made you develop such an interest in Baker and Russell? I mean, once you’d ruled out posttraumatic seizures it was clear their problem wasn’t surgical.”

Relieved to switch topics, he thought about the answer. Truth was, his motivations were multiple, unrelated, and a bit self-serving. From the moment Sarah approached him in the doctors’ lounge, he found himself attracted to her and figured that working up Baker might give him the opportunity to get to know her. Equally important however, was the challenge of determining the cause of those two patients’ bizarre memories. The mystery was intriguing, and the more he dug into the problem the more he wanted answers.

All his life he’d been hounded by a need to understand phenomena well enough to explain their occurrence in terms of scientific principles. This was the reason physical sciences appealed to him in school. As a kid he’d taken apart toys to learn how they worked, a habit that drove his mother nuts because he usually destroyed them in the process. As a physician, he felt inadequate when he wasn’t able diagnose a brain problem. True, the attitude “Don’t accept failure” was drilled into every neurosurgery resident, but he took that axiom a step further, internalizing it into professional pride.

He answered Sarah with “I don’t like to fail.”

“And for you, being unable to diagnose a problem is failure?”

That sounded so like a psychiatrist, he almost laughed. But she pretty much nailed it. “It’s not just simply making a diagnosis; it’s also being able to understand what causes the problem.” That was the primary thing that distinguished an average physician and an excellent one, he believed.

“I see.”

He paused to sip coffee. “Let me ask you something.”

“Sure.”

He’d weighed the ways to broach the subject, but hadn’t yet come up with a diplomatic one, so opted for straightforward. “You’re a little older than the typical resident. Did you start school late or did you practice before going into psychiatry?”

She stopped fiddling with the tea bag and her eyes became distant. She stayed that way a few moments. “I dropped out of med school during my original third year because I needed a couple years off. I was a little messed up. After a time, I got my head straight and decided to go back. Ended up having to redo my entire third year. Here I am.”

There was obviously more to the story but he didn’t want to push. “And your reason for dropping out?”

She seemed to weigh her answer. “It was personal.”

He got the message. More than just personal, it was a forbidden topic.

She said, “My turn. You’ve been married?”

Fair enough. “Yes. Her name was Anne. She died a couple years ago.”

Sarah wrapped the string around the sodden bag, cinching it against the spoon to wring excess water from it. She placed the spoon and bag on the saucer. “Was that when you lived in Memphis?”

Had he told her about living in Memphis? He couldn’t remember. “Yes.”

“Was that one of the reasons you moved here? To get away from her ghost?”

She was really sounding like a psychiatrist now. “Yes.”

“Do you mind me asking how she died?”

He hadn’t discussed it with anyone since crossing the Mississippi on the Interstate 40 bridge, the Memphis skyline in the rearview mirror. “Acute leukemia.”

“And you blame yourself?”

He tried to clear the constriction in his throat, but was having trouble.

She waited as he busied himself stirring his coffee.

She added, “You think you should’ve seen symptoms earlier so maybe it could’ve been diagnosed sooner?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

She reached over, put her hand on his.

He added, “She bled to death. It was horrible.”

“I can’t even imagine how it must have affected you.”

He needed a change subject. “How about you? Ever been married?”

She hesitated long enough for him to tell he’d hit a sensitive subject. And for a fleeting moment he saw the same expression as a moment ago. She withdrew her hand from his. “No.”

When she didn’t explain, he asked, “You seriously involved?”

“You mean now or in the past?”

“I was asking about the past, but you can answer both if you want.”

“I was, at one time.”

Silence.

“That’s all you want to say about it?”

For a fleeting moment he thought he detected anger in her eyes, but it quickly vanished. “He was married. My bad choice. I was stupid. Subject closed.”

He sipped coffee and thought of Caroline. It’d been the right thing to break it off with her before dragging it into a relationship he didn’t want.

Sarah replaced her hand on his. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. It’s just that, well, it’s a sore subject. I was stupid and shouldn’t have gotten involved. I know that. I knew it when it happened. He was married and I understood the odds of how it would turn out. But for some insane reason I thought I’d be the exception. There’s a name for that kind of behavior—denial. When it started, I wasn’t sure it’d end up anything more than a fling. But it turned out to be poor judgment every damn step of the way.

“He was an assistant professor of cardiology. I was a third-year student rotating on his service.” She gave a short sarcastic laugh. “Classic, huh? The bright-eyed student dazzled by her professor’s brilliance. I’m attracted to intellect. It’s a real weakness of mine. A turn-on.” She paused to test the temperature of the tea against her lips.

She asked, “Kids?”

“No.” He paused, but decided to not give her the impression he was anti-kid. “Before we married she had a severe infection. From an IUD. Caused a lot of scarring in her tubes.”

“And you knew that ahead of time? Her not being able to have kids?”

“I guess.”
Hell yes, you did. Didn’t change a thing
.

“And you were okay with that?”

Why was the subject making him uncomfortable? Maybe he wasn’t sure enough about the answer. Maybe they should be focusing on their present problem instead of rehashing the past. “Enough of this for now. We need to decide what to do next.”

The waiter materialized with a plate of food in each hand.

S
ARAH DROVE TO the Fairmont Olympic, a large, venerable hotel in the heart of downtown Seattle, pulled into the semicircle entrance, accepted a parking ticket from the valet, then slipped her arm through McCarthy’s and entered the lobby as a heavy glass doors opened. They cut a diagonal path across the plush carpet to another door, exited, and walked up the street to the W, a newer, boutique hotel. There, Tim Rush secured a room with two queen beds. The idea was to rent another car in the morning under the false ID. Once this mess was cleared up, they would go back and find Sarah’s car.

S
TANDING ON THE small second-story deck off McCarthy’s living room, Sikes peered out over the city, trying to guess what McCarthy might be doing. So far, the only word from the traitor’s lawyer was that McCarthy had not contacted him since his initial call when still inside the hospital. That was almost twelve hours ago.

McCarthy could be anywhere by now. Even out of the country. Sikes had notified ICE, Immigration Customs Enforcement, who in turn sent a heads-up to airlines, airports, TSA, border crossings, and every other law enforcement agency he could think of, to keep a look out for McCarthy, but hell, he still might’ve slipped through. Besides, what’s to say he didn’t have a complete false identity by now? Maybe that was what he’d returned to the house for.

Sikes decided that his next step would be request FinCen to start scouring McCarthy’s financial records for any leads to offshore bank accounts or telltale credit card charges that might give him a clue as to his location. Sikes would find the bastard. That was a given. The only question was how long it would take. His phone rang.

“Sikes.”

“Sergeant Cliff Wong, Port of Seattle Police. Think we may have a break for you.”

This caught Sikes’s attention. “What?”

“A Droid smartphone was found at a lot across the street from the airport a few minutes ago. The techs at Verizon identified it as belonging to Tom McCarthy. Or at least that’s the name the account’s listed under. We have it for processing if you want. The finder claims he didn’t erase any information or do anything with it other than report it to us. Guess if it wasn’t so fancy, he might’ve kept it for himself, but he was afraid it could be tracked back to him.”

“Tell me again, this is a parking lot?”

“Yeah, rental cars. A van picks up customers at baggage claim and brings them here to rent a car.”

Sikes did a quick calculation. “Just one rental agency?” Yes, this could be the break he needed.

“Yes, sir. Budget.”

“How many people can you put on this?”

“Sir?”

“Sergeant, this is a matter of national security. I need every person you can working on this. How many?”

“Two. At the moment.”

Sikes struggled to remember the man’s name but couldn’t come up with it. “Sorry, didn’t catch your name.”

“Wong.”

Sikes made the mental joke of not knowing right from Wong as a trick for remembering the name. “I want you to have your team go through every vehicle rented since noon looking for either McCarthy or a Sarah Hamilton. If you don’t find it at Budget, check all the other rental agencies too. Got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Before you hang up, give me the best number to call you back.”

T
OM TURNED FROM the reservation desk and approached Sarah. They’d hardly spoken on the drive to the Olympic or the walk over here.

The moment they agreed to stay the night at a hotel, Sarah’s mind became preoccupied with how to handle things once they stepped into the room. She was the one to suggest it, but now she was worried about how he’d interpret it. Worse yet, she wasn’t even certain of her own intentions. One thing was for sure, she found this silent intimacy of waiting arousing.

But nothing should happen tonight. She’d already decided that on the drive over. Both of them badly needed sleep. Particularly Tom, after being up since the emergency surgery early yesterday morning, to say nothing of the emotionally draining events of the day. True, she’d fantasized about the feel of his naked body next to hers, but not under these conditions. And what were his expectations? How did he interpret the situation? What should she do if he made a move? She wanted to send the message that, sure, without the present danger and fatigue she’d be eager. This just wasn’t the right time. He knew that, didn’t he?