The Escape (John Puller, #3)(101)

“What makes you say that?” asked Puller sharply.

“I heard about Niles Robinson. We’ve all heard about him. Gunned down at the train station.”

“Why would you think Robert Puller would be involved in that?” asked Knox.

Reynolds gave her a patronizing stare. “Oh, I don’t know, let’s think about it. He breaks into my house at gunpoint and threatens me because I testified against him. Then soon thereafter Niles Robinson, who also testified against him, is shot and killed at Union Station. What are the odds of that having been done by two different people when Robert Puller was absolutely in the area? Don’t insult my intelligence!”

“So what did you tell Puller?” asked Knox.

“I told him lots of things. To get out. To leave me alone. To never darken my door again. And then when he stuck me in the neck with what he said was poison I of course told him whatever he wanted to hear.”

“And why would you do that?” asked Puller.

Now it was his turn to receive a condescending look. “Because I felt sorry for him and wanted him never to go back to prison. And I very much wanted to confess to treason and take his place.” She suddenly snapped, “Why the hell do you think? Because he told me that was the only way I was getting the damn antidote to the poison he injected me with.”

“But he didn’t actually poison you,” pointed out Puller.

“Right, I know that now. He told me he’d injected me with an organophosphate. Nasty stuff, let me tell you. I was scared out of my wits. I would have said anything to get the antidote.”

“So when you hit him with the lamp and got to a gun, what did you expect would happen?”

“That I would force him to give me the antidote.”

“And when he got away?”

“I called the police and the paramedics. I literally thought I had minutes to live. I was out of my mind with fright, thanks to that bastard.”

“And I guess you were relieved when that turned out not to be the case?” noted Knox.

Reynolds didn’t even dignify that with an answer.

They asked Reynolds a few more questions and then left. As Puller turned back around at the doorway he saw Reynolds staring right at him. She wasn’t smiling or looking triumphant. She was just watching him. And then she turned and went back to her work.

As they walked down the corridor Knox said, “Every time I see that woman I want to strangle her.”

“Not me, I’d just shoot her,” said Puller.

She looked up at him. “So did you get any good body cues from the witch?”

“Ironically enough, this time it really was more what she said than how she said it.”

“What do you mean?”

Puller knew she hadn’t hit his brother with a lamp. He was neither bruised nor bloody. But he couldn’t tell Knox that without revealing that he and his brother had met. Yet there was something else.

“I checked the toxicology report that they did on Reynolds after my brother supposedly injected her with poison. Remember that Carter said they had done one? Well, I got a copy emailed to me this morning.”

“But it didn’t find poison.”

“No, but it did reveal traces of a strong sedative. Strong enough to have knocked her out.”

Knox stopped, and so did Puller.

“A sedative?” she said. “Why didn’t anyone else notice that?”

“Because I think they all stopped looking at the tox report when it showed no poison. Me, I tend to read until the end.”

“But why would there be a sedative in her system?”

“My brother could have injected her with one.”

“Why would he do that if he wanted her to talk?”

“To allow him to escape after they finished talking.”

“But why would she lie if she knew it was provable by a blood test?”

“Because she’s not as smart as she thinks she is. I don’t believe she thought it all the way through. And I think she truly hates my brother and saw an opportunity to really stick it to him. Calling him a coward and trying to make us believe that she was able to fight him off successfully must have really brightened her day. Oh, and she obviously knew you had searched her house and found the gun in the bookcase. That’s why she mentioned it. Really good liars always work in something true to make the lie more plausible.”

“So that means she was lying about . . . well, everything.”

“I never doubted that for a minute,” said Puller.





CHAPTER





51



THEY HAD ALMOST gotten to the building’s exit when two security personnel stopped them.

“Chief Puller? Agent Knox?” said one, who was dressed in cammies and carried the rank of sergeant.

“Yes?” said Puller.

“Mr. Carter would like to see you both.”

Donovan Carter was waiting for them in a room adjacent to his formal office. There was one other person in the room, a man of medium height with a thick head of blond hair and penetrating green eyes. Like Carter he wore a suit, regulation navy blue with a white shirt and muted striped tie.

“This is Blair Sullivan,” Carter began, indicating the man next to him. “He heads up our internal security section.”