Gone(66)

“You didn’t see any kind of aquifer? Another tunnel leading to some subterranean dump site?”

He shook his head. “But we left the FBI behind. If there’s some underground toxic lake, I mean, they’re gonna find it. Not something you can keep hidden.”

“No . . .” Stokes said, thoughtful. He turned back around, leather seat squawking with his movement. He ran a hand back through his thinning hair. Then he pointed to the mess of parked vehicles ahead of them. “Rondeau’s there.”

“Which one? Black SUV?”

“Yep. No plates. Fed car.”

They were silent for a moment. They watched as the SUV left the parking area. A few more seconds passed, and the air in the jeep became heavy.

“Why would the mob just let the family go?” Stokes wondered aloud.

“Spillane called them off,” Peter answered, thinking of the briefing with Jackson and the other agents that morning. And how Hutch Kemp explained the way their captors had reacted to a phone call.

“Yeah, well, why were they kept alive in the first place? You got a guy who’s going to expose you with his new movie, you just end him. Why all the rigmarole?”

The questions which had subsided in the excitement of finding the family now bubbled back to the surface of Peter’s mind. This was ostensibly the mob, protecting their interests, kidnapping a man and his family because of his inquiry into waste shipping methods. But the mafia didn’t ordinarily tell people they were going to be okay, then let them go. Instead, mob victims wound up at the bottom of a lake, or dismembered; gone for good, one way or another. Even if Spillane had been arrested and made a call to release the family — Stokes’ question had merit — why had they been kept alive in the first place?

Peter watched the SUV as it climbed the hill away from the site. “Let’s just follow them,” he said suddenly. “See where they go.”

“Peter.” Althea took him by the arm. “Are you kidding?”

“Yeah,” Stokes said. He put the car in drive, hesitated.

“Guys,” Althea said. “Listen. This is . . . these are FBI. And Rondeau is . . . well, he’s evidently distressed. We know he has problems, yeah? That’s clear. So . . .”

Stokes nodded. “I understand. But he’s my partner. If you need to go . . .”

Peter turned to Althea. He knew she was the one thinking straight — she always was. But he felt like this was something he had to do. And maybe it was better, given all she’d already been through, for her to stay safe. “It’s okay. Go.”

She had her hand on the door latch. Then she let go and faced forward with a determined expression. She was staying.

They drove out of the parking lot. The SUV continued up the winding road out of Bluestone, through the sapling trees, and they followed.





CHAPTER FORTY-TWO / A Danger to Yourself and Others

“Where are you taking me?” Rondeau asked.

McDonough caught his gaze in the rear-view mirror. “We’re just driving. Let’s just drive, okay? Let’s just talk.”

“You want to talk? Charge me with something and you can talk to my lawyer.”

McDonough exchanged a look with the other agent, who rolled her eyes. “A lawyer?” McDonough said. “You need a shrink, not a lawyer.”

“Then take me to see one. I’ll submit to a full evaluation. If they’re not on your payroll, anyway. And first I’d like to see my blood work.”

McDonough shook his head, mournfully. “See? Right there. That’s what’s gotten you into this kind of mess, I bet. Your paranoid delusions.”

Rondeau opened his mouth to reply, to argue, but then shut it. This was what they wanted. They were trying to throw him, get him on the defensive. He could begin to see it now — the carefully manufactured expressions, the fake sympathy — they were going to say he wasn’t simply mistaken, but that he had mental problems, and discount everything he’d witnessed.

He’s a danger to himself and others.

It was the key phrase which allowed indefinite incarceration.

The agents drove in silence for a few moments. Since Rondeau hadn’t taken the bait, McDonough kept fishing. “So you don’t deny it, then? You’re clear, at last? Isn’t that what the scientologists call it, Agent Willette? ‘Going clear?’”

“That’s right.” She nodded. “You ascend through these mystical levels, purging yourself of all your uncleanliness. Then you get to this top level — you’re ‘clear.’ And they finally give you the secret documents about the origins of the world.”

“Right, right,” McDonough went along, amused. “That we come from an alien planet, right?”

“We come from another world. Did you know the whole Scientology thing was started by a writer?”

“You mean like a fiction writer?”

“L. Ron Hubbard. Guy came up with this whole science fiction story about aliens and super beings and all this. Then he turned around and sold it as a religion. And I mean sold it. Getting rich off of his stories. The American Dream, right?” She turned and looked at Rondeau. “You getting rich off your fantasies, Rondeau? Got a memoir in the hopper? Going to start a religion? Avoid paying taxes?”

He stayed silent. The car was probably bugged. They were doing this little act to get a confession out of him, to make him slip up and incriminate himself.