“You’re sure that you are his equal?”

“No.”

“No, Rickard?”

“I’m better than him.”

“I hope so.”

This time it was the other person who hung up first. Rickard stared at the phone, his left hand curling into a fist again.

“You hope so?” He spoke into the unresponsive phone. “You fucking hope so?”

Twice he’d been disrespected in as many minutes.

Rickard punched the steering wheel. When it didn’t break, he punched it again and again in a frenzy that didn’t halt until his blood slicked the wheel.

Chapter 14

14

Imogen’s house was situated on the bluffs above Little Kennebec Bay, the nearest town being the tiny harbor of Machiasport. To get there we had to put down at a private airstrip outside the small town of Holden, because there was no way we’d get through security at Bangor International, then we drove up the rugged coastline in a 4x4 supplied by Rink’s contact at the airstrip.

Icy rain thundered on the cab. The heater was cranked high, blowing hot, dry gusts against my face, but outside it looked cold. Wearing my Florida getup, I might succumb to hypothermia in an hour. Rink’s flamboyant shirt would be no protection at all.

“We need to stop and get kitted out,” I said.

Bryce was perhaps the best equipped for the cold, but even he nodded. We needed coats and hats that were designed for keeping the heat in rather than the sun out.

There were plenty of places on the way up to Little Kennebec Bay, and taking twenty minutes out of our journey, we restocked at a fishing tackle store. We bought fleece-lined coats and hats with ear-flaps, and we rigged Bryce out with a new pair of boots. Rink and I lived in our boots, so we were okay in that department. We paid with a debit card with a faked name. It sounds bad, but there was actually money I’d deposited into the account, so it was a genuine transaction: it would just never be traced back to me.

Behind the counter a radio was playing. A newscaster regaled his audience with the latest news. The top story centered on a gunfight where one cop had died and another was critically injured. It came as no surprise that my name was thrown into the pot, but I walked out of the store pretty thankful. There was no mention of a woman having been found mutilated.

Because mobile telephones are deceptively easy to trace, I turned off the one I’d used in Tampa, removing the battery for good measure, and purchased another with prepaid credit at a service station a little farther along our route. I tried Walter Hayes Conrad again, but with similar results.