I sat there stunned, my heart gripped by pain. Someone must have been in his office. Wesley had never hung up on me before. My paranoia got more inflamed as I went to find Lucy.

‘Hi,’ she said before I spoke from the doorway.

She could see my reflection in the monitor.

‘We’ve got to go,’ I said.

‘Why? Is it snowing again?’

‘No. The sun’s out.’

‘I’m almost finished here,’ she said, typing as she talked.

‘I need to get you and Janet back to Quantico.’

‘You need to call Grans,’ she said. ‘She’s feeling neglected.’

‘She is neglected and I feel guilty,’ I said.

Lucy turned around and looked at me as my pager went off.

‘Where is Janet?’ I asked.

‘I think she went downstairs.’

I pressed the display button and recognized Marino’s home number. ‘Well, you round her up and I’ll meet you downstairs in a minute.’

I returned to my office and this time shut the doors. When I called Marino, he sounded as if he were on amphetamines.

‘They’re gone,’ he said.

‘Who is?’

‘We found out where they was staying. The Hacienda Motel on US 1, that roach trap not too far from where you buy all your guns and ammo. That’s where that bitch took her girlfriend.’

‘What girlfriend?’ I still did not know what he was talking about. Then I remembered Jennifer. ‘Oh. The woman Carrie picked up at Rumors.’

‘Yo.’ He was so excited he sounded as if he had been on a Mayday. ‘Her name’s Apollonia and-‘

‘She’s alive?’ I interrupted.

‘Oh yeah. Carrie took her back to the motel and they partied.’

‘Who drove?’

‘Apollonia did.’

‘Did you find my van in the motel parking lot?’

‘Not when we hit the joint a little while ago. And the rooms were cleared out. It’s like they was never there.’

‘Then Carrie wasn’t in New York this past Tuesday,’ I said.

‘Nope. She was here partying while Gault was up there whacking Jimmy Davila. Then I’m thinking she got a place ready for him and probably helped intercept him wherever he was.’

‘I doubt he flew from New York to Richmond,’ I said. ‘That would have been too risky.’

‘I personally think he flew to DC on Wednesday …’

‘Marino,’ I said. ‘I flew to DC on Wednesday.’

‘I know you did. Maybe you and him was on the same plane.’

‘I didn’t see him.’

‘You don’t know that you didn’t. But the point is, if you were on the same plane, you can bet he saw you.’

I remembered leaving the terminal and getting into that old, beat-up taxi with the windows and locks that didn’t work. I wondered if Gault had been watching.

‘Does Carrie have a car?’ I asked.

‘She’s got a Saab convertible registered to her. But she sure as hell isn’t driving it these days.’