He should have killed Amalie and buried her under the concrete the way he’d just buried his computer’s guts. If he’d done that, none of this would be happening. Well, that was all water under the bridge now. Now he had to get ready to leave this place and the life he had created for himself in Washington, D.C.

Once more, he trudged into the house. And this time took the steps to the second floor instead of the elevator, where he hit the shower full blast. When he emerged, he was ready to give himself a clean shave and dress the way he normally did. He headed back to his office, where he opened his locked desk drawer again and withdrew a burner phone. He called the airlines and, using one of his aliases, tried to book a late-afternoon or early-evening flight for Argentina. He was told the earliest he could get a flight was 7:00 A.M. the following morning. They were booked solid. He then tried three other airlines with the same result. He finally booked a red-eye out of Dulles for midnight tonight.

Time to put his house in order, so that whoever came to go through his things would find nothing. In the end, they’d say the man just walked out of the house and never returned. He felt so smug he decided to go downstairs and make himself a soft-boiled egg. Like Gabriel Knight, he knew how to cook; he just didn’t like doing it.

While he was puttering around in his kitchen, Moss thought about his staff and how loyal they’d all been to him. He hated that he was going to leave them high and dry, but if he paid them a bonus or left money, then the scenario that he just walked out the door and never came back wouldn’t work. He finally solved the problem by telling himself he would take all their names and addresses and in a few months he’d send money orders to their homes or envelopes full of cash by overnight mail.

It was all doable. All of it.

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

It was just a few minutes before full dusk when Maggie Spritzer sent Lincoln Moss a text asking if she and her crew could stop by even though the hour was late. There was no response. As she explained it to the crew, it was just to confirm Avery Snowden’s earlier text advising them that Lincoln Moss had not left the premises in two whole days. Unless he was dead, he was inside the house healthy and whole.

Little did they know.