Page 16 of Heartbreaker (Buchanan-Renard 1)

  “That won’t do us much good. It’s a little town, and we’ll walk as much as we drive.”

  “You’re going to be wearing a cute little tracking device too. I’m not sure what it will be in, but probably a pin or a bracelet.”

  It was actually comforting to know that the FBI would be tracking her as she moved about town.

  “I’m sure Jules Wesson is efficient, but I still wish that Pete were in Holy Oaks.”

  “He wouldn’t be much good there. He’s never been a field agent. Jules Wesson and Noah and I will feed him information as we get it, and hopefully Pete will be able to figure out the where and when and how. Think there’s a decent place to eat in Sweetwater? That’s the next exit.”

  “There’s a diner in the center of town. The food’s actually pretty good.”

  “What are you in the mood for?”

  “A big, juicy hamburger with pickles. And fries. Lots of French fries.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  She didn’t need to give him directions. Sweetwater boasted one main street, aptly named Main Street, and the diner was located right smack in the middle of it.

  Laurant slid into a booth by the front window. Nick sat down beside her. There wasn’t much room.

  “Don’t you want to sit across from me?” she asked.

  “No,” he replied as he reached for the sticky, plasticized menu standing on end behind the salt and pepper shakers. “We’re gonna start practicing this lovey-dovey stuff.”

  Nick ordered two double hamburgers, a double order of fries, and two glasses of milk. She told him he ate like a farmhand, and that reminded him of a story about her brother involving the cafeteria line at college. By the time Nick finished recounting the incident, she was laughing so hard, there were tears in her eyes. She had no idea Tommy had been such a prankster.

  “He started the food fight?”

  “Tommy wasn’t always a priest,” Nick reminded her.

  He told her another story, and then another. A couple of times the other patrons of the diner turned at the sound of their laughter. They saw a young couple completely at ease with each other.

  Laurant was thoroughly relaxed by the time they got back into the car and headed out again.

  “Maybe you should slow down. I don’t see the gray car,” she said.

  “That’s the way it’s supposed to work. You aren’t supposed to see them.”

  “Are they going to follow us all the way to Holy Oaks.”

  “Yes, they are.”

  “How many agents are there waiting for us?”

  “Enough.”

  “Isn’t this costing a lot of money?”

  “We want to get him, Laurant. Cost isn’t important.”

  “Yes, but what happens if it takes longer than everyone expects?”

  “Then it takes longer.”

  Laurant removed the clip and let her hair fall around her shoulders, then she tilted the seat back. She had just closed her eyes when Nick said, “I don’t get it.”

  “What don’t you get?”

  “You . . . living in such a little town.”

  “I like it.”

  “I don’t believe it. You’re a big-city girl at heart.”

  “Actually, I’m not at all. I grew up in a little village.”

  “Your grandfather happened to own the village,” he pointed out. “You lived on an estate. You can call it a small town if you want.”

  “And I went to school in a tiny little town. It was almost cloistered. I really like Holy Oaks, Nick. The people there are good and decent. And it’s beautiful. And peaceful . . . at least it used to be peaceful.”

  “Yeah, well if you like it so much, how come you rent the house you live in? Why didn’t you buy it?”

  “I wanted to concentrate on the business first,” she explained. “And Mrs. Talbot didn’t want to sell the house just yet. She raised her family there, and even though she’s living in a nursing home now, she isn’t ready to let it go. I’m thinking about buying a cabin on the lake. It needs a lot of work though.”

  “How come you haven’t already purchased it?”

  “Steve Brenner.”

  “The Holy Oaks Advancement Society guy?”

  “He owns the cabin.”

  “I think the guy wants to own you.”

  “What?”

  “It seems that when Agents Farley and Feinberg went into your house, the neighbor lady called the sheriff and he came running.”

  “L.A. doesn’t run anywhere.”

  “The sheriff’s name is L.A.?”

  She smiled. “Lard Ass,” she explained. “Everyone calls him that. He isn’t highly thought of in Holy Oaks.”

  “I guess not.”

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt. What happened when the sheriff showed up? Did he know they were FBI? They must have told him.”

  “No, they didn’t and wouldn’t tell him anything, but the odd thing is, he never asked. He was busy telling them all about Steve Brenner’s designs on you. Seems Brenner’s telling everyone he’s going to marry you.”

  “He’s such a jerk.”

  “Sounds like it. One of the agents told the sheriff all about our hot and heavy relationship, and he couldn’t wait to leave.”

  “No doubt to tell Steve.”

  “No doubt.”

  “He’s the kind of man who has trouble understanding he can’t get everything he wants.”

  “I’ll help him understand.”

  She wasn’t sure how he planned to do that, but the tone of his voice indicated he was looking forward to it.

  It seemed that the time spent driving to Holy Oaks sped by faster than the actual miles. They were comfortable together. They discussed music—they both liked classical and country. They argued politics—she was a die-hard liberal, and he was a full-blown conservative. And he kept her fascinated with funny stories about growing up in a large family. Before she realized it, Nick was slowing down to take the exit to Holy Oaks.

  “We’ll be home before dark,” she remarked.

  Nick turned serious. “Laurant, there are a couple of things I need to tell you.”

  “Yes?”

  “Farley and Feinberg . . . the agents I mentioned a while ago.”

  “Yes?”

  “When they searched your house, they found a video camera.”

  “Where did they find it?”

  “In the linen closet upstairs. There was a perfectly drilled little hole about half the size of an aspirin. The camera’s eye was facing your bed. You never would have noticed it. It’s right in the center of a flower in your wallpaper.”

  She felt as though all the air had been knocked out of her lungs. She spun around in her seat and unconsciously clutched his forearm. “And you’re just now telling me?”

  “I thought you could use a little respite from this nightmare. If I’d told you when we first got in the car, you would have been worrying about it all the way home. Am I wrong?”

  “How long has it been there?”

  “Awhile,” he answered. “There was dust on it, so it’s been there for some time, at least a week or two, but I can’t tell you exactly how many days and nights. The serial number was filed off.”

  “Don’t ever hold back information again. All right? When you hear something new, you tell me right away.”

  “We’re going to be living together. I’ll tell you everything.”

  “Until death do us part?” she asked sarcastically, but her sarcasm was tinged with fear.

  “No, until we catch him.”

  She released her grip on his arm. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. You did warn me. You told me he’d been in my house and that he’d watched me sleep. He’s seen me . . .”

  She didn’t go on. She turned to look out the window so he wouldn’t see how shaken she was. She pictured herself getting dressed and undressed. Some nights when the air conditioner wasn’t cooling sufficiently, she’d slept in the nude. And all of it was on tape.

>

  She looked down at her lap and saw that she’d broken the hair clip. “I feel like I’ve done something I should be ashamed of. There were nights when I didn’t feel like wearing a nightgown. It was hot,” she defended.

  “What you do in the privacy of your own bedroom . . .”

  “But that’s just it,” she cried out. “I haven’t done anything. I slept. That’s all. I certainly haven’t been entertaining any men, but what if I had? God, this is so sick.”

  “Laurant—”

  “Don’t you dare say it.”

  “Say what?”

  “That it isn’t too late for me to change my mind.”

  He pulled over to the side of the road, put the car in park, and then nodded toward the sign to the right. It was the Holy Oaks city limit.

  “Are you giving me one last chance to change my mind?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Then why did you stop?”

  “To tell you that you’ve got to stop freaking out every time you hear something . . . unpleasant. There are going to be some surprises, and I’m going to try my damnedest to anticipate, but you’ve got to . . . handle it. You understand? I can’t be worried about how you’re reacting and try to put you back together every time you—”

  She put her hand on his arm, gently this time. “I promise. I won’t freak out. At least I’ll try not to.”

  He could hear the determination in her voice, see it in her eyes. “You’ve got guts,” he said as he changed gears and pulled out onto the highway.

  She was suddenly cold. She turned the air conditioner down and rubbed her arms. “Did they find the tape? Was it in the camera? Those tapes don’t last very long, do they? Just a couple of hours. How did he change it? Has he been going back and forth into my house . . . my bedroom? If he has, he’s been taking quite a risk of being seen.”

  “The camera’s operated with a transmitter, which means he’s watching your bedroom on a monitor somewhere. I’ll show it to you when we get there. It’s a fairly simple motion sensitive device.” He added, frowning, “High school stuff really—and that’s what bothers me about it. Whoever set up the equipment wasn’t a pro, but he got the job done.”

  “Why does that bother you?”

  “It just doesn’t seem very clever for our boy,” he explained. “Like I said, it isn’t high-tech, and our unsub seems like the kind who would go to great lengths to make it slick . . . perfect. His goal is to impress us.”

  “And you weren’t impressed.”

  “Exactly.”

  Nodding, she turned to look out the window again. “We’re almost home.”

  Nick turned left onto Assumption Road, a two-lane highway. Someone had partially blackened the road sign with paint so that only the first three letters, A-s-s, were visible. Nick grinned when he saw it.

  “The high school kids do that at least once a year,” she explained. “They think it’s funny.”

  “It is funny.”

  “Then you probably watch the Simpsons on television, don’t you?”

  “I never miss it.”

  “I don’t either,” she admitted. “Messing with the sign makes the abbot furious. Disrespectful and all that. Are we going home first, or do you want to go to the lake to see Jules Wesson? Tommy told me he arranged for the agents to use the abbot’s cabin.”

  “Let’s go check in with Wesson first. I turn on Oak Street, don’t I?”

  “Yes. You’d make a left on Oak if you were going to my house and a right to get to the lake.”

  The twin steeples of Assumption Abbey rose up in the distance. The gothic structure had been built on top of a hill overlooking the pristine little town. It was magnificent. The drab grayness of the massive stone edifice was intermittently broken by brilliant stained glass windows, and a long, winding path led up to the doors.

  Nick slowed the car as he drove past the wrought iron fence that surrounded the property. There were giant oaks everywhere. They clustered protectively against the north and south sides of the structure, like flying buttresses strengthening the outside walls.

  “It looks like a cathedral,” he remarked softly, as though they were inside the church now.

  “The renovation has been going on for a long time. It’s become a town project to raise funds to restore it,” she said. “It’s almost finished,” she added, “. . . the main church anyway. The chapel still needs work. We’ll have to come up here and walk around. The gardens are beautiful this time of year.”

  “Which came first? The chicken or the egg?”

  She understood what he was asking. “Assumption Abbey was founded by an order of priests from Belgium, and it was here long before the town developed. Our population is quite diverse. There was an influx of immigrants after World War II.”

  “Why would they come all the way to Holy Oaks, Iowa?”

  “Didn’t Tommy tell you anything about the history of this town?”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “The immigrants followed Father Henri VanKirk. He died last year. I wish I could have known him. He was an incredible man. During the war, he helped countless numbers of families escape the Germans, but he was eventually captured and tortured by the Nazis. When he was finally released, he came to America, and his superiors sent him here to heal. Quite a few of the families he had helped had lost everything, and they followed him. They rebuilt their lives and made Holy Oaks their home.

  “After Father VanKirk died, the abbot found his journals. He thought they would offer inspiration to people, and so he decided to have them all translated into English. Everyone’s been so busy getting ready for the anniversary celebration, there hasn’t been time, but as soon as it’s over, I’m supposed to begin the translation and save it all on the computer.”

  “Is Father VanKirk buried here?”

  “Yes, he is. There’s a cemetery on the other side of the abbey. Magnificent oak trees, bigger than the ones you see beside the church, circle the grounds . . .”

  “And that’s why this place is called Holy Oaks, right?”

  She smiled. “Right. They protect the ground where the angels sleep.”

  Nick nodded. “Where the angels sleep. I like that.”

  “What do you think of the town? It’s pretty, isn’t it?”

  White clapboard houses lined the paved brick streets. The streetlights looked like old-fashioned gas lights. Nick knew they were electric. Still, they were a nice touch and made the town all the more quaint.

  “Holy Oaks reminds me of a New England town. It’s got that kind of charm. Does your house have a white picket fence?”

  “No, but my neighbor’s does.”

  They reached the stop sign on Oak. Nick turned right and headed down another tree-lined street. The branches formed a canopy from one side to the other. “I feel like I’m in a time warp. I keep expecting to see Richie Cunningham driving down the street in a ’57 Chevy convertible.”

  “He lives two blocks over,” she teased.

  As they neared the lake, the houses became more modest. Built in the last half of the century, they sported more modern features, like brick facades and split levels, but, like their older counterparts, they were meticulously kept up. It was apparent that the families living here took pride in their homes and their town.

  They passed a deserted baseball field, continued west, past a Phillips 66 filling station, through a pair of rough timber posts and into the park.

  “This place is crammed with kids from the college in the spring and in the fall. The local high school kids take it over in the summer.”

  Nick rolled down his window. The earthy smell of the humus from the pine needles and the oak and birch leaves matted against the ground filled the air. They reached a fork in the road, and straight ahead was a clear lake. Shadows from the towering trees rippled on top of the glistening water with every faint breeze.

  The cabin was tucked in between the trees. Nick pulled into the gravel driveway and turned off the motor.

r />   “It doesn’t look like anyone’s home.”

  Laurant had just made the comment when the front door opened. Through the screen she could see a man with thick, black-rimmed glasses peering out at them.

  Nick made her stay in the car until he came around and opened her door. His eyes were never still. He was constantly searching the area around them, barely paying her any attention at all as he offered her his hand.

  “Is that man Jules Wesson?” Laurant asked.

  “No, that’s Matt Feinberg. He’s our electronic nerd. He’s a nice guy too. You’ll like him.”

  The agent under discussion waited until they’d reached the porch, then opened the door and stepped back. He was average in appearance, medium height, brown hair and eyes, and he wore braces. He had a wonderful, sincere smile. He was holding a wad of wires in both hands, but he dropped them on the entry table so he could shake her hand.

  After the preliminaries were exchanged, he asked, “Did Nick tell you that Farley and I went through your house?”

  “Yes,” she answered. “You’re the one who found the camera.”

  “That’s right. While we were inside, your neighbor called the sheriff, and he came running. He’s something else,” he said, and then he filled her in on what they had told the sheriff about doing some repair work on her house. Then he turned to Nick. “As soon as Seaton puts in another phone line, we’ll be good to go. He’s working on it now.”

  “How many agents are here?”

  Feinberg glanced up at the balcony before he answered. “Wesson isn’t sharing that information. I honestly don’t know how many are here, and if and when more are coming.”

  “Where is Wesson?”

  “In the bedroom getting some papers. This is a nice place, isn’t it? If the circumstances were different, I’d want to camp out here. The lake reminds me of Walden Pond.”

  Nick nodded. “This is the cabin you ought to buy, Laurant,” he said.

  She agreed. The light was wonderful. Two-story picture windows brought the view of the lake inside. The living room and dining area had been combined into one large rectangle. The atmosphere was rustic, yet airy. It was cluttered now though. Computer boxes and other equipment were scattered about. The dining room table had been pushed against the far wall, and on top were two computers. It didn’t look like either one had been plugged in yet.