The Final Twist, Jeffery Deaver [philippa perry book TXT] 📗

in the future—maybe Russell had indeed tucked the phone number away. But right here, right now, it was so very fragile. Gram for gram, the strands of a spider’s web are stronger than steel. But it takes no more than a gust of wind, not even one so fierce, or the transit of a broom in the hands of a busy housekeeper to bring the creature’s home, world and perhaps life to an abrupt end.

Shaw said, “It’s good to see you’re okay. I’ll tell Mary Dove.”

“Do that.” His brother walked to the door and let himself out.

17

Shaw fished in his backpack. He left his personal iPhone there and pulled out a burner. If he was concerned that his calls might be monitored, he used this one—an Android with some Linux kernel modifications for added encryption and security.

The call he was making now had nothing to do with BlackBridge or the UIP or Amos Gahl. Still, under the circumstances he wanted all the security he could get.

“Hello?”

“It’s me.”

“Colt.” The woman’s voice was, as always, low, steady. “You’re at the house?”

“That’s right. It’s a safe house. Ash had a hidey-hole in the basement. I found more relevant material. Haven’t made too much headway yet.”

There was a pause. His mother was in effect saying: What else? Because there was obviously something else.

“I wanted to let you know. I saw him today. Russell.”

“My God . . .” Mary Dove’s whisper tapered to silence. She was a woman to whom the word surprised could rarely be applied. “He’s all right?”

“Yes.” Shaw was sipping coffee, tamed with milk, slowly. It was very hot.

“That answers the big question. He’s alive.”

All these years the family had not known whether Russell was still of this earth.

“How’d that come about?”

He explained that his older brother too had known about the house on Alvarez and used it occasionally.

“Yes, that’s right. Ash mentioned he’d seen Russell in San Francisco once or twice.”

“He’s with the government, it looks like. CIA sort of operation, though not them.”

“What does he do for them?”

“Intelligence of some sort.”

He did not tell his mother about Blond’s fate.

Her lack of response might have been a hum of skepticism about his answer.

“It’s called the group. Not a formal name.” Silence again. Then: “He seemed . . . okay. Good at his job.”

“And he’s—”

“Gone. An assignment. Couldn’t tell me what.”

A very rare sigh. “That boy . . . I never knew exactly what was going on in his mind. Remember? He’d spend days in the woods? And not part of Ash’s training. I’d wake up, get the coffee and biscuits going and find that he’d left before first light, with rations and his weapon.”

Her resonant voice was painted with discontent and for a moment Shaw regretted telling her about crossing paths with his brother. Maybe her hopes had been up momentarily that he’d return for a visit. “Well. He’s who he is. But . . . did he say why he vanished, all these years?”

In honesty Colter Shaw could tell his mother, “No, he didn’t.” Because Russell had not spoken of his profound disappointment that the younger brother had silently accused the older of murder.

“It’s going well, the search?”

“Good.”

“A mother’s got to say, ‘Be careful.’”

Shaw chuckled.

Then Mary Dove said, “Glad you told me about your brother. Imagine you were debating letting me know. But it was the right thing.” Then her tone changed and she said, “Anybody else you want to say hey to?”

“Matter of fact . . .”

“Hold on.”

18

Hi.” Victoria Lesston’s voice was also low, and there was a particular tone about it. Shaw tried to think of what the analogy to describe it might be. Then it occurred to him: a musical instrument. In particular, he refined: a cello, rich and resonant. In the middle strings range only.

“Tacoma was interesting. Got robbed and I’m responsible for a Nissan Pathfinder burning down to the rims. No injuries.”

“Never dull with you, is it, Colt? What’d they get?”

“I’ll go into it later. In person.”

She laughed airily. “Sooner, not later, I hope.”

Shaw pictured her deep-gray eyes and her ringlets of hair, which morphed from pale brunette to dark blond according to the whim of the sun or moon.

“The big news: my brother surfaced.”

“Really? You said you weren’t even sure he was alive.”

“He’s doing some kind of clandestine work. Think he needed to stay undercover.”

“Like those KGB agents.”

“Maybe something like that.”

“When you’re finished, will he come down here with you to see your mother?”

Thinking no, he said, “Maybe.”

Her voice lowered. “How are you dealing with it?”

Not a question he was prepared to respond to. “Still surprised.” He asked how she was feeling.

The beat told him she recognized, and respected, the deflection. “All good here. Your mother is pretty much amazing.”

He had met Victoria a week ago, on a mission he’d had to the wilds of Washington State. The incident had started as a reward assignment but had soon turned into an undercover operation, which he’d undertaken, in part, to save Victoria from an enigmatic organization that might or might not have been a dangerous cult.

She’d been injured in a fall from a cliff’s edge into a lake. A former Delta Force officer, Victoria was in fit shape and while the fall might have killed another person, she survived with only minor harm. Shaw had suggested she might want to return to the Compound where his mother, a general practitioner MD, as well as a psychiatrist, could help her with physical therapy.

Shaw had another reason to ask her to the homestead, and she apparently had a similar motive in accepting his invitation; he remembered their lengthy kiss outside her bedroom the night before he left on the drive that ultimately led him here to the safe house.

“Where are you?”

“The Western Hemisphere. Maybe.”

Even with the encryption, he was reluctant to be too specific.

Never assume your conversations are private . . .

“You’re a stitch, Colter. Your mother sometimes calls you ‘Colt.’ Which do you like?”

Their courtship, if you could call it that, had been intense