Hothouse Orchid (Holly Barker 6)

Holly returned the phone to its holster and bent to pick up her bags. As she did a gray-haired man got out of a silver Toyota and came toward her across the street, heading for the market.

As he passed, he gave her a little smile, and she smiled back, as people in Vero and Orchid Beach usually did in their small-town, neighborly way. Holly continued to her car.

Teddy had recognized her immediately but had not altered his course to the market. It was as good a time as any to see if she would recognize him. He passed her with a smile, and she smiled back. Inside the store, he stood behind a stack of canned goods and watched her through the window. She opened the rear door of her car-a Porsche Cayenne Turbo, he noted-put her groceries inside, got into the car and drove away without a second glance at the market.

That went well, he thought, and he wondered how a woman on an Agency salary could afford a car that cost around a hundred thousand dollars. Maybe he would look into that.

Holly drove home, let Daisy out onto the beach and put her groceries away. She showered and changed, then went downstairs to watch the news before Josh came.

Teddy put his groceries away and started a roast chicken. Then he went to his computer and found a meandering route through several cities, until he found an idle machine in San Diego, California. From there he logged on to the Agency mainframe, then navigated to personnel, where he opened Holly Barker’s file.

He read through the file slowly, from Lance Cabot’s initial letter of recommendation for her hiring, through her training at the Farm, where she had done exceptionally well in every category and had run up the highest pistol score in the history of the Agency. He made a note not to put himself in a position, as he once had, where she might have an opportunity to shoot at him. He felt lucky to have gotten away with the leg wound.

There had been a break in her training at the Farm, when she had been transferred to special duty in New York, under Cabot. He was clearly her rabbi at the Agency, and she had chosen him well, if, indeed, she had done the choosing. This was the period when Teddy had met her at the Metropolitan Opera, when he was disguised as an elderly Jewish gentleman, retired from the garment trade. A short time later, she had come uncomfortably close to him again, but he had managed to escape from the city.

He noted that she had recently been promoted to assistant deputy director, again under the aegis of Lance Cabot, and that she had, accordingly, received a substantial raise. Still, her Agency income didn’t seem to support the purchase of an expensive German SUV with a 500-hp turbocharged engine.

He went to her original application and read, in fairly telegraphic form, of her progress through her army career and her hiring as chief of police in Orchid Beach. Then he came to her financial disclosure form.

“Ahhhh,” he said aloud to himself. The woman had a substantial estate, amounting to nearly three million dollars, nearly all of it inherited from her fiancé, who had been killed as an innocent bystander in a bank robbery the day before her wedding. Teddy felt sorry that she had experienced such pain, but her personal wealth accounted for the ownership of the Cayenne as well as for her Orchid Beach house.

Teddy logged off the mainframe and closed his computer. What an interesting woman she was, he thought. It was a pity that he couldn’t know her better. Still, from what he had just read, he knew more about her than most people.

He went back into the kitchen, checked on the roasting chicken, and began preparing the rest of their dinner.

He couldn’t do what he wanted to tonight, because Lauren would be there. Jim Bruno would have to wait a little.

37

Lance Cabot was at his desk in the early morning when there was a rap at his door. His secretary was not in yet, and no one was screening his visitors. “Come in,” he said.

The door opened slightly and the disheveled head of the computer geek who had visited him before appeared. “Got a second?”

“What is it?” Lance asked, not a little annoyed. He couldn’t remember the kid’s name, but he thought he had solved his problem.

“Our visitor returned to the mainframe early last evening,” he said, “this time via a chain of computers around the country ending in San Diego.”

“And?”

“And he got into Holly Barker?

?s personnel records.”

This stopped Lance in his tracks. “Are you sure about this?” he asked, giving himself time to think.

“Absolutely. I still haven’t been able to track him back to a specific computer, but I think he may be in the state of Florida.”

“What was it he was looking for last time?”

“Information on the background of a retired army colonel, James Bruno. Also, he accessed his driver’s license record in Florida.”

“Can you set some sort of trap for him?”

“I already have; when I came in this morning I had an alert from the mainframe waiting on my work station.”

“But you can’t track him to a specific computer?”

“That’s hard. The guy-or girl-is very smart. If he continued to use the same computer chain, that would make it a lot easier, but both times I discovered him he had created a new chain. It’s like he’s making big geographical leaps around the country every time he logs on.”