When she'd heard Jessie stir this morning, she'd hastily gotten up, knowing she had no answers for the questions her daughter might ask. Now, as she gazed at Spencer's tender look, she was assured that it was all real; there would be time to talk later about what it all meant.

"I guess I should go call Elena again. You think she's had enough time to look into all that stuff you sent?"

"Knowing her, she's been on it since Saturday."

"What do you think she'll do?"

"I don't know, but listen to every detail. There might be clues there and we can figure it out when you get back. Oh, and I wouldn't use the same phone you used last time. Remember, you said you were headed home, so your bank should be somewhere else."

This time, Spencer wrote the directions for a shopping center in Fairfax, where Ruth should again find a payphone and place her call directly to Elena's office. Before the younger woman left, they retreated to the bedroom, where they shared an emotional hug and a kiss that briefly caused their passion to flare.

"Let me go get this done." After two more quick kisses, she grabbed her keys and stopped at the door to give her daughter a hug. "Be sweet, honey. I'll be back soon."

Thomas Fennimore reshuffled the papers on his desk, pushing his glasses up for the hundredth time today. Anyone walking by his cubicle would be appalled at the apparent chaos, but Thomas knew exactly where everything was, and what it meant to his case.

His case.

Elena had given him his own case, a story and a loose set of clues beneath which he might uncover wrongdoing. Eager to prove himself, he'd worked until midnight on Saturday and all day yesterday, pulling records and cross-checking, and laying all the pieces end to end.

Thomas understood greed, but his favorite flaw was stupidity. Unless he was mistaken, Drummond Appliances had committed both. As neatly as his excited hand could, he filled out the request form for travel expenses and two local auditors in Madison, Maine.

Silently, he laid the forms before his boss, grinning broadly as she signed her approval. He was about to speak when her phone rang.

A payphone in Fairfax, Virginia.

"Internal Revenue Service, Special Agent Elena Diaz. How may I help you?"

"Agent Diaz?"

It was the woman who had come to the park, Ruth Ferguson.

"Yes, this is Agent Diaz," she said calmly, waving at her assistant to alert him to the call.

"This is the woman who talked with you the other day, about George Roscone."

"Yes, thank you very much for calling back. I had a chance to look over the papers that you gave me, and that's exactly the sort of evidence we're looking for. I've gotten approval for a reward, but we need to move quickly. Can you come to my office?"

Chad had approved her plan to pick up this informant and drive immediately to where Spencer was hiding. From there, they would be ushered to a safe house to await the execution of the warrants.

"I don't know about that. Can I still be anonymous?"

"You can remain anonymous," the agent assured. Obviously, that meant her informant didn't quite trust where she stood. Her apprehension was understandable, considering she was wanted for felony kidnapping.

"Good. So should we meet in the same place?"

No, that wouldn't work. They needed to be further away from the surveillance van, and close to a place where Ruth could be whisked away by a waiting car. "What if we met at the Lincoln Memorial? By the vendors on Independence Avenue?"

"Okay, I can do that. What time?"

"Can you come now?" Elena was getting anxious.

"Does it have to be right now?"

"Once the decision is made to move ahead, we try to get things done as quickly as possible. We just don't want to leave any opportunities for things to go wrong at the last minute," Elena explained, now impatient about this woman's paranoia. Spencer's life was at risk, as was the informant's. "I really need for you to trust me on this," she added.

"Okay, by the Lincoln Memorial. I'll come now."

Returning the phone to its cradle, Elena sat back and sighed. This danger for Spencer was coming to an end. The events of the past few days had been a wake up call for her, one that made her acknowledge how she truly felt about the beautiful friend who had once offered her heart.

This case was going to rock the District hard, and Spencer wouldn't enjoy the attention at all. When it was all over, they should get away for awhile. Maybe they could go to one of the islands for a couple of weeks. They could sun and swim, and who knows, maybe even....

"Elena?" the intercom buzzed.

"Yes?"

"There's someone here to see you. He says he wants to turn himself in."

The baffled agent stood and poked her head into the hallway, craning her neck to see the reception area. There stood George Roscone.

Mike Pollard stepped back into the van after his walk across the mall. He didn't feel comfortable talking to Akers with the technician present, so his habit was to go outside and walk around.

Akers was pissed this morning because of the new asshole he'd gotten, courtesy of Stacy Eagleton. They had two more days to find Rollins or she was pulling the plug on everything.

"Did I miss anything?"

"Not much. That woman called back about Roscone. She's going to meet Diaz at the Lincoln Memorial. Diaz got the reward approved for her."

"Wonder why she's meeting her there?" At least if Diaz was out of the building, they could take a break from the phones.

"The informant said she wanted to stay anonymous."

"Hmm." That was odd...not that they were meeting outside, but that they were meeting in a different place. Why? "Rewind that tape, let me listen."

The technician did as he was asked while Pollard settled in with the headphones. He didn't like what he was hearing. Why the insistence that they meet right away and why at the Lincoln Memorial? The informant hadn't even asked how much the reward was.

"Hey, Jack. Is today a bank holiday?"

"If it was a bank holiday, you'd be here by yourself," the technician chuckled.

Then why wasn't this informant at work?

Mike Pollard needed to take another walk and talk with his partner about this Roscone informant. He had a sinking feeling that Spencer Rollins had gotten under their radar.

The urgency in the IRS agent's request to come immediately was unmistakable, but it was the last thing Ruth had expected...or wanted. There was something about moving ahead so fast that was unsettling, but she wrote it off as nervousness about being on the run. She needed to trust Elena Diaz, just as she'd been asked, especially now that Elena held her fate in her hands.

There wasn't time to go back to the trailer. Spencer would worry, but maybe Elena could find a way to get in touch with Viv and let her know things were alright. Or maybe they were ready to bring Spencer in. That would get her out of danger and they could go after the real killers. Whatever they had planned, the agent was expecting her, and if she didn't show up she might miss a window for ending this peril.

From Fairfax, Ruth drove to the Franconia-Springfield station, the same place she'd parked the other day. Before buying her ticket, she studied the layout of the Metro system, looking for the closest stop to the Lincoln Memorial. She had a few choices - Arlington, Farragut West, Smithsonian - all about the same distance away, but none particularly close. With a five dollar fare card in hand, she boarded the train and settled in for the ride.

It would be over soon, she repeated in her head as she jostled back and forth in the orange vinyl seat. At least it would be over for Spencer. The more she thought about her own situation, the more she doubted there was anything anyone could do. If Elena let her walk, she and Jessie would need to find a new home, she realized dismally. The respite of the last week would be over, along with that glimmer of hope she'd had for a new start here with friends like Viv...and with Spencer. She and her daughter would try again in a new place.

When her stop was announced, Ruth stood up and exited onto the platform. The tall escalator took her to street level, where the chilly breeze prompted her to pull up the collar on her jacket. She could see the back of Lincoln Memorial at the other end of the Arlington Bridge.

It will soon be over, she said again.

As she started across the Potomac, a black government sedan pulled silently alongside her. A suited man in a trench coat emerged, flashing his badge as he blocked her path on the bridge.

"Michael Pollard, FBI. I need you to get in the car, please."

Ruth's heart began to pound as the blood left her face. They were FBI!

"In the car, now," he ordered sharply.

Shaking and dazed, she hesitated until he grabbed her arm forcefully and shoved her to the curb. There he opened the back door and guided her inside. Sliding in beside her, the agent shut the door and the car picked up speed as it crossed the bridge and turned the corner onto Independence Avenue.

Elena Diaz continued to pace the area around the Lincoln Memorial, scanning the crowds of tourists for the blonde woman who had called her almost two hours ago. For whatever reason, Ruth Ferguson had changed her mind about keeping their appointment.

Either that, or the FBI agents were on to her ruse and had picked her up en route. And if that was the case, both Ruth and Spencer were in grave danger.

CHAPTER 23.

RUTH CAUGHT A glimpse of the lettering over the main glass doors as the car slowed: Federal Bureau of Investigation. The black sedan turned and started down a ramp to the underground garage. The short ride had been quiet; so quiet in fact that she still didn't know if this was about Spencer Rollins, Ruth Ferguson, or Karen Oliver.

"I don't have the evidence with me," she offered.

Neither man responded as the driver pulled into a marked space near the elevator. When they stopped, he got out and opened her door, uttering his first words.

"Step out of the car and place your hands behind your back."

Continuing to shake, she stood and slowly turned around. Too slowly, it seemed, as the driver pushed her shoulder hard to bring her hands together for the cuffs. Next he patted her down, removing her car keys and the small wad of bills she'd stuffed into her back pocket. Roughly, he seized her elbow and thrust her toward the elevator.

When they reached the fifth floor, they escorted her more casually down a hallway of offices to a small interior room an interrogation room from the looks of it. Six chairs sat at a rectangular table underneath an array of fluorescent lighting. The agent who identified himself as Pollard pulled out a chair and indicated that she should sit.

Ruth did so and leaned back uncomfortably on her arms, her hands still bound by the metal cuffs.

"Are these really necessary?" she asked.

Again, they ignored her, stepping back into the hallway and closing the door.

Fine! Her mind had been spinning all the way over about how she was going to play her part. These assholes had just helped her decide. She wasn't going to tell them jack shit about anything. Thankfully, she'd had the foresight to leave her wallet in the glove compartment of the Taurus. If this wasn't about Karen Oliver, they'd never find Jessie. For that matter, they wouldn't find Spencer either.

The driver, the surly one, came back in and took a seat opposite her across the table. "Why don't we start with your name?"

"I have nothing to say to you."

"Then it's going to be a very long night, because I'm not leaving here until I've had my questions answered," he stated firmly.

This time, Ruth didn't reply.

"So let me ask again. What is your name?"

"Hearing problem?" she mumbled.

Akers' jaw flinched in anger. He needed this woman to tip her hand, and that wouldn't happen if she didn't talk at all. "Very well, then I'll start. I'm Special Agent Calvin Akers of the FBI. Special Agent Pollard and I are conducting an investigation in conjunction with Elena Diaz, an agent with the IRS. You spoke with her from a payphone in Reston on Friday afternoon, claiming to have information on one George Roscone. On Saturday morning, you met with Agent Diaz on the mall and passed her a blue folder, purportedly containing evidence regarding Mr. Roscone's accounts. You called Agent Diaz again this morning from a payphone in Fairfax and you were on your way to a second meeting at the Lincoln Memorial when we intercepted you. That is what we already know. What we are missing is who you are and why we should believe that you have knowledge of a bank account belonging to Mr. Roscone."

"I was promised a reward," Ruth answered, sticking with her original story. This was almost certainly about Spencer, or they wouldn't have known about her calls.

"And there is a reward. Your reward is that you will be allowed to leave once you have given us the information we seek."

The blonde woman fell silent again. The clock on the wall said 11:45; Spencer would be expecting her. In a couple more hours, the programmer would get worried and take action; Elena Diaz and her team would find her and end this.

"Of course, if it's money that interests you, I do happen to have a case I'm working on that involves a $25,000 reward." He pulled from his pocket a photo of Spencer Rollins and pushed it across the table, looking carefully for her reaction. "Do you know this woman?"

Ruth looked at the photo as if for the first time and shook her head. "No."

"Have you seen this picture before?"

"No."

"Do you ever watch the news or read the newspapers?"

"No."

"Surely, you've seen the news at least once or twice in the last week, haven't you?"

"Not that I remember." Ruth needed to stop answering his questions. He seemed to be having too much fun, as though she were playing into his hand somehow.

"Have you heard about the recent murders at Margadon, the pharmaceutical company in Bethesda? One of the victims was an Albino." That was the sort of information that people would have remembered. "His picture was in the paper too. Did you happen to see that? He looked just like somebody had powdered his face, you know what I mean?"

This man was despicable, Ruth thought. "No," she repeated furiously.

That had gotten a nice rise, he thought. One would almost think she'd known Henry Estes to evoke that sort of angry response.

"'Course, he wasn't white like that when we found him. He was sort of purple, what with that little hitch knot around his neck." He watched with satisfaction as the woman's face reddened.

"Did you happen to know Henry Estes?" he asked. "I mean, you look a little like you're getting pretty upset at hearing about all this."

"I'm not used to hearing people talk so callously about the dead," she answered coldly.

Akers chuckled. "I guess we do get a little desensitized to these sorts of things after a while. But then there's the other end of that spectrum, where we learn to be very sensitive to things. Over the years, I've developed quite a sense of smell, especially for rats. And that's what I'm smelling here: a rat. See, I'm not buying this story about Roscone. I think you're perpetrating a hoax on the good people of the IRS, and I'm prepared to hold you here until I learn otherwise. Am I clear on that?"

"Now that you're finally accusing me of something, I suppose this would be a good time for me to ask for an attorney." Ruth knew there was no way in hell that her wish would be granted, but she needed a little more leverage against this son of a bitch.