Perry shook his head. “You are one crazy bitch, Cutler. I can’t believe you have the balls to blackmail the president.”

“It’s not a question of courage, Dale. I’m scared to death. Those photographs are the only thing keeping me alive, and I’m going to use them any way I can so I can keep breathing.”

Perry looked down at the table. When he raised his eyes he looked contrite.

“I’m sorry you’re in this mess, and I’m very sorry about what happened in your apartment, especially because of what you went through when you were a cop. I really had no idea you’d get in so much trouble when I asked you to take the job. I thought the assignment would be easy money for you.”

“Well it wasn’t.”

“I feel responsible for getting you into this fix and I’ll do my best to get you out of it. Let’s get out of here and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you, Dale.”

“Hey, I like you, Cutler. You’re tough, and you’ve always done good work. You’ll come out of this okay, trust me.”

It was the “trust me” that did it. Dana had almost bought Perry’s sudden change of heart until he said that. Something was going on, and Dana knew it wasn’t going to be good. While she smiled “trustingly” at Perry her eyes worked the room. No one seemed out of place so the people working with Perry had to be outside.

“Why don’t you give me a number where I can get in touch when I have news for you?” Perry said.

“It would be best if I called you.”

“That’s fine. Give me a day to work on the problem. I should know something soon.”

“Great, and thanks, Dale.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Perry said.

“I have to hit the powder room first. You don’t have to wait.”

“Okay. I’ll talk to you soon.”

Dana watched Perry leave. She kicked herself for not frisking the lawyer. She bet he was wired and broadcasting their conversation. If so, there were probably men waiting for her to walk out of the door near the restroom, so Dana headed in that direction before ducking into the kitchen. The kitchen staff was comprised of two short order cooks, who gaped at her as she stripped off her jeans and T-shirt and pulled the change of clothes Charlie Foster had left her out of a plastic garbage bag. She slipped a hairnet over her hair and pulled on a pair of baggy pants and several sweatshirts that made her look dumpy and heavier than she’d ever been. An apron, glasses with plain glass for the lenses, and a.45 completed the ensemble. When she was dressed, Dana filled one garbage bag with refuse and another with her clothes before opening the back door wide enough to peek into the alley. No one was waiting in front of the door, but she saw a shadow at one end near the street. There was probably someone at the other end, too.

She yelled as loud as she could in Spanish that they were bastards for making her haul this shit out all the time. “I’m a chef, I ain’t no garbage man.”

Dana slammed open the lid of the Dumpster and tossed in one bag. Then she stomped down the alley, muttering to herself. When the man stepped out of the shadows to check her out she tightened her grip on her sidearm and looked at him.

“What cho want, pendajo?” she asked belligerently.

“Sorry,” the man said as he stepped back into the shadows.

Dana sucked in air and walked quickly along the escape route she had paced off hours before. As she walked she imagined eyes boring into her back and she waited for the sound of a shot, but the disguise had worked. In a few moments, she was astride the Harley and racing away from The 911.

Chapter Fifteen

Christopher Farrington had been in Iowa campaigning when the police identified Charlotte Walsh as the Ripper’s latest victim. He ordered Charles Hawkins to fly to his next campaign stop then rushed back to the hotel from the fund-raiser he was attending as soon as he was notified that his aide was waiting for him.

Farrington was seething when he entered his hotel suite. After telling everyone else to leave, he confronted his friend.

“CNN reports that Charlotte was the Ripper’s latest victim. That’s some coincidence.”

Hawkins shrugged. “You always were lucky, Chris.”

Farrington glared at Hawkins. “What is wrong with you? The D.C. Ripper? What were you thinking? That’s the most high-profile case in Washington since those snipers. We needed to stay under the radar and you’ve put us on national television.”

“We are under the radar. It’s the Ripper who’s on the hot seat. Who’s going to make a connection between a college sophomore and the president of the United States?”

“That fucking PI, that’s who. Have you a line on her yet?”

“No. She set up a meeting with Dale Perry and we put a wire on him, but she got away.”

“Damn it, Chuck, how did that happen? She’s a low-rent snooper. You’ve got special ops and the latest technology. Why didn’t you track her with a satellite?”

“We didn’t think we’d need to. We thought we had her trapped, but she’s very resourceful.”

“Why was she meeting with Dale?”

“She wants to sell the pictures for a million dollars and assurances that we’ll let her alone.”

“Then buy them.”

“It’s not that simple. She told Dale that she’s going to keep an insurance set in case we renege on our bargain.”

“Well we won’t.”

“Chris, if we pay her it will be in her best interest to sell another set to the media. We wouldn’t dare kill her once the pictures are public knowledge. You’d be the prime suspect if she dies, even if it’s from natural causes. There would be an uproar. Gaylord would claim you had the CIA take her out with some exotic, untraceable poison that mimics a heart attack. If we controlled Congress we could stop an investigation, but we don’t. Even if you’re eventually cleared, the investigation would last through the election and the bad publicity would kill you.”

“What are you going to do about Cutler?”

“Try to find her. Once we’ve got her I can assure you she’ll tell us anything we want to know.”

“Then find her and do it quickly. I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Well, don’t. Everything is under control.”

“It doesn’t sound like it,” Farrington answered. “Is there anything else I should know?”

Hawkins hesitated.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“There may be a few problems I didn’t anticipate, but they’re nothing you should worry about.”

“What problems?”

“One of our people in Gaylord’s camp says that she’s going to use the Ripper murders against you by suggesting that you can’t be trusted to protect America if you can’t protect the people of the D.C. area against one murderer.”

“That’s ridiculous. I don’t have anything to do with finding the Ripper. That’s a local police matter.”

“The FBI does have a task force that’s running the investigation,” Hawkins corrected.

“Right, but I have nothing to do with that. You get Hutchins to set the record straight,” he ordered, referring to Clem Hutchins, his press secretary.

“We’re working on it.”

“Good. You said ‘problems,’ plural. What else has gone wrong?”

“My source also tells me that Gaylord’s people suspect that Walsh was our spy.”

“Can they prove it?” Farrington asked, concerned.

“I don’t think so. They can prove she volunteered for us before she switched sides, but they can’t prove she gave us copies of Gaylord’s secret contributor list.”

“If it ever gets out that we asked Charlotte to steal from Gaylord’s campaign headquarters I’d be ruined. It would be Watergate all over again.”

“You don’t have to worry, Chris. Even if Gaylord could prove that Walsh was our spy, she can’t use the information without making the list public knowledge. They’d be exposing their secret slush fund.”

“That’s right,” Farrington answered with a smile of relief. Then he grew pensive.

“How close is the FBI to catching the Ripper?”