“All right, an avid Rutledge supporter.”
“I had just about convinced myself of that,” she said, “but I’ve been dropping by campaign headquarters nearly every day since we got back, and I haven’t seen him among the volunteers. Besides, he never approached us while we were away. He was always at the edge of the crowd.”
“You’re jumping to conclusions, Avery.”
“Don’t.” It was probably the harshest tone of voice she’d ever used with Irish. It startled them both, but she modified it only slightly when she added, “I know what you’re thinking and you’re wrong.”
“What am I thinking?”
“That I’m plunging in, jumping to conclusions before I’ve lined up all the facts, reacting emotionally instead of pragmatically.”
“You said it.” Van sat back on his curved spine and propped his tumbler of whiskey on his concave abdomen. “You’re good at that.”
Avery drew herself up. “Let’s look at all the tapes and see just how wrong I am.”
When the final tape went to snow on the screen, a sustained silence followed, ameliorated only by the whistling sound made by the video recorder as it rewound the tape.
Avery came to her feet and turned to face them. She didn’t waste time by rubbing it in how right she’d been. The tapes spoke for themselves. The man had shown up in nearly every one.
“Does he look familiar to either of you?”
Van said, “No.”
“He was in every single city we were,” Avery mused out loud. “Always lurking in the background.”
“Not ‘lurking.’ Standing,” Irish corrected.
“Standing and staring intently at Tate.”
“So were you, most of the time,” Van quipped. “You’re not going to ice him.”
She shot him a baleful look. “Don’t you think it’s a little odd that a man would follow a senatorial candidate around the state if he weren’t actually part of the election committee?”
They glanced at each other and shrugged warily. “It’s odd,” Irish conceded, “but we don’t have any pictures of him with his finger on a trigger.”
“Did you see him at the GM plant?” Van wanted to know.
“No.”
“That was one of the largest, most hostile crowds Tate addressed,” Irish said. “Wouldn’t that have been a likely spot for the guy to make his move?”
“Maybe the bottle thrower beat him to it.”
“But you said you didn’t see Gray Hair there,” Van pointed out.
Avery gnawed her lip in consternation. That eventful day was a blur in her memory, punctuated by vivid recollections, like Tate sitting in the emergency room, his shirt stained with his blood. The wound had healed in a matter of days; the small scar was faint and hidden by his hair. She shuddered to think how much worse it could have been if Gray Hair—
“Wait! I just remembered,” she exclaimed. “I read that day’s agenda before we left the hotel,” she recalled excitedly. “The trip to the GM plant wasn’t printed on the schedule because it was squeezed in later. Nobody except Eddy, Jack, and the union bosses at the plant knew we were going to be there. So even if Gray Hair had intercepted a schedule, he couldn’t have known that Tate was going to be in Arlington.”
“You two sound like you’re talking about a goddamn Indian,” Irish said cantankerously. “Look, Avery, this thing is getting too dangerous. Tell Rutledge who you are, what you suspect, and get the hell out.”
“I can’t.” She drew in a catchy breath and repeated with soft emphasis, “I can’t.”
They argued with her for another half hour, but got nowhere. She enumerated the reasons why she couldn’t give up now and rebuked their arguments that she was just doing it for the notoriety it would bring her when it was over.
“Don’t you understand? Tate needs me. So does Mandy. I’m not deserting them until I know they’re safe, and that’s final.”
As she prepared to leave, rushing because time had gotten away from her, she hugged them both. “It’ll be a comfort to know you’re around,” she told Van. Irish had assured her that he would assign Van to the Rutledge campaign permanently until after the election. “Be the eyes in the back of my head. Scan the crowds. Let me know immediately if you see Gray Hair.”