OU WANT TO follow me over?” Vance asked, rising from the table in the café.

Robie looked up at her. “I’ve got a meeting at DCIS I have to get to. Where are you going to be questioning the woman? WFO?”

“Yes.”

“I can hook up with you there later. What’s her name? What was she doing there? And why is she only coming forward now?”

Robie was thinking, Did the homeless woman Diana Jordison get past Blue Man’s guys and go to the FBI? If so, she might tell Vance about her meeting with me.

“Her name is Michele Cohen. I don’t have the other information yet, but I will soon enough. Give me a call when you’re on your way.”

They parted company at the door. Robie hustled back to his car and drove off. He got on the phone to Blue Man and filled him in.

The man’s remarks were terse. “I would stay away from this eyewitness if I were you.”

“I think I had that one covered on my own. But find out what you can about her. Do you have Jordison?”

“She’s doing fine and eating quite well. She’s cleaned up and has new clothes. Does our help include finding her suitable employment?”

“Yes, it does, preferably somewhere other than here. And make sure she gets a nice bump in salary over what she was making.”

Robie clicked off and sped up. Something had just occurred to him. He needed to talk to Julie. And he didn’t want to do it over the phone.

She was waiting for him when he opened the door.

“I’m not sure how much longer I can just sit in this place and do nothing, Will.”

He closed and locked the door behind him. He sat across from her. She wore jeans, a sweatshirt, lime green Converse tennis shoes, and an exasperated attitude.

“I’m juggling lots of balls,” he said. “I’m doing the best I can.”

“I don’t want to be one of the little balls you’re juggling,” she shot back.

“I’ve got a question for you. Depending on how you answer might change the complexity of everything.”

“What is it?”

“Why the bus? More particularly, why that bus on that night?”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s a simple question, Julie. There are lots of ways you could’ve gotten out of town. Why did you choose that way?”

If her answer was what he thought it would be, things were going to get more complicated than they already were. His head started to throb at that possibility.

“My mom sent me a note.”

“How? You said you didn’t have a cell phone.”

“She sent the note to my school. She did that a lot. They put it in your mailbox and they send an email to your advisor that a student has a note. I went to the office and got it.”

“When did she send it?”

“I guess the day I left the Dixons’. It was hand-delivered.”

“Did the office say your mom had delivered it?”

“No, I just assumed.”

“What did the note say?”

“It said to come home that night. That my mom and dad were going to make some changes. Get a fresh start.”

“Sounds like they were moving.”

“I wasn’t sure about that, but I knew that could be a possibility. All I know is as soon as I got the note I wanted to get out of the Dixons’ house. I dropped off those photographs of them at the foster care agency that night.”

“But what about the bus?”

“That was in my note too. Mom said if they weren’t home when I got there I was to go to the Outta Town bus station and take the 112 bus to New York City. They would meet me at the Port Authority Bus Terminal the next morning. They put cash in the envelope that came with the note.”

“Did you recognize your mom’s handwriting?”

“It was typed.”

“Did she often send you typed notes?”

“Sometimes. She used the computer at the diner. They have a printer too.”

“Why not just come to the school and talk to you directly?”

“She wasn’t allowed to. I was in foster care. They wouldn’t have let her in to see me. But she could drop off a note at the office.”

Robie sat back.

She stared pointedly at him. “You think my mom didn’t write that note?”

“I think the odds are very high she didn’t.”

“Why would someone else send me that information? And the cash?”

“Because they wanted you on that bus. And it was a pretty big coincidence that the moment you walk in the house, the guy comes in with your parents and starts shooting. And think about it, Julie. The man who killed your parents, do you really think he would’ve let you get away?”

“You mean it was all a setup? And he let me escape? So I’d get on that bus?”

“Yes. We wondered where your parents were from the time your mom got off work to when they showed up at their house. I think they were abducted and held until they saw you sneak in the house.”

“But the bus was rigged to blow up. If they were going to kill me why didn’t he just do it at the house?”

“I don’t think that bomb was set on a motion timer to blow up. I think the plan was if we got off the bus they would detonate it remotely. If we didn’t get off the bus, the bomb wouldn’t have been triggered. We would have ended up in New York City. But that wouldn’t have happened.”

“Why?”

“The man who killed your parents was instructed to get on that bus and kill you. He obviously didn’t know about the bomb or else he never would have gotten on. Loyalty is one thing, a death wish is something else. They were counting on the fact that I would have intervened when the guy made his move against you. Then the most likely result is we both get off the bus.”

Robie thought, Especially if they knew what I was running from.

“You say ‘we’ as though we were paired together.”

Robie said, “I think that’s exactly what happened. We were supposed to team up.”

“But why? Wouldn’t they want us dead?”

“Apparently not.”

“I could’ve gone to the police about my parents. And you’re investigating the case. Why would they have wanted that?”

“They might have correctly guessed you wouldn’t have gone to the police. And maybe they want me to investigate.”

“That makes no sense.”

“If I’m right it makes sense to someone.”

“But wouldn’t they be afraid my parents had told me something? If they killed those other people because of that, why not me?”

“You already answered that question. You were in foster care, no access to your parents. No cell phone. When your mom told the guy you didn’t know anything, I think they knew that was true.”

Robie unzipped his knapsack and pulled out her stuffed bear and the photo he’d taken from her home. He handed them across to her.

“Why did you go back there?” she asked, looking down at the objects.

“To see if I missed anything.”

“Did you?’

“Yeah. They wanted me to spot the blood. They wanted me to know that your parents were dead.”

“I could have told you that.”

“That’s not the point. They also want me to know I’m being played.”

“What about that guy in the alley with the rifle? If they wanted us to get away, why send him after us? The bus had already blown up.”

“At first I thought it was a change of plan on their part. They didn’t want me to live, but then they did. But now I think their plan all along was for me to walk away. But they knew I’d get suspicious if they made it look too easy.”

“Easy!”

“I have higher standards than most people, at least when it comes to survival. They had to send someone else after me. It was probably the shooter from the Winds’ apartment.”

“But if they wanted you to live and me too, that means they need us for some reason,” Julie said slowly.

“That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

“But why?”

“Nobody puts this much effort into something, kills that many people, without a damn important reason.”

“And we’re caught right in the middle of it,” she said.

“No, we’re caught right in the front of it,” replied Robie.