Free The Devil's Dream: Book One by David Beers Page A

and
she doesn't think he's done."
    "I know. She's
calling me too."
    "She's terrified.
She said none of your dad's old buddies have come by and they have
just one police car outside of the house, just like here. She told me
there wasn't any way two cops could stop Brand if he wanted in
somewhere."
    "She's old and
scared, Patricia," Joe said. "She's under twenty-four hour
surveillance and this guy isn't going to be able to get her out of
her house any more than he's going to be able to get us out of this
one. I asked her if she wanted us to come up there, but she said no
way, that Jason shouldn't be anywhere near her right now. I'm trying
to get her to come down here instead."
    Patricia looked over at
their son, whose finger was painting ketchup across his plastic
plate. "Mama," he said absently, not looking up.
    "Yeah, I'm not
sure I want him near her right now, just in case. You really think
one car is enough for us?"
    "Yes. He's not
Michael Meyers, bullets will put him down the same as anyone else."
    * * *
    Allison looked at the
wall before her, staring at a taped up map of the country. Eight red
tacks littered it, pinned in different cities across the tiny veins
of roads that made up the country's arteries.
    "Hand me that
tack, doc," she said.
    Riley stood just inside
the door.
    "Here," he
said.
    She reached behind
without turning around and felt the small, but slightly dangerous
object drop into her palm. She rolled it around, feeling the tiny
needle ready to prick her the moment she wasn't careful.
    "Where's it
going?" Dr. Riley asked.
    "Florida. I think
it's the last person we need to be looking out for." She took a
step closer to the board and put a pin on the state. "Everyone
connected with the case, from the sentencing judges to grandchildren
are marked up here."
    "You don't think
there might be other people he's looking at?"
    Allison stepped back
and looked over the map again. There was one red tack out in
California. One in Oregon, but from Brand's contact with his wife,
that wasn't the way he was headed. East coast bound. That left
Massachusetts, Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina. At least. There
were two mid-western states he could venture off into as well, but
every single one of the states stood on alert. They were pushing out
as many Public Service Announcements and news stories as they could;
everyone inside any of those states should know about Brand. That was
Allison's hope anyway.
    "I don't think so.
We have two children out in California and Oregon. A wife in Boston.
A wife in Durham. A wife, a daughter, and a grandchild in Kentucky.
In South Dakota and Kansas there are some brother's still alive. We
think that's pretty much the immediate family of all the police
officer's he killed. Then add in two retired justices out in
California, and that should be everyone. If we're missing someone,
we're going to look profoundly stupid." She turned around to
look at Riley. "What can I do for you, doctor?"
    The Wall had become her
temporary base. The two prisoners still floated outside her office in
their Silos, and from time to time she saw people working on them,
but for the most part, Allison and her people had commandeered
everything. They would move as soon as they needed to, but as of
right now, there was nowhere to go. They were waiting for Brand to
give them a scent, to give them something to chase. So far, Brand
hadn't surfaced to even breathe.
    "We made some
progress today and we're beginning to see what he did while under. I
still haven't been able to dig into his own head, he was able to
block that off over the two years he spent engineering this, but he
wasn't able to wipe away the trails he made into our systems."
Dr. Riley sat down in one of the chairs in front of her desk. "I'm
pretty sure he knows that map you're looking at as well as you do. If
there are any tacks
up there you're missing, he knows where to put them."
    "What are you
saying?"
    "Our systems, all
of them, are connected to national