Chapter 26

Now, you could make a pretty decent argument that going to Owen Grant's last known address was the boneheaded play of all time.

John Law was still trying pretty good to bring me in or bring me down, this I knew.

On some level, I suppose I felt safer in that the only reason they would have to look for me at Grant's place was if they believed in the connection to Mitchell the papers were buzzing about, and that would require them to buy into the notion that perhaps, just perhaps, I was not actually the cop killer they were looking for today.

The more I thought about this, the more it seemed like a good sound theory.

Of course, it could also be argued it was in many ways a best case scenario, and it had

been quite some time since anything in my life had followed that sort of profile, but

I had chosen not to listen to those little nagging voices.

They had nothing to offer me but the advice to hide, and I was quickly running out of places in which to take that suggestion.

"'So we would try something new.'

"'Grant wouldn't be here, of course.

"'In making himself known to me he was taking a terrible chance.

"'He had been hoping the law would gun me down cold within a day or so of Ted's death,

"'before anyone had got to poking serious

holes in the obvious theory, and it hadn't worked out that way. He was also no doubt banking on

being able to return to the safe, predictable life of the newly paroled ex-con, who could not just

up and disappear for a week without getting his ticket punched for a trip back into the hole.

Revenge or not, nobody who ever gets out intends to go back in.

So it was my hope that he had been careless.

Or he had checked in somewhere, that he was nearby,

that I could follow a convenient trail of breadcrumbs directly to him.

That would have been nice.

...