The Ideal Man

THIRTY – TWO

When Willis Cogburn had first arrived in Winston Falls he thought he’d found the perfect spot for the ambush. It took several days to convince him otherwise.

He’d come prepared with a high-powered rifle, a couple of his favorite guns, and his surveillance equipment in the trunk of his rental car. It hadn’t taken much finesse to find out that Dr. Sullivan was going to Winston Falls for a wedding. As soon as he’d gotten the information, he’d rented a car under a fake name and started driving.

Once he reached the small town, he checked into the Rosewood Inn under another false name and slept ten hours. Then he got down to business. He located where Dr. Sullivan’s parents lived and spent the better part of the day sitting in his car a block away watching the house. He didn’t see any sign of her until a car pulled into her driveway, and she came running out. She obviously knew the man who got out of the car. She threw her arms around him. At first, Cogburn thought he was her boyfriend, but then he saw the gun at his side. And when the man walked up the porch steps and turned slightly, Cogburn saw the badge clipped to his belt. He didn’t need his binoculars to know that badge. It belonged to an FBI agent.

A text gave Cogburn answers a few minutes later. It told him that an FBI agent was on his way to Winston Falls to guard Ellie Sullivan.

Cogburn knew he had to find a way to get her alone, and that wasn’t going to be easy with an FBI agent shadowing her. He needed time to think about it and to come up with a plan. He started his car and drove around the town for a little while, then stopped in a fast-food place for a hamburger.

He needed to get the lay of the land first, he realized. He started his car and drove back to her neighborhood, looking for possible places to hide, spots where he could get a good shot. Nothing satisfied him.

Baseball cap low on his forehead, he parked the car at the corner of the Sullivans’ block and got his surveillance equipment out of the trunk. He wasn’t worried he’d be spotted using it because it was just a small earpiece. Anyone walking by would think he was using a Bluetooth. It was the first time he’d used this new earpiece, and he was impressed. According to the literature, he should be able to hear whispers as far as two blocks away. The ad hadn’t exaggerated. Willis adjusted the magnification, sat back, and sipped on a limeade while he listened. A woman carrying a grocery bag walked up the sidewalk toward him, so he dropped his head and pretended to be talking. She smiled as she continued on.

For the first hour, Willis was able to catch only snippets of the conversation inside the house. He was thinking about getting some dinner when he got lucky. An upstairs window in the Sullivan house was open, and the voices of the people inside began to come through loud and clear. He heard an older man’s voice talking about the falls and how Ellie should take Max to them. Cogburn assumed Max was the FBI agent because he knew Sullivan’s first name was Ellie.

All right, he was in business. He hadn’t found a place to hide near the Sullivan house, but maybe he had discovered something even better. Now he just needed to find out where the falls were.

The people of Winston Falls were proud of their town. Each time he stopped for gas and food, he was asked if he’d had time to visit the falls yet. “Everyone does,” he was told. “Why, you can’t come to Winston Falls and not go to the crystal clear water.”

Willis promised all the friendly townspeople he met that, yes, he would go to the falls.

He made good on his promise. It turned out the natural wonder was everything he’d been told and much more, for it was at the falls that he found the perfect spot for the ambush.

He expected Dr. Sullivan and the FBI agent to appear at any moment. She’d want to show him the town’s pride and joy, right?

Wrong. For two long days and nights Willis sat cross-legged in the brush with his high-powered rifle in his lap, waiting. He wasn’t alone. Hundreds of gnats and mosquitoes kept him company. There were also hordes of teenagers taking turns having sex behind the waterfall. Willis guessed the kids believed the water hid them from view, and he wondered why they hadn’t realized that, if they could see out, anyone walking by could see in. One teenage boy brought two different girls to the falls, at different times, of course.

Willis felt as though he were watching porn, bad porn, with lots of grunting and groaning. He would have left and formulated another plan if the spot he’d chosen hadn’t been the perfect place to kill someone. The noise from the water crashing down into the pool below would mask the sound of the rifle. And he was well hidden. Three teenagers walked right past him and never saw him.

He had a lot of time to think while he waited, mostly about his little brother, George. He missed the stupid kid. He’d told the Landrys that George was too young and not to entice him into their dirty business. They’d ignored him, and George was so eager to impress and so foolishly impatient, he’d gone and gotten himself killed.

George and he had such grand plans. They’d wanted to start some kind of business together. Nothing big, maybe just a pack-and-ship kind of place, but something legit. A stint in prison had been hard on Willis, and he didn’t think he could go back inside again. George would never have made it inside. He was too soft, too childlike.

Going straight proved to be impossible now. Once the Landrys had their tentacles around him, he couldn’t get away. They knew the day he was released and contacted him that evening. “Welcome back,” Cal Landry had gushed.

The money was too good to pass up. A hundred thousand to pop the doctor. Who could turn that down?

He thought it would be so easy, but the second day of being eaten alive by bugs changed his plans. He had to find another way to get her. But where? He knew he could get the doctor in St. Louis, but why wait? Why not get her here in her hometown where there was less law enforcement? He’d come to the conclusion that he might have to kill the FBI agent assigned to her as well, and that thought gave him chills. He’d get the needle in his arm for sure if he got caught.

Prison had changed him. It hadn’t hardened him; it had made him fearful.

Willis finally came up with a new plan. He went over it several times until he was satisfied it would work, then he got up, zipped the rifle in the duffel bag with his two guns, and headed for his car. It was time to get his audio surveillance equipment out again. He’d driven around the area enough times to know that there was only one road anyone could take from Winston Falls to the airport. Now he just needed to find out when they’d be on it.

His cell phone chirped indicating he had a text. “Number unknown,” he read, and that meant the Landrys. It was a one-word text: “Cancel.”

He sat in the car for several minutes while he considered his options. The Landrys had already put half the money in the secret account. They’d want it back, and that just wasn’t fair. After all the preparation he’d done? Then there was George. Cal and Erika had gotten his brother killed. Hell, no. He wasn’t going to give them any money back. As far as he was concerned, he hadn’t seen the text. He’d do the job and keep the money.