Things are Seldom What They Seem

The Hunted [by] Alan Jacobson

New York ; Pocket Books [2001]

0-671-02680-1 ; $24.95

Dr. Lauren Chambers is a psychologist in Placerville, California.  She deals with her clients, as well as her own phobias, which include agoraphobia.  Having tried to start a new practice with a colleague who abandoned her has left her weak and vulnerable.  Then she finds herself being followed on the mountain roads to her home, and her paranoia gets the better of her, especially when it seems like someone is trying to “gaslight” her by moving her dog in and out of the house, changing her sheets, and doing other small things to spook her.  If only her husband would come home!  But he failed to return from his ski trip to Colorado with his fraternity buddies.

As she fills out the missing person report for the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Department, she realizes she has no information.  Michael said he would leave information for her, but she can’t find it – she’s forgotten where she put it.  She doesn’t remember the name of the fraternity, or even what school it was from, beyond “somewhere back east.” She has no names of friends he might be with and only a vague idea of where they might be:  “somewhere near Vail.” No wonder law enforcement seems suspicious.

But the volunteer who works with the Community Policing Officer sets up a meeting of concerned citizens to help her, and she meets a private eye named Nick Bradley, who turns out to be very helpful. After another scare at home puts her on edge, she hires him.

Meanwhile, a man is rescued from a bad accident, in which he suffered a head injury.  He also has a bullet in his leg, and believes he drove off a cliff. He cannot remember who he is, and finds out where he is by asking one of the people at the hospital, Virginia Presbyterian. He remembers nothing before he woke up.  But he does know he has to get out of there.

He disappears into a storage room and comes out in scrubs.  He does a great job of portraying a doctor, first getting food, and then a cot in the area where doctors can grab a little rest in their long shifts overnight.  He finally gets out of the hospital by escaping to the mall across the street, where he shoplifts some clothes and spends a little time sending an e-mail to an address that suddenly comes to him as familiar.  It is Lauren’s. He asks for information about himself and help.  Then he runs away, stealing a car.

Meanwhile, the FBI is mobilizing.  They come for him, and explain that he is Agent Harper Payne of the FBI, who was put into the Witness Protection Program after he testified against a very violent man, an assassin who often tortures his victims.  He is known variously as the Viper, Hung Jin and Anthony Scarponi.  He has been let out of jail, and the FBI is hoping to bring the former Fibbie up to speed, so that he can testify again and put this super bad guy away forever.

Lauren discovers the e-mail sent to her from Virginia, and answers it.  Nick makes plans for them to go to the east coast.

Lauren is then kidnapped from her own home by a man she had just started working with in her practice – a man she knows as Steven, but who tells her he is Hung Jin.  He has taken her to a small cabin in the mountains, where he has tied her up in a system of Chinese knots.  He wants her to tell him where her husband is.  He calls her husband by a different name.  She denies that name and repeats that she doesn’t know where he is, and, each time, he tightens the ropes.

She tells him the only story he knows, which is that her husband is in Colorado.  Hung Jin leaves to check out her story, leaving her with a henchman named Cody and some rats.  He has also found Lauren’s father’s old Colt revolver, which he has waved in her face.  He fired one round, then left the gun behind.  When Cody is outside, Lauren manages to smash the chair and get away from the ropes.  She picks up the Colt.  Cody doesn’t believe that she’ll fire it, but he doesn’t know that this gun saved both Lauren’s life and her father’s, and he taught her to shoot to kill.  She does.

Taking off in Cody’s vehicle, she finds she’s in the Nevada town of Gardnerville.  She drives back to Placerville, where she tells Nick about her adventures, and they board the plane for the east.  Nick tells her her husband’s real name is Harper Payne, and about his history with Hung Jin.

Eventually, the various factions get together in a number of different configurations, running after each other through the streets and skies of Washington.  Scarponi shows up and they go after him with various cars and a helicopter.  He ends up fighting with his nemesis, Harper Payne, in a Lincoln Navigator, which later catches fire.  One of the Fibbies dies, just as his wife gives birth to their baby.  And Lauren discovers that there are more things – and people – that are not what, or whom, they seem to be.  I felt a little let down by the ending, but enjoyed the book up until then.

Interestingly enough, the first book by Jacobson, False Accusations, gets a mention at the beginning of this book, when Lauren remembers sending a patient for surgery at the hands of the doctor who was the hero of that book, whom she sees mentioned in a news story.  I preferred that book, but this was still pretty good.  Recommended. ~lss-r

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Library book.