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The gesture and the sentiment made her lip turn up again. “You don’t have to fix anything, Mike. The fact that you’re here, on my side, means everything.”
She covered her mouth and jumped from the arm of the love seat. “The buzzer for our French-bread pizza went off a while ago. I hope they’re not ruined.”
He called after her as she scooted into the kitchen. “They’re French-bread pizzas in the microwave. What could possibly be ruined?”
She punched the button that released the door on the microwave and the cheesy smell of the pizzas wafted out. She removed their cardboard cooking containers and slid each one onto its own plate. “Water?”
“Are there bottles in the fridge?”
“Yeah, no beer, though.” She tucked the water bottles under her arm and carried the plates out to the living room. “Since the FBI hasn’t outed me as a suspect yet, is it okay if I use your phone to check in on Ethan?”
He handed her his cell. “Sure, but don’t give anything away.”
She placed the call and chatted briefly with Ethan’s grandmother since Ethan was already sleeping. Nancy Chadwick assured her that Ethan and Lori had arrived safely and mentioned that they’d be out snowboarding all day tomorrow.
Claire ended the call, followed by a long exhaled breath. “Here’s your phone, thanks.”
“Everything okay in Colorado? Nobody sounded suspicious?” He looked up from digging in his bag, his hands full.
“Everything’s fine. I put your water on the table.”
“Yeah, I could use a beer. The safe houses don’t contain any alcohol, but there’s nothing stopping us from picking up a six-pack in town tomorrow.”
“Yeah, nothing but that America’s Most Wanted poster with my face plastered on it that could go up any day now.” She settled on a cushion at right angles to Mike, her knee bumping one of his long legs.
She pointed to the items in his hands as he put them on the love seat next to him. “What’s all that?”
“The stuff from your phony FBI agent’s pockets.” He picked up his pizza and crunched into it.
“He’s not my phony FBI agent.” She placed a paper towel on his thigh. “High-class all the way.”
Mike devoured his pizza with a few more bites and wiped his hands and mouth. “No ID, but let’s see what this guy deemed important enough to carry with him on an abduction.”
She shivered and picked a triangle of pepperoni off her pizza.
Mike held up a red-and-white hard pack of cigarettes. “Smokes, a key, some change, a little cash—not as much as he has now.”
“Maybe he should take the money and run. I can’t imagine Spencer or his cronies being very forgiving of his failure.”
Mike held up a card, running his finger over the embossed lettering on the front. “Interesting. A plumber’s business card. I think I’m going to have some questions about my pipes.”
He had placed each item on the table at the corner of their two love seats, and Claire picked up the key. “I wonder if this is the key to my safe deposit box. He could’ve been the one to deposit the money.”
“The bank has to have cameras on that room. You’d think the FBI would’ve looked at that tape by now to determine if you really did deposit that money.”
“The fact that they probably did and it didn’t prove my innocence is slightly troubling.” She toyed with the cigarette carton. “This feels empty.”
Mike shrugged and chugged some water from his bottle. “Open it.”
She flicked the lid open with her thumb and peeked inside the box at the crumpled silver packaging. “It is empty.”
Mike’s dark brows formed a V over his nose. “Why would he carry an empty cigarette box in his pocket?”
“There’s this.” She plucked the foil wrapping, which had been rolled into a ball, from the box and bounced it in her palm.
“He’s gotta have something in there. Drugs?”
She pinched the edges of the wrapper with her fingers and pulled it apart. “Maybe drugs or medication.”
“What’s in there?”
She held out her hand to Mike, where five little blue pills lolled in the foil.
