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"Don't get your panties in a wad. I'm just bouncing around some ideas. Is it even remotely possible that they teamed up to get back at you for something?"
Berry took another sip of the bourbon. Dodge noticed that her hand was shaking as she raised the glass to her mouth.
The silence stretched out. Eventually Caroline said, "I trust Ski to wring some answers out of Sally Buckland."
"First thing he's going to ask her is about Amanda Lofland."
Dodge deliberately dropped that statement like a lead weight and then watched closely for Berry's reaction to it. Her astonishment seemed genuine, even to his keen eye. "Amanda and Sally? What's the connection?"
"You don't know?"
"I wasn't aware they knew each other."
"Well, they do."
"How do you know?"
"I pinched Amanda Lofland's phone yesterday."
"You what?" Berry said. "Why?"
He shrugged. "Curiosity. I checked her contacts and call log."
"And found Sally Buckland's number among them," Caroline said.
"Yep. Calls going back and forth for several weeks--the lady must never wipe her log clean. Later I gave the phone back to Ski. If he's done his homework, and I think we can assume he has, he'll see those same calls and wonder what those two ladies, along with Oren Starks, have in common. Astute boy that he is, he'll come up with the same thing I did." He looked at Berry. "You."
Berry didn't comment. Instead she lowered her head and stared into the contents of her glass.
Caroline said, "But Ski hasn't specifically talked to you about Amanda Lofland?"
"No, but he called while I was in the car, following you here. His mind is following the same track as mine. He asked if I thought it was possible that Sally Buckland and Oren are working together, that maybe she scooped Starks off that Walmart parking lot."
"What led him to think that?" Caroline asked.
"He'd already heard back from Houston PD. Officers dispatched to Buckland's house report there's no one there. Garage is empty. They've put out an APB on her car. Her cell phone goes straight to voice mail. Which isn't surprising. After calling Berry, Starks would know better than to leave it on."
"Which brings me to another question," Caroline said. "Why did he use that phone to call Berry? Why call her at all?"
"Ski and I gnawed on that, too," Dodge admitted. "Doesn't make good sense. Starks would know we could track him that way, except that he picked a damn good location to call from. Guess where." Before either could venture a guess, he told them. "Minute Maid Park. He called just as the Astros game was ending. HPD was all over it, but nobody knows what Starks is driving."
"Sally Buckland's car?" Caroline said.
"Best guess. But no one knows with absolute certainty that's what he's in. Even if he is, it took a while to get her license plate number into the pipeline, so he could have escaped before anyone was looking for that car. Adding to the confusion, there were thousands leaving the ball game. Traffic was snarled." Grudgingly, Dodge added, "Couldn't have been smarter of the son of a bitch."
Berry said huskily, "What you're telling us is that he's escaped again."
"Yeah," he said heavily. "That's what I'm telling you. But I gotta add that signaling the authorities to his location seems like a stupid thing for a man on the run to do."
"He's not stupid. Far from it. He used Sally's phone for a reason. He called me for a reason. We don't know what those reasons are, but I assure you that everything Oren does is part of his master plan." She set the unfinished glass of bourbon on the coffee table and stood up. "I'm going up to pack."
Dodge said, "You'd just as well finish that whiskey, because you're not going to Houston tonight."
Her chin went up a notch. "I most certainly am."
"No, ma'am. Get that plan right outta your head."
"I've got to be at Delray Marketing tomorrow morning to make my presentation."
