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And she’d kept hers. She was more careful than she’d ever been and more in love.
She had great faith that this time, no matter what fate threw their way, she and Zane would make it. Together.
* * *
Zane couldn’t get his mind off of today’s program. He itched to go to the station, to watch Kaylie, to make sure that she was all right. Rationally, he knew that nothing would happen to her. Johnston’s psychiatrist wasn’t a madman; Henshaw couldn’t hurt Kaylie.
But some other fruitcake could. He drove to work and dropped by Hastings’s office. Brad, as usual, had been working for hours, though it was barely eight o’clock. He glanced up from his computer terminal when Zane walked in.
“Got a minute?” Zane asked.
“Sure. What’s up?”
“This.” Reaching into his jacket pocket, Zane withdrew the tape of his last conversation with Ted. “Did you find anyone who could have made this call?”
“Nope.” Brad shook his head slowly. “But several of the guys here are convinced the voice is that of a woman.”
“A woman.” That didn’t make things any easier. Zane stuffed the tape back into his pocket.
“You want us to keep working on it?”
“As long as you’ve got leads.”
“Well, we’re about dried-up. As for the tracer, most of the calls that we can’t identify came in from booths—different booths located usually in the financial district.”
“Well, that’s something,” Zane said, thinking aloud. “I don’t suppose anyone we suspect lives or works there.”
Hastings shook his head. “No one we’ve scared up so far.”
“What about Alan Bently?”
“He’d be my guess as suspect number one,” Hastings agreed. “He seems to have the most to gain by all this publicity. Want a printout on the guy?”
“Sure.”
Hastings turned back to his computer, and his nimble fingers flew over the keys. A printer whirred to life, and soon a four-paged single-spaced report was lying in the tray. Brad handed the pages to Zane. “Here you go. Everything you always wanted to know about Alan Bently but were afraid to ask.”
Zane’s mouth stretched into a grin. “That’s what I keep you around here for, Brad, that lousy sense of humor of yours.”
“Nope, boss. You keep me ’cause I’m the best.”
Zane laughed. “Well, that might be part of it,” he agreed, sauntering down the hall. He grabbed a cup of coffee, settled into his desk chair and began perusing the report, line by revealing line. Most of the information, he’d read before. The names, the places, the people who were associated with Alan Bently.
“Maybe you’re barking up the wrong tree,” he told himself as he leaned back and propped his feet on the desk. He dialed the police department in Carmel, hoping someone there could tell him who the anonymous caller was. Someone had called the police, and if he guessed right, that someone had called long distance.
When the police couldn’t help him, he dialed the phone company. He had a friend in administration who owed him a favor. Maybe he could finally get some answers—answers his own phone surveillance hadn’t uncovered.
While waiting to be connected to his friend, he pushed a button on the remote control for the television and waited for Kaylie’s show to begin.
* * *
Dr. Henshaw was the guest scheduled for the first segment of the show. Kaylie, more nervous than she’d been while interviewing the president’s wife, flipped through her notes one last time.
“Fifteen minutes,” Tracy called through the door, and Kaylie let out her breath. She straightened her skirt and made her way to the set, where she and Alan were introduced to Dr. Henshaw by the assistant producer.
A small man with a beard that rimmed his chin and no mustache, he seemed as anxious about the interview as she was.
“Ms. Melville,” he said, clasping her hand and forcing a thin smile.
