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Chapter 15
Jerry hurried out of the room and pulled the door closed. He needed to find out what had happened at this apparently deserted motel. He pushed through the snow as quickly as possible until he reached his car. Almost fell in his hurry. After knocking the snow off his shoes, he yanked the door closed. Turned on the car to get the heat going. His feet were frozen.
Who knew he’d be caught in a storm? He should’ve brought boots.
Making sure his phone was on privacy mode so no one could see his number, he looked up the Boughton Police Department and touched ‘call’.
Moments later, a woman answered. “Boughton Police,” she said.
“I was supposed to meet my wife at the Parkside Motel,” he said. “But I don’t see her or her car. I did see the police tape over the door. Did something happen at the motel?”
No sound except the breathing of the dispatcher. Finally she said, “A burglary. Closed places are always targets. The Parkside isn’t open. Hasn’t been open since last November, so your wife couldn’t have been staying there. The only place in Boughton for people caught in the storm was the high school. And everyone’s cleared out of there already.”
“Oh. Okay. Thank you.” He disconnected the call and slid his phone into its holder on the dash.
The Russians had been looking for Alex when the police caught them. He’d sent them to this motel, because her tracker had been here.
A sudden thought made him shudder. Suck in a breath. Would the Russians think Jerry had set them up?
He accelerated a little too quickly and slid sideways. Regained control and continued in the direction he’d been going, toward the town. When he reached a supermarket, he turned into the parking lot. Exited going toward the interstate. He drove carefully, sticking to the speed limit, watching his rearview mirror to make sure no cops were on his tail.
When he reached the interstate, he hesitated. Which direction would she have gone?
Probably not back toward Illinois. Wherever she was heading, it was west of here. Was she going back to Seattle?
She hadn’t been there since her mother died during her second year of law school. But where else would she be going? As far as he knew, Seattle was the only place she’d lived besides Evanston.
Jerry made a right turn and headed west on I-94.
* * *
Watching the cars exiting I-94 from the east, Alex paced in front of the window of their second-floor room in the Hampton Inn in Livingston. Sooner or later, she figured she’d see Jerry’s white Mercedes with its Illinois license plate pull off the highway. Then they’d know where he was staying.
Gideon was sprawled on one of the beds, reading the news on his phone. “Why don’t you sit down?” he said softly. “We’ll know where he is soon enough. We’ll see his location on my phone tracker.”
“I’ve been doing nothing but sitting for the last several days. I need to move a little,” she retorted.
“Right now,” he said, “you’re standing still, staring out the window.”
My God. She clenched her fingers into fists. They were bickering like an old married couple. Except she and Jerry had never bickered like this. In the last couple of years, they’d barely talked at all.
What did it say about her that she was so comfortable with Gideon after only a few days?
“I’m going nuts not knowing where he is and what he’s doing,” she muttered.
Gideon sat up and swung his legs off the bed. Patted the mattress. “C’mere and we’ll look at the app. See where he is. Once he’s close to Livingston, you can take up your vigil again.” He tilted his head, studying her. “Okay?”
“Yeah, I suppose so.” The longer she stood at the window, the antsier she got. She felt exposed. Vulnerable. Like there was a giant neon sign blinking above her head. Here she is. Come and get her.
She’d been vulnerable for years as a child and then a teen. Once she became an adult, she’d vowed never to be that powerless again.
She walked the few steps to Gideon’s bed and sat down beside him. He opened his app, and there was Jerry’s car. Still on I-94, but getting close to Livingston.
Gideon tapped the screen. It zoomed in on Jerry’s location, and a scroll at the bottom of the screen said ‘target five miles away’.
“Oh, my God!” she breathed. “He’s so close!”
“We’ve been here for three or four hours,” Gideon pointed out. “After accounting for his stop in Boughton, that’s about what I’d expect.”
