AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Are you in your bedroom?”
“Uh…”
“Is he with you?”
“He has a name, Glenda. It’s Calder.” She looked at the empty side of the bed. “And no, he’s not with me.”
Either she didn’t catch Elle’s testiness, or she ignored it. “Where is he?”
“I suppose in the kitchen. I smell coffee. What’s the matter?”
“There’s been a development.”
Based on her friend’s apparent anxiety, Elle braced herself for bad news. “Have they found out where we are?”
“No. Well, sort of.”
“Glenda,what? You’re scaring me.”
“Just sit tight. We’ll explain when we get there.”
“We?”
“Compton and Perkins.”
If she had said Beavis and Butt-Head, Elle couldn’t have been more shocked. Or more disconcerted. “Why are you with them? What’s happened?”
“We’re on our way. ETA ten minutes. In the meantime, play it cool with him, okay?”
“With Calder?”
“Play it cool,okay?”
“Okay.” The instant Glenda hung up, Elle said, “Not okay.”
She threw back the covers and clambered out of bed. She didn’t bother to locate the pajamas last seen being flung by Calder over the side of the bed. Instead, she grabbed the spa robe that he’d been wearing and pulled it on as she rushed from the room.
When she entered the kitchen, she noticed two sounds at once: the beep a telephone makes when it’s been left off the hook and the revving of a car engine.
After confirming that Calder had left without notice, Elle took a hasty shower and dressed so she would be at least presentable—and not smell of sex—when Glenda and the two detectives arrived.
Now, from where she sat on a bar stool at the kitchen island, she heard the front door being unlocked and footsteps scurrying inside. “In here,” she called. The trio hurried into the kitchen and took a look around. Coming up empty, they all focused on Elle.
“He’s not here,” she said. “He’s gone.”
Compton muttered a curse word. Perkins, who was perennially expressionless, looked thoroughly irked. Glenda was the first to recover her voice. “Gone?”
Their consternation over his disappearance couldn’t compare to what Elle was experiencing, which could only be described as shell shock, along with crushing heartache.
She kept her expression and tone of voice as matter-of-fact as possible. “As soon as I hung up from Glenda, I came in here to the kitchen. There was that,” she said, indicating the cordless extension lying on the countertop, “and I heard the car starting up in the garage. By the time I reached it, he was gone.”
“He stole the car!” Glenda exclaimed.
“Calder wouldn’tstealthe car. He’s just using it. Which you invited him to do.”
“I didn’t invite him to use it to run from the law.” With asperity, she asked, “Why are you defending him?”
“Why are you being so quick to judge?”
