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He turned on his phone and the laptop. While waiting for them to boot up, he took a moment to catch his breath. He’d been in a state of high anxiety ever since the blare of that damn phone in the kitchen had almost given him a heart attack. He’d reached it just as it had stopped ringing, but he’d clicked it on to see if Elle had answered.
When he heard Glenda’s breathless, panicked voice, he’d figured she was calling to tell them that their hiding place had been discovered and to get the hell out. In preparation for having to make a quick getaway, he’d rushed toward the bedroom to hustle Elle along.
But then Glenda had asked her ifhewas around. Whatever he’d been about to contribute to the conversation died on his lips. The call pertained tohim, not impending arrest.
Furiously but silently, he’d listened as Glenda issued Elle what sounded like a warning. She was coming to Elle’s rescue, and she was bringing Compton and Perkins with her.
He’d had a split second to make a decision, and it was a dilly.
If he’d stayed, he would have been corralled, which meant he would have been of no use either to Elle or to himself.
But skipping out came with serious consequences. To the detectives it would appear that he was avoiding arrest for leaving the scene of the crime at the safe house. Elle—God, Elle—would think him the lousiest son of a bitch in the world for deserting her again. This after the night, the passion, they’d shared.
But damn it, he’d had to go, and go right then, without taking time to explain. Otherwise, he couldn’t have continued his sleuthing into Arnold Draper. He would have been unable to determine what that name had implied to the pair of detectives.
He could only hope that all of them, especially Elle, would understand his purpose for leaving and ultimately forgive him for it.
All that had flashed through his mind as he’d backtracked into the utility room to grab his jacket and boots. Those in hand, he’d returned to the kitchen only long enough to pull on his boots, disconnect the laptop from its power source, and set the phone extension on the counter… but not before hearing Elle’s “Okay,” when Glenda had admonished her to play it cool with him.
Just like that, based on her unfaithful friend’s obscure hint thathewasn’t to be trusted, Elle had agreed. He hadn’t had time to explain. Therefore, to her, it would look like a repeat of what had happened before and that all the reservations over their relationship that she had itemized last night were proving to be warranted.
That disheartening thought was now interrupted when his phone lit up and signaled that he’d received the promised text with a temporary pass code. On the laptop, he reentered the people-finder website and typed in the temporary code, which enabled him to pay the necessary fee to continue.
With a click, another page of information on Arnold Draper opened. No arrests or police record. No DUIs. He’d never declared bankruptcy. He wasn’t in hock to anyone. The guy appeared to be your average law-abiding citizen.
There was a list of possible relatives. None of the names on it were familiar to Calder. Draper had lived at two addresses in Dallas. He’d been at the most recent one for the past two years. There was a telephone number, but Calder was hesitant to use his phone unless absolutely necessary. Besides, he wanted to get a feel for Draper before Draper became aware that he was being felt out.
But Calder needed transportation and only hoped that if a manhunt for him was already under way, he was still ahead of it. He had to take the chance of hiring a car.
When he and Shauna had started living together, he’d created a dummy business for the purpose of obtaining a credit card that she didn’t know about. He’d rarely used it, but he’d had the foresight to open a separate Uber account with it.
He used it now to summon a car and spent five anxious minutes waiting on it. As soon as he saw the car pulling into the parking lot of the hotel, he strolled through the lobby, past the inattentive young woman at the desk, and out the revolving door.
As he climbed into the back seat of the gray sedan, he and the driver exchanged cursory greetings and verified the destination address. Then they were off.
Fortunately, the driver appeared uninterested in his passenger. They made the twenty-minute trip in silence. But Calder knew he would be remembered later for challenging the driver as he pulled into a semicircular driveway and brought the car to a stop in front of a redbrick building. The architecture was Colonial. White fluted columns flanked a large front door. Above it was a sign with black cursive lettering.
“Excuse me,” he said, “are you sure this is right?”
The driver pointed to the GPS screen on his dashboard, nodding vigorously and repeating in heavily accented English, “Yes, yes.”
“All right, thanks.” Calder got out, not knowing what to think or what to expect. It was with mixed emotions that he started up the shallow set of steps to the entrance.
Elle had been startled speechless by Glenda’s implicating declaration about Calder.
Before she had recovered enough voice to ask what she could possibly mean, Compton had given Glenda a stern look and said, “We’ll get to that.” And had stressed, “In time. Now, where would be a convenient place for us to talk with Elle alone?”
Glenda had led them into a media room from which she’d been promptly ejected.
For the past hour, Compton and Perkins had been putting Elle through the drill that had become all too familiar. They’d pressed her for information on what had happened at the safe house. What had she seen, what had she heard, why had she left the scene when it was obvious that the crisis was over?
“It wasn’t at all obvious.”
Perkins asked her about the weapons Calder had taken, and she repeated to him what she’d already told Compton.
When she finished, Perkins said, “You believed Calder Hudson better capable of protecting you than we were.”
“He was. When Glenda arrived to pick us up, we were cold and rain-soaked but alive.”
