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“Glenda? Yes.”
“Would you trust her not to tell anybody?”
“She would never.”
“You’re certain?”
“Positive.”
“Okay, we’ll call her.”
“How did you get our phones back?”
“When I went into the kitchen, before I doused the fridge light, I noticed them on the kitchen counter where the deputies had left them. I snatched them before coming back upstairs.”
“Nothing escapes you, does it? The security cameras in the treetops, the door to the outside stairs, our cell phones. You take notice of everything.”
“I noticed your navel piercing.”
He wasn’t sure Elle heard that. In any case, she didn’t respond.
Not long after that, they came out of the woods and crossed a narrow ditch onto the road that Calder had anticipated would be there. He allowed himself only time enough to regain his breath, then took his phone from his jacket pocket. As he was rebooting it, Elle asked why he’d used Weeks’s phone to call Compton.
“So she wouldn’t know right away that I had mine.”
When his phone was ready for use, he said a prayer for good cell service. Three bars. He accessed a GPS app that showed their location. He took a screen shot, then handed his phone to Elle.
“This is a county road, and, according to the map, there’s a consolidated school not far from where we are. We’ll shelter there. Text that screen shot to Glenda, then call her. Tell her that after this call, I’m turning the phone off again. If we have to move, we’ll call or text her. Do you think Compton might contact her, looking for you?”
“It’s likely. She’s met Glenda and knows she and I are closer than family.”
“Okay, tell Glenda to watch for a tail. Tell her to hurry but not to risk getting stopped for speeding. I know it’s a lot to get across, but make it short, Elle.” As an afterthought, he said, “Put her on speaker.”
Elle might have all the trust in the world in this friend who was closer than family, but it wasn’t his family, and he wanted to judge her integrity for himself.
It took five rings for her to answer, her voice muffled as though buried in a pillow. But when she heard Elle’s voice, she was instantly awake and began sputtering questions.
Elle promised to give her the whole story later but urged her to stop talking and listen, which she did. Elle finished by telling her to check her text messages for directions to their location. “Did you get all that?”
“Yes, but, Elle, are you going to get into trouble for running away?”
“We were in life-threatening trouble where we were.”
“Good point. What abouthim? Are you two—”
“We’re fine,” she said quickly, her gaze swinging up to Calder’s. “Grateful to be alive.”
“He’s listening, right?”
“Can you please bring me a jacket or coat? I grabbed mine at the last minute, but it’s soaked through. It, my wallet, and phone are all I have with me.”
“Of course. Anything else?”
“Whiskey,” Calder said.
He took his phone back and disconnected but didn’t turn it off immediately. As they walked along the shoulder in the direction of the school, he accessed his contacts. No one named Draper was among them.
As he slid his phone back into his pocket, he told Elle, “If I use my VPN, they can’t track it. At least I don’t think so. They can get our cell records, but I think it requires a warrant, and that’ll take a while. In the meantime, the less we use them, the better.”
