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“As you said, they were trying too hard to please me. The overcompensation made it glaringly obvious.”
“After that betrayal, you’re still friends with her?”
“In my heart I knew my marriage was over already. I didn’t love Jeff anymore, and I knew he didn’t love me. But I knew Glenda did. I know shedoes. It would kill her to know that I know, so please don’t ever tell her.”
Just when Calder thought he’d seen every facet of Elle Portman, she revealed another as fascinating and intriguing as all the rest. Her youthful appearance and genteel demeanor threw people off. She had more depth and strength of character than anybody he’d ever met.
She also had a steely will, which was particularly vexing tonight.
With regret, he went alone to his master suite. He consulted the chart that provided all the codes and set the security alarm. From the telephone extension in his bedroom, he called his parents, waking them. Because of the hour, they were alarmed. He was quick to tell them that he was safe. After giving them a watered-down account of the day, he still had to talk both of them off the ledge, but eventually they calmed down enough for him to reassure them that he was all right.
“What about the young woman you escaped with?” his mother asked.
He looked toward the doorway of his bedroom, hoping that Elle would appear there. It remained open but empty. “Like me, she’s shaken up, but physically all right. We were both damned lucky to get out of there. Of course, I guess we’re considered fugitives. There’s that.”
He asked about his dad’s treatments and was told they were yielding positive results. He desperately wanted to believe that. He promised to keep them updated. “And for godsake, don’t believe everything you hear on the news. If it doesn’t come directly from me, doubt it.”
After saying goodbye, he was tempted to get on the room’s laptop and conduct a thorough online search for one Arnold Draper. But if Draper wasn’t in his personal contacts, it was doubtful he’d ever had a connection to the man. Anyone even semi-important, such as the maître d’ of his favorite restaurant, was always added to his contacts.
Besides, he was exhausted. He got into bed and switched off the bedside lamp. But when he closed his eyes, desire for Elle clawed at him, making him restless and hot. He threw off all the covers except for the sheet, and then he shoved one leg out from beneath it even as his hand slid under it and ventured toward his groin.
That’s how Elle found him when she burst into the bedroom. “Calder! Are you awake? Turn on the TV.”
Awake? He was hard and throbbing, and every cell in his body had become a blaring trumpet. He was definitely awake and happily processing how well timed her arrival was. But to watch TV?
When he didn’t react quickly enough, she rushed over to the nightstand, clicked on the lamp, and picked up the TV remote. “Dawn is alive.”
“Thank God. ThankGod.”
“That’s not all.” Elle was looking at him in a way that was out of keeping with the news. “Police officers in their community were dispatched to notify her husband of the attack on the safe house. They found him dead.”
Chapter 28
Calder looked at her blankly. “Dead? What the hell?”
“As you thought, Dawn went out through the back door of the safe house. In her panic, in the dark, she ran into one of the metal poles holding up the clothesline and knocked herself out. That’s why her screams ended so abruptly. First responders found her, brought her around. She was dazed and disoriented. They took her to the nearest hospital.”
Elle sat down on the edge of the bed and turned on the TV inside a cabinet on the opposite wall. An all-news channel was broadcasting remotely from the safe house as well as from the Whitleys’ home in a Dallas suburb. The perimeters of both houses had been cordoned off. Within the crime scene tape, there was much activity.
She said, “I was watching in the other room. This is a replay of what I’ve already seen.” She gave a slight shudder. “The images are horribly reminiscent of everything that was taking place after the Fairground shooting.”
“Don’t watch any more. Just fill me in.” She relinquished the remote to Calder when he reached for it and turned down the volume. He rubbed her forearm, which had broken out in chill bumps.
“The coroner pronounced Weeks and Sims dead of multiple gunshot wounds. After the discovery of Dawn’s husband’s body, her mother insisted that she be transported back to Dallas. She was admitted to a hospital here for tests and observation.”
“What’s her condition? Is she going to be all right?”
“I think so. Physically. But she’s suffering the shock of her husband’s body being found in their living room.”
“How’d he die?”
Elle heaved a breath. “He was shot in the same manner as Levi Jenkins. It had been made to look like a suicide, but the authorities have all but ruled that out and are investigating it as a homicide.”
Calder dragged his hand over his scruffy jaw. “Jesus Christ.”
“Compton was interviewed at the safe house crime scene. She told the reporter—”
“Not Shauna, I hope.”
