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Gus scrolled. They found a picture of Robbie Shaw pretty quickly. And then another they recognized. “Wasn’t this the guy Horse had cornered?”
Gus pulled up the details of the image. “John Wells…had a couple of best sellers about twenty years ago…charged with statutory rape…believed to have fled the country to avoid prosecution.” Then Gus cursed suddenly as a thought occurred. He typed in “Jack Chase.” A number of images came up. Gus groaned. How could he have not recognized the man earlier?
“What?” Mac demanded.
“This is Dan Murdoch.”
Mac stared at the image of a man in his forties, clean-cut, posed beside a Saint Bernard. “Are you sure?”
“He was about twenty years older with a beard and was dead when I saw him…but this is him. I’m certain of it. Maybe that’s what Theo was trying to tell me when she left his book in my hospital room…” Gus was furious with himself. “I could have stopped all this… God, Mac, I met Jack Chase, got his book signed for Theo… If I’d recognized him—”
“If you’d spontaneously recognized him after meeting him once for a few minutes ten years before, you would have been some kind of freak.” Mac began to pace. “So, we’re surrounded by fallen writers… What the hell is going on?”
“That woman, Cole—the agent from Day Delos and Associates called me today,” Gus said. “She warned me against going public. Day Delos were Murdoch’s agents, are Altamirano’s agents, and were talking to Theo.”
“How much do you want to bet they had something to do with Shaw and Wells too?”
And then Mac Etheridge’s phone rang.
CHAPTER 38
Mac answered on speaker, in case it was Theo, hoping it was Theo. Maybe Gus’s voice would be enough to convince her to tell them where she was.
“Mac, it’s Bernie.”
Gus turned away disappointed.
“What’s up, Bernie?”
“The phone number you gave me was turned on again, so I called it.”
Gus’s head and attention snapped back.
“It was an old lady. I told her I was returning a call to someone from that number. She said it must have been from one of the girls behind the desk at the Mayhew to whom the phone was handed in. She expected they misdialed when they were trying open her phone.”
“The Mayhew? Is that a hotel?”
“Yes. It’s in Dallas. Shall I get you and Gus on the next flight?”
“No—I’ve got a better idea.”
“Do you want me to book you rooms at the Mayhew then?”
“No—there isn’t time to do this quietly.” Mac thought quickly. “Ring the police. Tell Mendes that Theo is at the Mayhew. He’ll get the Dallas police involved.”
Gus stopped, regarding Mac incredulously. “What are you doing? He’ll arrest her.”
“They’ve failed to kill you, Gus. They may just decide to kill Theo instead.”
“God, you’re right.” Gus grabbed his jacket.
“We’re taking Horse,” Mac said as he dialed again. “Zeke—would you call Patsy and tell her I’m calling in that favor. We need to get to Dallas… We’ll be at her place in about thirty minutes.”
Mac slipped the firearm he had wrested from Shaw into the inside breast pocket of his jacket. “They might be waiting for us outside.”
Gus nodded. He’d been surprised when he first learned that Mac didn’t carry a gun as a matter of course, given the way he was raised. The rest of the Etheridges were walking arsenals. Still, in this situation, borrowing a gun didn’t seem like such a bad idea. “Who is Patsy, and how is she going to get us to Dallas?”
“Patsy McKenny, a constitutional lawyer—she’s prepping for some kind of government collapse.” Mac unlocked the door.
