The parking lot was still empty. Where was Riley? Had he drunk the Kool-Aid and bought the idea that I was involved? Didn't seem likely. Riley knew me longer than anyone in that room, save for Kelly.
And why wasn't my cell going off like mad? If they weren't here, they should at least be texting me to say how insane the accusation was. They didn't believe an anonymous letter. Did they?
This was a huge mess. I wanted to go home, eat a gallon of ice cream, wash it down with my tears, and check out. But I couldn't do that. Rex was counting on me to rescue him. I knew he was still alive. And I knew I wasn't the one who took him.
The anonymous letter could be a crank or from the kidnapper. Rex told me they get crazy leads all the time from the public. Some people try to capitalize on a case because they are lonely and need attention or because they are mean-spirited, and in some cases, downright nuts.
If this was the kidnapper, why would they say I kidnapped and killed Rex? My stomach dropped, and I shuddered.
They killed Lewis Spitz and Bobby Ray Pratt. What did the murderer stand to gain by killing Rex also?
I needed to find Rex and now.
I sat down at Riley's computer and started it up. A password prompt was easy to bypass. Riley always used the same password, LadiesMan#1. He never changed it. It drove the CIA's IT department crazy, but the man refused to come up with a new password (and to be honest, it wasn't that original). I typed it in, and we were off and running.
The main screen had several icons, and it took me a moment to make sense of them. Open meant an ongoing investigation. And Done meant the case was closed. Possiblities did not refer to cases—it referred to women. Sometimes the man was far too predictable.
I clicked on Open, and because he didn't have any cases, there was only one icon with my name on it. He hadn't progressed very far in getting answers. I found some emails sent to his contacts at the Agency, but no one had found anything out yet. He'd even queried the FBI, but they didn't even respond.
After leaving the CIA, Riley worked for the Feds, briefly. There was very little love lost between our two branches, and since he wasn't a lifer, the FBI wouldn't cough up any resources. I wasn't at all surprised that they hadn't answered his call for action.
And where was Riley? I checked my cell. Nothing. No one who'd been at the meeting had called, texted, or at least stormed out in outrage over the accusation leveled against me. I was sure my friends didn't believe it. So where were they?
I was the only one Rex could really count on. The police were useless in this matter if they believed random notes from anonymous sources. My family had gone home (at my urging), and my friends had other things to deal with in their daily lives.
If I was on my own, I could handle it. In the field it had just been me and Riley, and in many cases where there was complete radio silence, just me. I was used to working alone. Over the past few years, I'd gotten a little rusty. But once a spy, always a spy.
Okay, so no one ever says that. I just made it up.
Should I text everyone and ask what was going on? It didn't seem right that I should have to do that. They should be on my side. At any rate, the complete silence told me all I needed to know. The only way to find Rex was on my own. I just needed a place to start.
Movement in the lower right-hand corner of Riley's screen caught my attention. I clicked on the icon that was labeled WebCam. There were several icons, including the school, both grocery stores, and the zoo. Only one was open to reveal a hidden camera outside the one gas station in town. Why was Riley watching that place?
I guess it made sense. We were half an hour from the big city. Almost everyone who came out here had to stop there to get gas or something to eat or drink. People often assume that because of the anonymity, gas stations and convenience stores are good places to use to hide out.
The truth was exactly the opposite. Most gas stations and convenience stores had security cameras. They were the main defense against idiots who thought they would be getting away with something. Plus, I always suspected that the staff looked over the recordings when they were bored.
The image was in black and white and slightly grainy. A woman was pumping gas, her back toward me. There was something familiar about her. Leaning closer to the screen, I studied her, but she didn't turn my way.
She wore her hair in a short, dark bob, and the bulky winter coat gave me no idea of her figure. And yet, I could swear I'd seen her before. Finally, she went into the gas station. I waited a few minutes, tearing through my memories, thinking about her mannerisms, stance, and so on, but came up with nothing.
The gas station door opened, and the woman walked toward her car and the camera. She kept her eyes downcast, but at the last second, she looked up straight into the camera. The woman broke into an evil grin. I knew that grin.
Lana winked at me before she climbed into the black SUV and drove away.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I ran out the door and jumped into my van, roaring out of the lot. The gas station was on the other end of town, but considering that everything in Who's There is five minutes away, I could make it there in three. Two if the roads were empty.
The tires on my van squealed as I made a sharp turn onto Main Street. Lana had a few minutes' lead on me, but the way that she grinned at the camera told me she wanted me to know she was here. She had to know I'd follow her.
Which probably meant a trap. And if I wasn't so out of my mind with fear and fury, I might've been a bit more cautious. But it had been seven days since Rex disappeared. And I wasn't taking any chances of losing her.
I hit the gas station in two minutes, shaving time off of my personal best. I pulled in where she'd been and then drove off in the direction I'd seen her go. There were only two ways out of town, and she was on one of them, unless she doubled back.
However, if she'd taken the obvious road, she'd be on her way to Des Moines by now. I had to take that chance if I wanted to catch her. Roaring through town, going 50 mph in a 20-mph zone, I dodged a squirrel crossing the street and got an angry fist shaking from a farmer driving a tractor.
I was on the narrow two-lane road that would take me to the interstate. Just a few hundred feet more and I…
Crash!
The nose end of a car blew through my passenger door before disengaging. The van started to spin, and I wondered if I'd put on my seat belt in my rush to catch Lana. I decided that I had when I didn't go flying through the windshield. The airbag deployed, and the last thing I remembered was catching a glimpse of a damaged black SUV as my world went black.
* * *
I was dreaming. I had to be, because as far as I knew, they didn't make six-foot-tall Pizza Rolls. I was chasing them with a vat of ranch dressing, but they were too fast, which was strange since they didn't seem to have legs or feet.
I had almost caught one and reached out to touch it when it dissolved completely. Now I was on a gravel road in the country, walking toward an intersection.
I'd just about reached it when I saw someone coming toward me. It was a man with dark hair. He smiled as he drew near. It was Rex! I wanted to run and jump into his arms, but for some reason I froze, unable to move.
Rex said nothing more. It was as if he didn't know me. He strode through the intersection, nodded at me, and kept going. My feet finally started moving, but in the other direction. I tried screaming, but nothing came out. I walked through the intersection and kept travelling on my own road as Rex walked off into the sunset.
Then Philby, who'd grown to giant proportions and now resembled a Hitler-like five-story building, loomed over me. She scooped me up with her paw and brought me to her mouth. She opened wide and tossed me down her throat into total darkness.
"No!" I sat straight up.
There was no cat, no roads, just a nondescript room that smelled like antiseptic. I turned to look around and felt a crushing pain in my neck.
"It's okay," a soothing male voice said. "You're alright."
In spite of the pain, I turned my whole body to see Riley sitting in a chair next to my hospital bed.
"What happened?" was all I could think to say.
"You were in a car accident," my former handler said. "Hit and run. The police are out looking for the other car."
I rubbed the back of my neck. "They won't find her."
Riley cocked his head to the side. "Her? You know who did this?"
I wanted to nod. I really did. But it hurt.
"Hey!" I said. "You know what?"
Riley asked, "What?"
"Come closer," I said. "I can't see or hear very well."
Riley got up and leaned over me. With all the strength I could muster, I went to slap him in the face but ended up hitting his shoulder.
"You didn't stand up for me!"
He sat back down and looked confused. "What are you talking about?"
"Officer Weir! And that completely baseless accusation that I'd kidnapped and killed Rex!" I flinched at the sound of my voice. Even sound hurt. "You didn't storm out of there in indignation!"
"Wrath," he said as he patted my arm. "No one bought that. We spent half an hour arguing with Ted about it. Your Linda put up one hell of a fight."
"And?"
"He's agreed…to an extent." He held up his hands. "You're still a suspect, but at the very bottom of the list."
"I'm still a suspect?" I screamed. It came out more like the sound a strangled chicken makes.
"Hardly at all," he reassured. "What happened? Where did you go?"
"Back to your office. By the way, you should get better locks. I called Mom to see if we had any connection to the Fergusons before I met Rex."
"My theory." Riley grinned. "You took it seriously!"
"No. I just wanted to eliminate it. That's all," I grumbled.
"Then what? You weren't at the office when I got there, and the next thing I'd heard, you were in that accident."
I struggled to sit up, and he stuffed a pillow behind my back. That was nice.
"It was no accident. I got onto your computer and saw the security camera at the gas station. I saw Lana."
Riley's eyes grew wide. "You saw her?"
I really wanted to nod but decided against it. "She had short hair and a big coat, but it was her. She looked right into the camera and smiled. I took off to find her. And she ambushed me."
He actually gasped. "Lana is the one who hit you?"
"It has to be. It explains why she didn't stick around."
Riley frowned. "Why would she want you to see her?"
"Maybe she thought I was moving too slowly on the clues? Although that doesn't make sense because other than Rex's cell, we didn't find a new clue in the classroom."
Talking was taking a lot out of me. I slumped against the pillow and took a couple of deep breaths. I hadn't been in this much pain since I fell out of a tree a few months ago and hit every branch on the way down.
"Why were you watching that place?" I croaked.
He shrugged. "It's the most obvious spot in town. Everyone stops there at one time or another."
Of course he knew that. If I knew that, Riley knew that.
He got up and closed the door. "You really think you saw her?"
I narrowed my eyes. "What do you mean, 'think'? Of course I saw her! Go get the footage from the gas station!"
"I don't have to. I'm recording the footage from all of my hidden cameras," Riley said as a nurse came in and injected something into my IV.
"No more drugs," I complained weakly.
The nurse fluffed my pillow. "I promised Kelly Albers that I'd make sure you rest."
"You're friends with Kelly?"
The woman nodded. "We went to nursing school together. I'm Joyce."
She left, and I felt wobbly. The room wiggled menacingly.
Riley got to his feet. "Sleep it off. I'll be back. I just need to get that footage. See you soon." He kissed my forehead, but I was too weak to complain. Seconds later, I lost consciousness.
* * *
I was dreaming again. I was in an all-black room. In the center of the room, about one hundred yards away, was a trumpet on a table. Rex appeared out of nowhere…walked up to the trumpet and played it. Huh. I didn't know he could do that. I started walking toward him, but when I was still a couple of yards away, he set it down and, giving me a polite smile, vanished into thin air.
I walked over to the trumpet and picked it up. In my whole life I'd never played an instrument, but I put the trumpet to my lips and played a piece of classical music. Then I set the trumpet down and walked away in another direction.
My eyes fluttered open. No Rex. I was still in the hospital room. How long had I been out?
"You've been asleep for a whole day," Joyce the nurse said.
"Did Kelly have you drug me again?" This would be the third time in a week that my friend ordered my doping. I really should have a conversation with her about that.
"She talked to the doctor about it, and he ordered it," she said. "How are you feeling?"
I sat up a bit easier. I'd always been a quick healer.
"Better. Has anyone been by?"
Joyce looked like she'd rather not answer. She looked toward the closed door.
"What?" I asked, my spy-dy senses tingling.
"You have a policeman standing guard," she said.
Great. "Was that Kelly's idea too?" I grumbled.
The nurse shook her head. "No. They just showed up yesterday and change shifts every so often."
I thought for a moment. "Who's out there now?"
Joyce walked out of the room. Five minutes later, she appeared with a covered tray, which she set down on the table. I pulled the lid off, ravenously hungry. It didn't look half-bad. Soup and bread. I wolfed it down.
"It says Dooley on his name tag," Joyce said quietly.
At last! A glimmer of hope!
The nurse smiled and walked out of the room.
Police surveillance, huh? Had something happened that made me a prime suspect, or were they protecting me from Lana? I really needed to know what was going on, but my cell was nowhere to be found. I polished off the soup and bread, closed my eyes, and thought things through.
"Hey." Riley stuck his head through the door. "You're up." He walked in and set a paper bag on the table in front of me. "I thought you could use these."
Oreos! I tore into them, eating a whole row until I started to feel like my old self.
"Thank you!" I leaned back against the bed. "I needed that."
Riley laughed. "It looks that way."
"Tell me something," I licked the crumbs from my lips. "Why is there a policeman outside?"
He leaned forward. "They think you were making a getaway attempt when you got hit."
"You have to be kidding me! I'm still a suspect?"
The man shrugged. "They don't believe the story about Lana."
"But you have the proof! You have a camera at the gas station! You have the footage!"
Riley said nothing for a moment.
"Tell me you got it," I growled.
"I got it." He looked at the door then back at me. "But honestly, it doesn't look like Lana to me."
"How can you say that?" My jaw dropped open. "It's totally Lana! Just different hair!"
Riley shrugged. "I guess it could be, but the woman didn't look like her to me. It was kind of grainy."
I know what I saw. "Did you get the license plate number?"
He shook his head. "Obscured by snow."
What was happening? Was I losing my mind? I knew that was Lana. Didn't I?
"What do you want to do?" Riley asked.
I thought for a moment before sitting up and swinging my legs over the side of the bed. "Give me your cell. I don't know where mine is."
To my surprise, he handed over my cell.
I snatched it from his grip. "Why did you have this?"
"The police were looking for it. Said they needed to check it out."
He
was on my side. "Thanks for taking it. Do they really have something on me?"
Riley scooted his chair closer. "I did a little flirting with the dispatcher at the station."
Of course he did. Riley could melt the panties off of Margaret Thatcher.
"She took a look at the board. Carnack and Ted moved you up, even with Vy Todd. She said they found a strange shopping list in your car."
They might've had me there. I was a list maker. I made lists of everything, and my van was littered with them because I never cleaned it out. But I was pretty sure there was a list in there that had duct tape, zip ties, and a ski mask because the girls wanted to know how to escape being kidnapped. Kelly voted it down in the end, but I'd thought about holding on to it for the right moment.
"Dammit. I didn't give permission to search my car."
"You didn't need to. Kelly did. She didn't think you had anything in there that would incriminate you."
Kelly should've known better. And we were going to have a little talk when this was over.
"So after I get better, it's off to interrogation, I guess." I hit speed dial. When there was an answer on the other end, I ordered a large deep-dish pepperoni pizza to be delivered to my room. I gave them a credit card number to pay for it. "It's for Officer Kevin Dooley."
The guy promised it would be here in twenty minutes. That should be plenty of time.
"I'll need your coat and hat," I said to Riley.
"You're going to run?" His expression said that he didn't think that was a good idea.
I stepped onto the floor. There was still a lot of pain, but at this point I could handle it. Riley retrieved the paper bag with my clothes for me. They were clean and folded. That had to be Kelly. Maybe I'd go a little easy on her.
It took ten minutes to get dressed. Riley stood in the corner like a naughty boy until I told him he could turn around. Sitting back on the bed, I steeled myself for what I had to do next.
"Pizza should be delivered to Kevin in a few minutes," I warned. "You need to either be me or stuff the pillows under the covers to look like me."
"Where are you going to go? Out the window?" He looked incredulous. "Doesn't that seem a bit dangerous in your condition? Besides, they took your keys. All of them."
Marriage Vow Murder Page 14