Hal dropped his head back and stared at the ceiling tiles. They were much cleaner than the ones in the SFPD’s Homicide Unit. “We’re missing something. He can’t just be seeing clients. He has to be up to something, communicating with someone.”
“That’s what I’m looking for.”
“It’s not in there,” Hal snapped, upright again. “It’s where we can see his face, watch him. We won’t figure it out just reading through damn paperwork.”
The room hushed around them. Hal rubbed his face.
Telly’s cell phone rang, and for the first time all day, he answered the call. “Yes.”
Hal watched as Telly’s eyes narrowed on the wall opposite them. A nod.
Hal felt his own spine straighten. Something was up.
“Yes, please,” Telly said. “Thanks.”
“What is it?” Hal asked when Telly lowered the phone.
Without a word, Telly rose and nodded toward the hallway. Hal followed him down a short hallway, where the agent cracked a door and peered inside. Confirming the room was empty, he walked in and closed the door behind them.
Hal felt like he might jump out of his skin. “What?”
“We’re getting some off-the-books help,” Telly said, pulling his phone from his pocket.
“Off-the-books help on what?”
“A friend of mine is dating a girl who works at the Andrew Hotel.”
Hal felt the hitch in his breath. “Where MacDonald is staying.”
Telly nodded, scrolling across his phone as Hal watched over his shoulder.
“What kind of help?” Hal asked.
“She runs the front desk.”
“And?”
“And when MacDonald went out today, she happened to need to check the radiator in his room. It was acting up.” The agent’s expression gave nothing away as he focused on his phone, swiping the screen. Telly stopped scrolling and used two fingers to zoom in on an image. Hal leaned in closer.
It was a standard hotel room. Bed made, a suit coat hung over the back of the desk chair. A laptop sat centered on the desk, closed and plugged in.
Telly flipped to the next image. A bathroom sink, toiletries lined up on top of a white washcloth. Hal scanned them, momentarily struck by how mundane the details were. Even a monster like Spencer MacDonald brushed and flossed his teeth.
The images changed. On top of the dresser sat a single penny—darkened with age and years of handling. A phone charger was plugged into the wall. Nothing written on the hotel notepad. Another penny lay discarded beside it.
“What are we looking at, Telly?”
“The room.”
Like Hal didn’t know that. He kept watching as Telly scrolled through the images.
A picture of the trash can followed. Inside was an empty white sack, like the type from a convenience store. In the next shot, the sack was gone, and they could see to the bottom of the trash can, empty other than a third penny. Telly scrolled again to display a hand holding a small white receipt. Zoomed in, Hal saw it was a cash purchase in the amount of $24.99.
What had MacDonald bought?
Telly scrolled, but that was the last of the images.
“I didn’t see a briefcase or computer bag,” Hal said.
“He might have it with him. Or it might be in the closet.”
There were no pictures of the closet. Or inside the drawers.
“She was probably worried about getting in trouble,” Telly said, his thoughts in line with Hal’s.
It made sense. The hotel employee had taken images only of what was in plain sight and in the trash, which left them nothing to go on other than a white plastic bag and a single receipt. “Scroll back to the pictures of the room.”
Telly slid his finger across the screen, reversing the images.
Twenty-four dollars and ninety-nine cents. Maybe a bottle of something? “You see any glasses? Any sign of a bottle of booze?” Hal asked.
Together, they studied the images again. A glass sat on the bathroom counter, an inch of clear liquid still in the bottom. Almost certainly water.
“You’re thinking about the receipt,” Telly said.
“Twenty-four ninety-nine. That’s not a candy bar.”
“No,” Telly agreed. “A bottle makes sense, but no sign of it anywhere.”
“Might have been in the trash and was emptied when the room was cleaned earlier.”
Telly shook his head. “Room has a ‘do not disturb’ on it. It wasn’t cleaned.”
MacDonald wouldn’t want anyone in his room. He’d made his own bed, tidied his own things. Of course he had. Spencer MacDonald was a man who liked control, which made Hal second-guess the idea of alcohol. “I doubt MacDonald is much of a drinker. Maybe an expensive Scotch once in a while.”
“Right,” Telly agreed. “Doesn’t match his personality.”
They looked back through the images a third time.
Hal thought about what he’d seen. Something struck him. “The pennies.”
“Yeah,” Telly agreed. “Three of them.”
“And all in different spots,” Hal added. “I hate pennies.”
“I always leave them in the little dish.”
Hal nodded. “Me, too. And there are three here. One on the desk, one on the bedside table. One in the trash. If you buy something for twenty-four ninety-nine, you only get one.”
The two men were quiet a moment, both thinking. “Which means he’s bought more than one.”
Hal nodded, scanning his mind for the kinds of things that cost twenty-five bucks and could be bought at a convenience store. There was no indication that MacDonald was buying clothes or hats. If what Telly said was true, he’d been watched all day, and there was no sign of him trying to hide his identity. Maybe he’d bought a pair of sunglasses, but three? And why not use a credit card? Who carried cash these days?
“Multiple purchases of the same thing,” Telly added, scrolling back to the picture of the bathroom. “No sign of any medications . . .”
“Twenty-five bucks is some expensive medication, not likely over the counter,” Hal said.
“Something he would need three of, in the course of two days,” Telly added.
“Right,” Hal agreed. “Something like . . .”
“A burner phone,” the two men said simultaneously.
Hal started for the door. “We know where he is now?”
Telly eyed him.
“Do we know where he is?” Hal pressed.
“He’s at dinner at a place called Sapphire, about two miles from here.”
Hal glanced at his watch, still on California time. The face read 4:40 p.m. “When?”
“His reservation is at six thirty.”
That was now. “Let’s go.” Hal opened the door and started down the hallway.
Telly followed. “What are you going to do?”
“Eat dinner. I’m ravenous,” Hal added.
Telly’s eyes narrowed. “You can’t touch him, Hal.”
“It’s food, Telly. Aren’t you hungry?”
The agent nodded, his expression reluctant. “I could eat,” he said finally.
“Good,” Hal said, slapping Telly on the shoulder. “I’ve got just the place.”
“Is it Sapphire?” Telly asked.
“You guessed it.” Hal felt almost hopeful.
15
Monday, 5:15 p.m. MST
Schwartzman must have drifted off again. She woke drowsy and parched. Her throat was raw, and her neck ached. She fingered the collar that had almost strangled her, wincing as she swallowed. She listened to the silence, stunned at the lack of any noise. No whirring machines, no cars—nothing but the occasional whisper of snow falling from a tree branch and the occasional purr of the baseboard heater.
The window was growing dark. Not yet night but closing in on it. This far north, the dark sky could mean 4:30 p.m. or 8:00 a.m. She longed for a way to measure time, for something to help her keep track of the lost hours. It was not the mos
t important thing, she told herself. First, water.
She put her feet on the cold wood floor and dropped her head between her legs to stretch out her spine, careful to pull the cord down to give herself slack. The cord moved slowly through the track as though the mechanism were half-asleep.
At the window, she retrieved the cup of snow from the ledge. Stretching her fingers, she scooped the snow within reach, adding it to the cup before closing the window. The snowflakes that fell were light now, crisp and fine. She stared at the sky. She’d never lived where it snowed, but she was familiar with the drizzle of Seattle, and this felt like the equivalent. Like the snow could stop anytime.
Her breathing grew shallow, and she fought against growing panic.
Moving into the kitchen, she again peered out the small window. The clouds were thin and separated, exposing the blackness behind them. The sky felt too dark, like the world had been sucked up from all around her. It was so much blacker than in the city. No light pollution, which meant no one would hear her scream. No one to help.
You have to help yourself.
She turned on the small light on the old stove and glanced at the clock. The dial to change the time had been broken off, and the minute hand now lay between the five and the six at the base of the clock. But the hour hand appeared to be moving. At the moment, it sat between the two and the three.
Two thirty in the morning? It was possible, but she doubted the clock was right. Earlier, she’d noticed the hour hand between the ten and the eleven, though the sky felt like afternoon.
The best she could figure, the clock was behind by four or five hours, which meant that it was somewhere between 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. Or maybe it was 2:00 a.m. Perhaps someone had set the clock this way to mess with her, to make her feel more out of sorts. The room Spencer had designed in his house was like that—a room specifically to torment her. The video of her in Ava’s garage, the images of the ultrasound, the pulsing noise of a beating heart.
This felt like Spencer’s doing.
But then, where was he? Why hadn’t he come for her? Why would Spencer allow Roy Butler access to her? And if Spencer knew Butler, did that mean Spencer had planted Butler in her morgue? Or had Spencer met Butler after he’d left the morgue? If Hal could connect them, if he learned that Butler was connected to Spencer somehow, it might help Hal find her.
It had been more than a year since Butler had disappeared from the morgue, but it felt like something Spencer might have orchestrated.
But how would Hal know that? What clue would possibly point him to Butler?
She had to fight the rising panic. Focus on what you can control.
She poured the melting snow into the cabin’s only bowl and returned to the bedroom, dragging the cord along the track, and set the cup back on the ledge outside.
In the kitchen, she studied the bowl of snow as though she might make it melt faster. She could put it on the stove and warm it, but she didn’t want to risk any evaporation. She needed every drop.
Working the cord loose from the track, she pulled a length and wrapped it around her hand to avoid being choked again. The burning in her throat still felt raw and tender. She forced her gaze away from the bowl. Watching it was maddening.
Instead, she thought of Hal. Was it dinnertime in San Francisco? Or the middle of the night? Was he there? Would he be staying in her house or at his own home? She closed her eyes and pictured Buster. She hoped they were together. Hal would make sure that someone was caring for the dog.
When the snow melted, it filled only a third of the bowl.
Not nearly enough to survive on.
She did her best not to drink the icy water in one long swallow. The snow was frustratingly light and fluffy, perfect for skiing but not useful when one needed water. And worse, it had stopped snowing. The sky out the kitchen window was black and cloudless, the constellations dancing behind the white fog of the Milky Way.
It reminded her of walking Buster to the park up the road from her house. She wondered if she’d see Buster again. Or the park.
Or Hal.
No. She would not think that. She turned her attention to the ceiling in search of something that would feel productive. She took slow, deep breaths and tried to make a plan.
She caught sight of the end cap on the track and recalled the sensation of being strangled. She was afraid to try again. The idea that someone could push a button and kill her with the collar was terrifying.
It was random. It had to be.
She refused to believe that someone was watching her every move. If that were true, they knew she wasn’t drinking the milk or the orange juice, that she was trying to work out how they were drugging her. Even the melting snow wouldn’t be a secret then.
“No,” she said aloud. She rejected the idea that she’d made no progress, that they knew exactly what she had already learned from her environment.
Her fingers found the collar, tested its thickness, its bend. The locking mechanism was impossible to see, and she couldn’t imagine finding a way to release it. The only option would be to cut through it. But there was nothing sharp enough.
Getting the cord off the track seemed like the best bet. But without any tools . . . Her thoughts circled around the limitations. She went back to the bathroom and studied the room from the doorway. Soap. Would it work to soap up the end cap? Maybe that would loosen it? She moved along the track into the bathroom and was pulling back the curtain when she heard the clinking of metal on metal.
The curtain rings. She stood on the edge of the tub and reached overhead to unfasten one of the metal loops that connected the shower curtain to the rod. Gripping it in her hand, she returned to the kitchen and teased the cord back through the tracks to the far side of the room, dragging a chair along with her.
Hope and fear warred in her chest as she climbed back up onto the chair. She held the cord under her arm, waiting for it to retract into the ceiling. Nothing happened. It was possible that everyone was asleep now, which meant maybe someone did control it.
Gathering her courage, she jammed the metal ring into the tiny gap between the end piece and track, but the ring was too thick. Next, she experimented with wedging the ring between the track and the ceiling to pry it loose.
Her fingers stung, her wrists cramped, and the metal ring bent and twisted. She turned it in her hand and tried the other side. Tried and tried until the ring was unusable.
She stepped down from the chair and pulled the cord loose, dropping to sit in the hard plastic.
She was never getting out of there.
Hal would never find her.
Roy would kill her.
Her pulse pounded in her throat. Tears streamed down her face. I’m so tired, Hal.
Fight, Anna, came his reply in her head.
16
Monday, 7:28 p.m. CST
Telly drove to Sapphire faster than Hal would have expected for a guy who had calmly spent hours studying paperwork at his desk. While Hal scanned for a parking spot on the street, Telly pulled up to the curb and put the car in park. The valet gave the Impala a distasteful look before taking the keys.
Telly glanced at the valet’s name tag and pulled his wallet from his pocket, flipping it open to show his badge as he passed over the keys. “Please be careful with it, Damon. It’s not much, but it belongs to the FBI. Something happens, I got to explain it. You know what I mean?”
The kid’s expression shifted. His back straightened ever so slightly, and his gaze slid toward Hal, who nodded slowly.
“Yes, sir,” Damon said, and Hal waited for Telly to catch up before pulling open the restaurant door and letting the agent enter first.
The hostess looked grim when Telly admitted they didn’t have a reservation. Hal scanned the crowd. No sign of MacDonald. He also noticed that he was the only black man in the place. He wondered if, in Texas, his skin color might work against their getting a table. But the hostess offered them two seats at the bar. “Last spots in the hous
e,” she said.
“We’ll take ’em,” Hal responded without hesitation.
“May I take your coat?” she asked.
Telly wore only a blazer, but Hal had layered a windbreaker over his sports coat. “Yes, thank you.”
Hal shrugged out of his jacket and watched as the hostess ducked behind a thick velvet curtain.
A coatroom.
She returned a moment later and handed Hal a small white ticket stub. As she lifted two menus from a stack and turned toward the bar, Hal put his phone to his ear and covered it with his free hand. “It’s the wife. I’ll be right behind you.”
Telly gave him a look but said nothing, following the hostess across the room.
The moment the hostess turned her back, Hal ducked into the coat closet and slid his phone into his pocket. The room was dark and cramped. Two racks of coats hung on thick white plastic hangers, one row on each side. He scanned them as though he could intuit which belonged to MacDonald.
His pulse thumped against his throat. No guessing, he told himself. Just move. He dug in, starting with the coat closest to his right hand. Putting one hand on either side of the coat, he ran them top to bottom. His big hands stretched across the coat in two swipes. No lump, he moved on. Next coat. Something soft. Gloves, maybe. He didn’t stop.
Some were clearly women’s coats, but he was moving too quickly to distinguish. Halfway through them, he felt a hard rectangular shape in a black wool coat that turned out to be a box of Altoids mints. Damn it. He shoved the tin back into the pocket and kept going. The closer he got to the end of the coats, the more desperate he felt. Come on, MacDonald. Fuck up. Fuck up so I can find Anna.
His heart pounded as he passed his own jacket, counted six more. Pat, slide left, pat, slide right. As he reached the last coat, he sensed motion behind him. He reached back, fingers finding his wallet in his pants pocket.
The hostess stood in the open curtain. Her eyes narrowed, her mouth an unattractive line.
Hal smiled widely and held up his wallet. “Was going to be hard to have dinner without this.” He nodded toward the room. “No reason my friend should have to foot the bill, right?”
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