Elusive (On The Run Book #1) (3 page)

He glanced at Connor’s new silver
BMW at the far back corner of the small lot. Connor was going to be pissed if
he got some hail damage. Despite clinging to his antique cell phone and having
a serious aversion to any sort of digital technology (he refused to use the
office coffeemaker because it didn’t have an actual on/off toggle switch),
Connor was finicky when it came to his other personal possessions, always
wanting the best. Zoe put it more succinctly, saying, “He’s a snob.” Connor’s
idiosyncrasies didn’t bother Jack. What Connor did with his salary—what he
bought or didn’t buy—didn’t matter to Jack. Jack handled most of the
computer-related aspects of the business anyway, except for the accounting
software, which Connor had somehow managed to grasp to relieve Jack in at least
one area.

With the heavy downpour, Jack was
surprised his business partner hadn’t cleared out of the office early to get
his precious car into the garage of his newly purchased McMansion before the
storm arrived, but then he remembered Connor had told their secretary, Sharon,
he’d cover the office that afternoon during her dentist appointment, an
unusually nice gesture, for him. GRS was still a tiny start-up, just the three
of them, and they had to cover for each other. However, it looked like they
wouldn’t stay small much longer.

Jack sprinted from the car to the
door but was still drenched by the time he made it inside.

He crossed the small reception
area. “Connor, you in there?” There was no answer from behind the closed door
to the office on the left of Sharon’s desk. Probably on the phone, Jack thought
as he loosened his tie. Connor spent more time talking on the phone than he did
sleeping. He tended to shout and drop a lot of curse words, which Sharon didn’t
like. Lately, she’d taken to shutting his door to make a point. Jack crossed
behind Sharon’s desk where her monitor screen was spinning through a
kaleidoscope of abstract shapes.

He stepped into his office, which
was opposite Connor’s and picked up his gym bag with his clean workout clothes.
His suit jacket and dress shirt were soaked, and his pants were wet from the
ankles to the knees. He quickly changed into a black Aeropostale T-shirt, gray
workout shorts, and Asics running shoes. He dragged his fingers through his
damp brown hair, finger combing it off his forehead. He sat down at his desk
then went completely still. Something was wrong.

His screen saver, a photo of him
and Zoe in front of the fountains at the Bellagio, smiled at him—their
honeymoon photo. He’d been out of the office for over an hour. His computer
shouldn’t be on. It was set to shut down after ten minutes. His gaze raked the
room. Nothing was out of place. He nudged the mouse and the screen saver
dissolved into a webpage with lines of text and numbers, his bank account. He
frowned and leaned forward, staring at the last line of numbers. “That can’t
be—” But it was. The balance was over seven figures.
Seven figures?
He wiped a
hand down over his mouth.

Banking
error
, he thought. It had to be. The balance had soared late
yesterday with a wire transfer from his investment account.

He grabbed the mouse and quickly
logged into his investment account. When the numbers came up, he stared at the
screen. His balance was zero. The last transactions, dated yesterday, showed
that he’d sold all his GRS shares and made a wire transfer. Only, he hadn’t
sold any shares yesterday. And the number of shares was wrong—it was too high.
Way
too high. He didn’t own
that much GRS stock. He shook his head in disbelief as he opened his middle
desk drawer for a pen and notepad. Straightening this mess out was going to
require extended time on hold, he was sure.

He froze. Nestled among the sticky
notes, pens, and scattered paperclips, was his gun—the gun that no one knew
about, not even Zoe. He’d left it locked in a trunk in the attic. At home.

He scanned the room again, feeling
the old mode of alertness settle on him. He was suddenly aware of the complete
silence in the office. Outside, the rain lashed the windows, but inside, the
quiet pressed down on him. He remained still, controlling his breathing as he
listened. Nothing. Absolute silence. Not good. He’d gotten rusty. He hadn’t
even noticed the stillness of the office when he arrived. Now it seemed to be
shouting at him.

The walls weren’t thick. He could
usually hear something—the whir of a printer, the faint murmur of Connor on the
phone, the squeak of Sharon’s chair as she swiveled between her computer and
printer, but there was nothing now.

Jack stood slowly. He stared at
the gun for a moment, debating. Finally, he picked it up and held it with two
hands, elbows bent so the barrel pointed to the ceiling. He moved silently
until his back was against the wall beside the door. The gun felt good in his
hands, comforting. His breathing was slow and even as he listened. He pivoted
through the door, arms extended, almost surprised at how easily his muscles
transitioned back to the familiar movements.

Still no sound from inside
Connor’s office. He moved quickly and noiselessly across the low-pile gray
carpet. He leaned against the doorframe to Connor’s office, waited a moment,
and then in one swift movement, he twisted the doorknob and swung into the
room.

––––––––

Rome

Tuesday, 5:10 p.m.

––––––––

AS the sun dipped to the west
side of the
Piazza Navona
,
shadows crept across the ellipse-shaped
piazza
toward the Egyptian obelisk that crowned Bernini’s Four Rivers Fountain. At the
northern end of the
piazza
,
where Roman chariots had swept around the curve when the area was a stadium, a
man in an expertly cut black suit sat in front of a café in the shade of a
canopy, watching the tourists eat
gelato
as they strolled across the cobblestones. He sat perfectly still, a subtle
tension in his body language separating him from most of the people in the
piazza
. He had sandy hair
tinted with a bit of gray and a round face with flat features. His nose barely
broke the plane of his cheekbones, and his lips were small and thin. His light
gray eyes constantly scanned the crowds.

Water tumbled through the three
fountains of the
piazza
,
magnets for the wandering sightseers. A light breeze pushed at the edge of the
white linen tablecloth. The man picked up the phone, checked for messages, then
put it back down at an exact right angle to the untouched basket of bread
centered on the table.

A waiter hurried through the
tables, an
antipasti
plate of meats, cheeses, and vegetables in his hand.

The phone rang. The man answered
with the customary Italian greeting. “
Pronto
.”

An abrasive American voice said,
“It’s done.”

The man switched to English as
well. “Excellent.” The waiter deposited the plate on the tablecloth, and as the
man finished his call, his body seemed to uncoil slightly in the chair as he
lifted his wine glass in a silent toast.

––––––––

Dallas

Tuesday, 6:39 p.m.

––––––––

OFFICER Terry Isles rubbed his
hand across his chest, thinking that he really shouldn’t have had that to-go
burrito bowl from Chipotle for lunch. He reached into the pocket of his Texas
Highway Patrol uniform, pulled out a roll of Tums, and popped one in his mouth.
Although, heartburn was a small price to pay so that Stephanie, his fifteen
year old daughter, could have her favorite food, a chicken burrito from
Chipotle, on her birthday. Add in the fact that she wasn’t embarrassed to be
seen eating her favorite meal with her cop dad during first period lunch at her
packed high school lunchroom and, yeah, he could handle a little heartburn. He
spun the steering wheel of his cruiser and merged onto the empty state highway,
leaving behind a new suburban housing development, Deep Creek Commons, which
had been hit hard by the storm. The flurry of activity—the highway patrol cars,
the ambulances, fire trucks, and police cars were in the neighborhood, and now
the rhythm of the road had settled back into its normal sleepy state.

Before the storm, the neighborhood
of brick starter homes had neatly trimmed yards dotted with small trees
anchored with cords to guide their growth. After the tornado plowed through, it
looked as if beaters from a giant mixer had whipped through the streets,
flinging wood, flipping cars, and tossing small trees into tumbled disarray.
Street signs and light poles angled on the ground, an oversized game of Pick-up
Sticks. At least he knew Stephanie had been safe at school during the storm
where there had only been heavy rain. The really severe weather had been
isolated here.

He was reaching for another chalky
tablet when he saw the car parked on the side of the road at the point where
the road rose and became a bridge over Deep Creek, the normally small stream of
water that the nearby neighborhood had been named after. The car, an older
model blue Honda Accord, looked abandoned. He rolled slowly to a stop behind
the car, watching for movement, but there was none. He called it in. Nothing
unusual came up. The car was registered to Jackson Henry Andrews.

Isles stepped out of the cruiser
and approached cautiously. The rain had stopped, but the clouds lingered,
tinting the scene gray. The wind was hardly ever calm on the plains of Texas
and today was no exception. The stubby strands of grass at the edge of the road
were pressed flat from the steady, cool breeze. The fresh scent of ozone
lingered in the air.

Deep Creek Commons was the only
housing development along this state highway. Officer Isles didn’t doubt if the
economy ever picked up there would be more. The area was positioned for
growth—there was a new shopping center about a mile to the west and the
Interstate beyond it—but, for now, his cruiser and the blue Honda were the only
cars on the lonely stretch of road. As he neared the car, he could hear the
gurgle of swiftly moving water. No one was in the car. There wasn’t much to see
inside—a cell phone, a few paper napkins, sunglasses, and some playing cards
were on the front passenger seat. A pair of golf shoes rested on the backseat.

Isles walked around the car and
stood near the bridge’s guardrail, looking down into the rushing water. The
creek was swollen from the heavy rain and had risen above its normal banks.
There were two deep indentions in the wet grass near the road. The curved
slashes of dark earth, about the size of the heel of a large shoe, showed
through the green. Isles surveyed the horizon, recreating the path of the storm
in his mind.

With a grim look, he leaned over,
squinting to study the dark recess under the bridge. There were squares of
concrete on either side of the creek, supports for the bridge. His visual
search widened, taking in the creek. He spotted the jacket first.

It was dark gray and hard to see,
almost submerged under the water, but the lining was shiny and stood out from
the opaque branches of the small bush it was caught on. The branches clung to
the sloping hillside, barely above the water. The creek tugged on the bush, causing
the leaves to tremble and pulse.

He stepped over the guardrail and
edged down the steep incline, careful to stay away from the footprints he’d
spotted. He saw a shoe, a men’s dress shoe, caught in a small eddy farther
downstream, spinning on its endless track in a bend of the creek.

––––––––

Dallas

Tuesday, 9:48 p.m.

––––––––

ZOE was in the kitchen when the
doorbell rang. Two dozen double chocolate chip cupcakes were cooling on the
island while she vigorously stirred a bowl of mint-flavored frosting. Zoe
enjoyed baking, especially cupcakes. Helen said it wasn’t a hobby, more like a
fetish. Helen didn’t understand why Zoe would want to spend two hours in the
kitchen in the evening instead of watching television or reading a magazine. Of
course, Helen never had any qualms about eating any of the cupcakes Zoe made.

Zoe dipped her finger in the icing
for a taste before she put the bowl on the counter and headed for the front
door, wondering why Helen would come to the front door instead of the kitchen
door. With the sharp, minty flavor still slightly stinging her taste buds, she
swung open the door. “Decided you couldn’t wait until tomor—” Her words died
away as she realized that it wasn’t Helen standing in the bright glare of the
porch light. Instead, there were two men in uniforms, one tall with a ruddy
complexion and the other darker and more thickset. The shorter man asked, “Zoe
Hunter?”

“Yes,” she said, frowning.

“Hello, ma’am,” There was an air
of tension about them that suddenly made her nervous and worried at the same
time as the man said, “I’m Officer Clements with the Texas Highway Patrol. This
is Officer Isles. May we come inside? We have some information about Jack
Andrews.”

“Umm...I don’t know why you’d want
to talk to me. He’s my ex-husband. We’re not together anymore.”

“Does he have any other next of
kin?” Officer Clements asked.

“No,” Zoe said slowly. “Only a
distant cousin in Vegas.” She gripped the door handle. “Is something wrong? Has
something happened?”

“If we could step inside,” Officer
Clements asked again.

“Of course.” Zoe nodded jerkily
and stepped back. The men removed their hats as they filed into the narrow
hallway. Zoe closed the door and they followed her into a small living room.
She sat on the corner of the rickety black couch that Jack had owned before
they got married. She’d paired it with some chairs upholstered in a black and
white patterned fabric and bought two end tables at a garage sale in a burst of
newlywed nesting, but no one ever came in the living room, and a thin layer of
dust had settled on the tables.

A single black and white print, a
cityscape at night, was propped up on the wall behind the chairs. She had taken
it down months ago when she started painting the room a robin’s egg blue in an
effort to brighten up the dull room. Jagged swaths of blue covered half of one
wall. The rest were still white. Zoe had never noticed how depressing the print
was—the city looked bleak and sort of ominous.

As they sat down, the officer with
the ruddy complexion, Officer Isles, spoke. “When was the last time you saw
your ex-husband?”

“He was here around noon or
twelve-thirty. He was upstairs. He stops by here to shower after his run.” She
saw the glance they exchanged and she explained their living arrangements.

“Did you see him?” Isles asked.

“No, but that’s not unusual. We
don’t check in with each other.”

“When was the last time you spoke
to him?”

Zoe shrugged. “A couple of days
ago, I guess,” she hedged, thinking of the snippy words they’d exchanged about
the electric bill. So what if she’d paid her half a day or two late? Just
because the electric company said they were going to turn everything off,
didn’t mean they were going to do it. The first notice was only a warning.
She’d paid it. She couldn’t understand why he got so worked up. She’d even sweet-talked
the customer service guy into removing the late payment notation from their
account, so there was absolutely nothing to worry about.

“We don’t keep tabs on each
other...” At this point in a normal conversation, she would have made some flip
remark about their living arrangements. Maybe a joke about how they should have
a line down the middle of the house to divide the territory, but this wasn’t
that kind of conversation. Zoe nervously pressed her hands together in her lap.

Officer Isles said, “We’re sorry
to inform you that his car was found abandoned after the storm. It was on the
side of Highway 375, above a bridge. There was no sign of him, but a men’s suit
jacket and a dress shoe were found in the creek, which was moving swiftly.
Emergency dispatch received a call today, after the storm. A man was spotted
struggling in the water downstream.”

Zoe felt as if she were listening
to a conversation in another language. She heard the words, but couldn’t seem
to process the meaning. She leaned forward, noticing how tired the officer’s
eyes looked. “Are you saying it was Jack? He was in the water? I don’t
understand.”

“It looks like he was caught in
the storm,” Officer Isles explained, his voice gentle. “A tornado touched down
near there early this afternoon. He would have been able to see the funnel
cloud from the road. We’re theorizing that he pulled over and sought shelter
under cover of the bridge, then slipped into the water and was carried
downstream. We’ve been searching the creek for several hours, and there’s no
sign of him. No record of his admission to any local hospital, either.”

Zoe lost track of what he was
saying for a few moments, thinking of the time she’d spent in the hall bathroom
after the sirens sounded. Jack had been out in the storm? Not Jack. Nothing
could have happened to Jack. “Are you sure?” she said, not realizing she was
interrupting Isles. “Jack’s not the kind of person who does things like
that...he’s careful and so...so safe. He wouldn’t be out driving in the storm. He
always does everything right. He’s got an emergency kit in his car. He always
drives the speed limit, stuff like that.”

That driving the speed limit
trait had annoyed Zoe to no end. Everyone speeds on the Beltway—everyone, but
not Jack. He’d putt along as cars doing eighty or ninety whipped around him.

“We can’t confirm it was him, but
there haven’t been any other reports of missing persons. The search had to be
called off because there’s another storm moving into the area, but it will
resume in the morning.” Zoe searched his face then glanced at the other man.
Both were solemn and sympathetic.

She took a deep breath, then said,
“If that was him in the water, do you think...is there a chance...”

The men exchanged a quick glance.
“We can’t say for sure right now. We’ll know more in the morning.” There wasn’t
even a glimmer of hope in their expressions. Zoe closed her eyes. They thought
Jack was dead. A vise seemed to close around her chest.

Isles continued, “Getting out of
the car and under the bridge was probably the safest thing to do. You don’t
want to be in a car when a tornado touches down. Do you have someone you can
call to come stay with you tonight?”

Zoe didn’t respond right away. He
repeated the question.

“What? Oh. Right, um...” She’d
almost said, it was okay, Jack would be back later from wherever he was...his
dinner or business meeting with Connor. The response was so automatic, so
natural, that she opened her mouth to say it, but then realized he wasn’t
coming home. That thought was like a physical blow that made it hard to
breathe. It felt exactly like that time when she missed her footing on the tree
house ladder when she was a kid. She’d slipped and fell hard, landing on her
back and knocking all the air out of her.

The next few moments were fuzzy
and dark spots clouded her vision. But then the smudges evaporated and she was
in the dismal front room with its clash of white and blue paint. The officer
who hadn’t been talking brought her a glass of water from the kitchen. Finally,
she tuned back into what they were saying. A friend or relative. Someone to
stay with her. “Yes. My friend Helen. She’ll come over.”

––––––––

Dallas

Wednesday, 5:36 a.m.

––––––––

IT was still dark as Zoe stood on
the shoulder of Highway 375, staring down into the gurgling water below the
bridge. Helen was going to be a teensy bit irritated with her when she woke up
and found Zoe’s note on the kitchen island. Zoe knew it wouldn’t last long.
Helen was too good-natured, and she would be more worried than angry, but Zoe
had to get out of the house. She needed to be alone. Helen had arrived within
fifteen minutes after Zoe called her last night. She’d convinced Zoe to drink
some tea then ordered her to go to bed. Helen must have slipped a Tylenol PM or
something stronger into Zoe’s tea because she’d slept deeply.

She’d crept into the living room
at five and found Helen asleep on the uncomfortable black couch and the kitchen
spotless, all dishes washed and the cupcakes iced and put away. Helen was quite
good at looking after people—it was one of her favorite things to do, actually.
So Zoe knew if she didn’t get out of the house before Helen was awake, Helen
would be ordering her to rest and cooking her food all day. In short, hovering
over her, which wouldn’t do. Helen had a job to go to and Zoe had already kept
her away from home all night.

There were voices and activity
downstream to her left, but she hardly noticed them. Her attention was focused
on the sharp slope of ground and the water. This was where he went to wait out
the storm. The island of concrete that supported the pilings of the bridge
looked small and steep. It would be hard to keep your footing, especially with
the rain and wind lashing around. She searched the grass for marks, tufts that
maybe he’d pulled up as he tried to grab for a handhold, but the grass near the
water was smooth and bent over from all the rain.