Elusive (On The Run Book #1) (9 page)

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Dallas

Thursday, 10:12 a.m.

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WHEN the phone rang, Jenny
Singletarry was chewing on the cap of her pen as she proofread an obit for an
eighty-nine-year-old woman who’d written a book on birding and was a ballroom
dance champion. She recognized the number and considered letting it go to
voicemail. Victor was in a primo spot—the county offices—but the last couple of
times he’d called her it was with the news of a DUI arrest of a local hockey
player and another time with a tidbit that a D-list celebrity had been arrested
for punching a photographer outside the Anatole. They were great tips, but
entertainment news was not where she wanted to make her mark. Unfortunately,
she had to take what she could get right now, she thought as she picked up the
phone.

“Victor, who’s misbehaving now?
Wait, let me guess. Professional golfer? Or is it the child of some local
politician? Too much to drink before they pulled onto the Tollway?”

“No, nothing like that,” Victor
said as he chewed something crunchy. Jenny heard the crinkle of a wrapper in
the background. Probably Cheetos, his favorite. “I think you’ll like this one.
It’s hard news, like you want. It’s about that tech guy who disappeared on the
same day his business partner got whacked.”

Jenny dropped her red pen and
swiveled to the corner of her desk away from Brenda, who shared the other half
of the cubicle. “And...”

He swallowed noisily. “There’s a
joint investigation—local police are handling the business partner’s homicide
and...,” he paused as if waiting for a drum roll, “the FBI is investigating the
company. Looks like a pump and dump scheme.”

Jenny had been hunched over her
phone. Now she sprawled back in her chair. “I already knew that,” she said.
There goes my exclusive
, she
thought. If Victor knew about the FBI and GRS, then the word was out.

“So, no new galleys? John Black
has a new book out in two months.”

As fond as he was of Cheetos, Victor
loved books even more. He had a textbook Pavlovian response to the thought of
getting his hands on a galley or advance reading copy of one of his favorite
author’s upcoming books. Jenny kept him happy with discarded review copies from
the Arts and Living Section. Despite the fact that the newspaper’s book
reviewer was a victim of budget cuts last year, review copies still arrived
from major publishers and piled up in a corner of the newsroom. “I’ll check the
stack for you anyway,” Jenny said. No sense in irritating him, just because he
had old news.

“You’re a star,” Victor said. “So,
you already know about the search warrant and the person of interest? I swear
the judge signed the search warrant not two minutes ago.”

“You are sly—holding that until
the end,” Jenny snatched up a pen. That was Victor. He loved the drama of being
an “informant.”

If she could get a jump on
everyone else...she scanned her stack of work. She could probably palm off the
last few obits on Brenda, especially if she threw in the spa gift card she’d
gotten for her birthday. “Go.”

“The search warrant is for a home
in Vinewood, the missing guy’s place. Person of interest lives there, a Zoe
Hunter.”

Jenny frowned. “That sounds
familiar.”

“She’s the ex of the missing guy.
Apparently, they still live together.”

“Interesting. Any idea what
they’re looking for?” Jenny asked as she looked up Mort’s number on her cell
phone.

“I didn’t see it myself, but I
heard it was something about papers and a gun.”

“This is great, Victor.”

“Don’t forget...Black. Look for John
Black.”

“I won’t forget. And if this pans
out, I’ll bring you a boxful of review copies.” Within five minutes, she was in
her car sitting at a red light, anxious to merge onto the Beltway. But when her
light turned green, brake lights flared ahead of her on the overpass. She
quickly changed lanes to take another route.

Forty-five minutes later, she
parked at the curb and double-checked the house number, her heart sinking. Yep,
it was the right address. She was too late. The street was too quiet. No
activity at all. She’d missed it. She dropped her head back on the headrest and
blew out a sigh.
Great. I gave
away an hour massage so that I could get a “no comment” and a door slammed in
my face
.

Nothing she could do about it now.
She straightened and dug her camera out of her purse. She wanted a picture of
uniformed officials knocking on the door or agents carrying sealed evidence out
of the home, but it didn’t look as though that was going to happen. She clicked
off a few boring shots of the exterior, then went to the front door.

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Dallas

Thursday, 11:57 a.m.

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ZOE glanced out the peephole, saw
a young woman with straight brown hair and glasses on her doorstep holding some
paper, and assumed it was the new assistant for the realtor she often did
contract work for.

Zoe opened the door. “Hi, I’m Zoe.
You must be Candice’s new assistant. Got something for me?”

The woman frowned. “Ah...no.”

“You’re not with Realty One?”
Zoe’s glance swept the street behind the woman.

“No, I’m Jenny Singletarry with the
Sentinel
.”

Zoe quickly stepped back and swung
the door shut, but the woman put her hand out and braced it open. “Wait.
Please, wait. Wouldn’t you like to tell your side of the story?”

“What are you talking about?”

“About you and Jack Andrews and
this pump and dump scheme. All the police are going to tell me is that you’re a
person of interest in the fraud case, but you know what that means...most people
will think you were involved—whether that’s true or not.”

Thoughts flew through Zoe’s mind,
but no words came out. The woman on the doorstep seemed to sense how truly
stunned Zoe was on hearing the words “person of interest” and pressed closer to
the door as she said sympathetically, “It must have been awful to have them
invade your house and take your things.”

Zoe realized the woman was inching
her way inside. “What?”

“The search warrant. Did they find
what they were looking for today?” The woman asked, again with the solicitous
tone of voice.

Was this some strange scam? Was
the woman just plain loony?

The woman faltered. “You don’t
know what I’m talking about, do you?”

Zoe shook her head, and the woman
backed away from the door and retreated down the steps. “They’re not here yet.”
Zoe was able to catch the whispered words as the woman swung around to survey the
street. “I beat them here,” she said in amazed tones, then she groaned.
“They’re caught in the traffic on the Beltway.”

Zoe’s heart began a steady thump
in her chest.
They were coming
back—the police. And this time they’d have a warrant.

The woman spun back toward Zoe,
pushing her glasses up on her nose and gripping the paper in her hand tighter.

“What—”

“No comment,” Zoe said and quickly
closed the door, then slammed the deadbolt home. She paced into the kitchen in
a daze and walked in a circle, her hand lightly tracing along the top of the
island as she muttered, “Person of interest. I’m a person of interest.” In
Jack’s disappearance? In Connor’s murder investigation?

It didn’t really matter, she
decided as she made another circuit, this time her hand over her mouth.
Whatever had spurred the search warrant, whether it was related to Jack’s
disappearance or Connor’s murder, it was for this house, and they were
interested in her.

She scanned the exposed rafters of
the kitchen ceiling and the cabinets lining the walls. She hadn’t even looked
around in here. Had Jack put something deep in one of the cabinets? She had
searched, but what if she’d missed something?

Who knew what else Jack had hidden
around the house? She never would have thought he would hide money and
passports. What if he had hidden a gun? What if it was the one used to kill
Connor? She hadn’t seen a gun at the office. Where was the gun the police had
asked about, presumably the gun that was used to kill Connor? If the police
found a gun here...her heart skipped up another notch.

She whirled around and sprinted
out of the kitchen to her bedroom where she grabbed the pile of passports. She
hesitated for a second, her hand hovering over the envelope with the rolls of
money and photos. The money wasn’t hers...but she couldn’t leave it out and she
didn’t think she had time to put it back before the police arrived.

She stuffed the passports into the
envelope and put it in her leather messenger tote, then dumped the contents of
her purse into the bag. She wiggled her feet into a pair of strappy tan sandals
with a low heel, the first pair of shoes she came across, and threw on a
loose-weave turquoise sweater that dipped over her shoulder, revealing the
white tank she already wore. She tucked her phone into the back pocket of her
jeans, picked up her keys, and Jack’s sunglasses. At the kitchen door, she
stopped abruptly and backtracked to her bedroom where she pawed through the
pillows and comforter, then shoved everything on her dresser in different
directions until she spotted Jack’s phone behind her perfume bottles. She
snatched it up and hurried to the door.

She backed out of the driveway
into the quiet street. No sign of the reporter and no official-looking cars
were closing in on her house, but she still swallowed hard. Her hands were
slippery on the steering wheel as she drove down the tree-shaded street through
the flickering patches of sunlight and shadow. She almost missed the brown car
as she cruised past it. It was parked on the opposite side of the street from
her house, tucked up under a droopy mimosa tree behind a large black van. She
kept her gaze focused forward, but couldn’t help slouching down a little in the
seat. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a woman on the sidewalk, bent down
to the open passenger window. Zoe transferred her gaze to the rearview mirror
and saw that it was the reporter. She held her cell phone in her hand and was
shaking it as if making a point.

The car’s brake lights flared and
Zoe realized they had seen her. The woman stepped away, and the car surged
backward, then forward in a half arc, but a slow jogger picked that point to
trot across the street and interrupt their U-turn. The brown car rocked as the
driver slammed on the brakes. Zoe licked her lips as she made a sedate right
turn, then stepped on the gas as she exited the neighborhood and merged onto a
major road, which was busy with traffic, but not clogged. She slipped in and
out of the cars, never going over the speed limit despite an urgent longing to
press the accelerator to the floor, until she reached the Beltway, the road
that encircled Dallas and Fort Worth.

No brown cars in sight behind her.
She pressed down on the gas and switched to the far lane, twisting her tense
shoulders to work out the kink that seemed to be tightening the muscles into a
knot. She drove for twenty minutes with no sign of the brown car or flashing
lights in her rearview mirror. The intense need to get away had receded, and
she could breathe easier, but she had no idea of where to go. Helen’s house had
been her immediate thought, but she passed Helen’s exit without even changing
lanes. She couldn’t go there and involve her. Besides, it would only delay the
encounter with the police. Friends and family were the first places they’d check.

She whipped by another exit, this
one for 35, an Interstate Highway, and a thought slipped into her mind. What if
she kept going? Just stayed on the road until she was out of Dallas? Out of the
state, even?

The thought bloomed into a plan.
What if she kept driving...all the way to Las Vegas? Eddie was never going to
talk to her over the phone, but maybe face-to-face she could get some answers.
If she went home now...well, she could imagine the reaction of the police if she
stated she’d found the passports and money. The FBI agents clearly hadn’t
thought she was clueless about Jack’s activities, and that reporter person was
talking about fraud. Did it have something to do with all that money in Jack’s
account? She felt her heart rate jump as she gripped the steering wheel
tighter. What if they turned up something incriminating during their search...no,
it had to be Vegas, Zoe thought as she hit her blinker and took the next exit
for Denton.

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Las Vegas

Friday, 12:42 p.m.

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ZOE pulled into the parking garage
of the Venetian Hotel early Friday afternoon. She spun the wheel, maneuvered
into a slot near the door labeled “Casino,” and stretched her arms over her
head, running her fingers over the fabric that lined the roof of the car.

She let her arms fall back to her
side and closed her eyes for a moment, reveling in the fact that she’d made it.
And in good time, too. She’d only stopped a few times, including once in
Amarillo to fill up with gas and grab a cup of coffee. She’d hesitated over
using the fat rolls of money for her purchases. It wasn’t her money.

Instead, she’d dug in her purse
and used her last two twenties. She’d found an ATM at another gas station and,
with the wind whipping her hair around her face, she’d cashed the last rent
check from Kiki. Zoe had used that cash to pay for other times she’d filled up
the car. One gas station had been located next to a Cozy Choice Hotel, a
mid-range national chain. Zoe strolled into the hotel, took a seat at the
computer tucked in a corner of the lobby, and used the complementary Internet
access to set up a free Gmail account, from which she e-mailed Helen a note
that only she would understand.

“Heading out for my own serenity
break. May join mom.” The e-mail would clue Helen in that Zoe was out of town,
but Helen would know that Zoe would never go on a serenity break in the first
place and joining her mom at the spa would never happen either. Later, Zoe
caught a few hours sleep at a rest stop in the mountains near Flagstaff where
the air was crisp, then drove the rest of the way, a short four hours, straight
through.

The dry heat, so different from
Dallas’ sticky atmosphere, hit her as soon as she stepped out of the car. It
seemed as if she could almost feel her lips beginning to chap and her skin
wrinkling. Chilly air swept over her, making her break out in goose bumps as
she pushed into the casino where she could hear the constant ding of the slot
machines. Marble columns lined the hallways, richly colored frescos edged in
heavy gilt decorated the ceiling, and intricately patterned marble tiles
created geometric patterns on the floor. Like everything else in Vegas, it was
over the top—excessive grandness and opulence to the extreme. It was too much,
especially after twenty hours on the road.

Zoe blinked and rubbed her eyes.
The patterns of the floor tiles were making her eyes cross. She’d been in The
Venetian before, but she had been much more interested in Jack than in the
casinos during that trip. Besides, they’d spent most of their time in their
room. She flinched away from thoughts of those heady days—almost embarrassed to
think how naïve she’d been. She’d fallen for Jack hard and had believed
everything he’d said.

She ignored the lavish décor and
picked up her pace, moving by the people hunched at slot machines and the
circulating waitresses. She bought a coffee at a snack area in the casino, then
made her way to the second floor with its simulation of a Venetian canal and
St. Mark’s Square. Lined with shops, Zoe figured the canal with arched bridges
and gondolas was a good place to look for “cousin” Eddie’s store. Zoe didn’t
spare a glance at the strolling, costumed Venetians decked out in Renaissance
finery, the singing gondolier, or the unmoving, yet human statue dressed head
to toe in a white nun-like getup, who posed on a small dais and stared
impassively into the distance as tourists with fanny packs snapped pictures of
themselves beside her. Zoe strode briskly along the canal with its Aqua
Velva-tinted water, the caffeine reenergizing her until she spotted Murano
Glassworks and halted so abruptly that a woman with gray curls above her sun
visor bumped into her.

Zoe apologized and moved to lean
against a barrier that enclosed the “outdoor” tables at one of the restaurants.
Murano Glassworks was a small storefront in a prime location, just off the
replica of St. Mark’s Square. She sipped her coffee. Customers filled the
store, but it looked as though most of the people were browsing. Two
salespeople circulated through the store, one a tall, lean guy who couldn’t be
more than twenty and a slightly older, petite woman with dark blond hair
cropped in a pixie cut.

Zoe tossed the empty cup in the
trash and went into the store, her heart beating a little faster. She strolled
by the blond woman and saw her nametag: Eddie. Zoe picked up a translucent
dome-shaped glass paperweight, which encased colorful geometric patterns that
looked like flowers. They were similar to the paperweights GRS gave to clients.
She stole a glance at the woman. With her pointed chin and the long bangs of
her boyish haircut brushing her brown eyes, she was nothing like the person Zoe
had mentally pictured when she’d spoken to Eddie on the phone. Zoe hadn’t
realized she’d made some assumptions about Eddie, but she had. She’d expected
Eddie to be like her voice, full-bodied and curvy, probably with masses of dark
hair.

“That’s an excellent example of a
vintage
millefiori
,”
Eddie said, gesturing to the paperweight Zoe held.

“Oh. Yes...I suppose so,” Zoe said.
She had been studying Eddie so closely that she’d forgotten she was holding the
paperweight. She tilted it, caught sight of the price tag, and hastily replaced
it on the shelf. She couldn’t afford a seventy-five dollar paperweight.

“The small shapes inside the
paperweight are actually glass. It’s shaped into long tubes and cut into tiny
pieces, which reveals the interior pattern. We also have
millefiori
jewelry as well as
more vintage paperweights, if you’re interested.” Her gaze skimmed over Zoe,
and she was sure Eddie was noting the dark circles under her eyes and the
crumpled clothes that didn’t have designer labels. “Or,” Eddie continued as she
tidied the display, aligning the paperweights, “we have some nice contemporary
paperweights at a lower price.”

“No, thanks. I’m interested in
Jack Andrews.”

Zoe had to admire the woman’s
poise. She didn’t falter or show any surprise. She continued to neaten the
table. As she leaned across Zoe to straighten the last few items on the table,
one eyebrow shot up, disappearing under her fringe of bangs. “You must be Zoe.”

“Yes.” Zoe crossed her arms. A
customer, a stout woman, breathed out an impatient sigh, clearly wanting to
move through the narrow aisle, but Zoe planted her feet and stared at Eddie.

Eddie’s gaze flicked to the woman,
then back to Zoe. “Let’s step out side.”

They walked across the prefab
piazza
to the canal. Eddie
rested her elbows on the balustrade running along the canal and looked into the
turquoise water. “Your area code, two-one-four, that’s Dallas.”

Zoe gripped the decorative iron.
“Yes. I drove straight through.”

“I can tell how important this is
to you,” Eddie said as she turned her head to look at Zoe over her shoulder,
and Zoe noticed how long her eyelashes were. “But I don’t know this Jack guy.”

“I have an e-mail from him to you.
He traveled here regularly,” Zoe said, wishing she’d brought the e-mail. “You
don’t understand—this is incredibly important. I have to get some answers. I’m
in trouble because of him, and you’re the only link I have to finding answers.
He’s missing. He could be dead.”

Eddie was shaking her head. “I
really wish I could help—really. You seem sincere but,” she shrugged, “I
can’t.” Zoe started to speak, but Eddie cut across her words and said quietly,
“I don’t know anything. Please don’t make any trouble. I don’t want to call
security and make things worse for you.” With her lips pressed together, Eddie
gave Zoe a regretful half-smile and pushed off from the balustrade. She walked
quickly to the store and immediately went to help a customer.

Zoe sagged against the iron,
suddenly feeling every minute of lost sleep. Her eyes felt gritty, and the
coffee had left a bitter taste in her mouth. A gondola floated by, the
gondolier in his striped shirt and round straw-hat singing
O Sole Mio
over a bride and
groom snuggled together.

Zoe felt that disoriented feeling
she got in the fun house at the fair when she was a kid. What kind of crazy
place was this? This recreated, reconstructed reality was just a rip-off of
another tourist destination. They had a river on the second floor of the
building with water the same color as the painted sky (complete with wispy
clouds) overhead. Zoe shook her head and pushed away from the balustrade and
wandered through the casino aimlessly for a while.

Eventually she came to a bar and
hoisted herself up on a high table in the corner. The waitress, a thirtyish
woman with jet-black hair that matched her heavy eyeliner, asked what she’d
like. At this point, alcohol would wipe her out, so Zoe ordered a ginger ale
and an appetizer of fried mozzarella cheese off the bar menu. She moved her
glass around on the napkin, creating concentric rings as she contemplated what
to do. Driving back to Dallas was at the bottom of her list, but where else
could she go? Not to her mom. No help there. Her mom would issue a press
release and begin setting up interviews with all the 24-hour cable news
channels.

Aunt Amanda was a possibility. She
was sensible and smart. The fact that she was in Sarasota, Florida depressed
her. Zoe was about as far away from Sarasota as she could be and still be in
the United States. Her food arrived. She didn’t realize how hungry she was
until the aroma of fried mozzarella wafted up from the plate. The marinara
sauce was excellent. By the time she scooped up the last of it, she’d nixed
Aunt Amanda from her list.

If Zoe showed up on her doorstep,
she’d pull Aunt Amanda into this investigation, and she didn’t want to do that.
The FBI would eventually find Aunt Amanda and ask her what she knew. There was
no need for Zoe to hurry things along. She pushed her plate away with a sigh,
realizing that going to Helen was out, too. Investigators probably knew about
Helen already since they were watching Zoe’s house. They probably would have
tracked down anyone who came inside, so the less contact Zoe had with Helen,
the better. Zoe could hear Helen’s voice arguing with her in her head, but she
ignored it as she removed some of the debris from her messenger bag and set it
on the table, digging some cash out of the bottom to pay the bill.

As the waitress slid the money off
the table, she said, “Oh, that’s not a good sign, honey.”

“What?” Zoe looked up from the
depths of her bag. The waitress was pointing to the mess of lip gloss,
sunglasses, and receipts on the tabletop.

A shiny red fingernail touched one
of the playing cards that Zoe picked up from Jack’s car. “An eight of
Spades—that means danger. And this,” she lined up the other card, “A two of
Spades. That’s deceit.”

“Really?”

“My mom taught me,” she said with
a half shrug.

Zoe flipped the card over. The
sturdy bell tower from St. Mark’s Square filled the space over the words THE
VENETIAN HOTEL. Zoe checked all the cards. They were the same. “Are these from
the casino?”

“No, I used to work the floor.
That’s a souvenir deck from the shops.” She removed the plate. She hesitated,
her head cocked to one side, “You look really familiar. Have you been on TV or
something?” Before Zoe could reply, she snapped her fingers. “
Smith Family Robinson
. You
were the girl on that reality show, the one about an average family surviving
on a tropical island.”

“I get that sometimes,” Zoe said
with a little shrug. “I just have one of those faces, I guess.” Sometimes
people did recognize her, but she tried to brush off any interest the show
generated. She
especially
didn’t want someone recognizing her here.

“Oh, okay. Well, you be careful,”
she said.

Zoe stacked the cards carefully,
trying to remember exactly how Jack’s car interior looked when she stood on the
road above the bank of the river. She closed her eyes and ran her fingers over
the glossy coating on the cards. Everything had been jumbled up after Jack’s
car had been towed to the house, but that first time she glanced in the window
the cards were on the passenger seat, laid out in a row, face up, with their edges
tucked under the phone, as if someone had placed them there and used the phone
to anchor them. Had Jack done that? Or someone else? Or was it a coincidence?

Zoe opened her eyes and tapped
the edge of the cards against the table, her eyes narrowed. She’d eaten and was
feeling more clear-headed. Eddie had seemed sincere, as though she really
didn’t know Jack, but surely it wasn’t a coincidence that these specific cards
were in the car and that they were playing cards from The Venetian. It
could
be a coincidence, but
after the last day or so, the coincidence seemed...unlikely, to say the least.

She’d go back to Eddie’s store and
watch. It was all she could think of to do at the moment. She sure wasn’t
hitting the road back to Dallas, and since she couldn’t come up with another
destination, watching Eddie seemed to be her only option. Zoe heaved her
messenger bag onto her shoulder, ducked into a gift shop, and paid an
exorbitant amount for a travel toothbrush and a microscopic tube of toothpaste,
then walked along the corridors until she found a bathroom. She emerged a few
minutes later feeling almost normal. It was amazing how much better food,
caffeine, and a little primping could make you feel.

She made her way back to Eddie’s
store through the increasing crowds. As the day wore on, the number of
strolling tourists grew, but Zoe decided that was a good thing. She wanted to
observe without being noticed. She browsed in a store, featuring T-shirts, key
chains, and Venetian playing cards that was located directly across from Murano
Glassworks, until she was sure that Eddie was still there. Zoe worked her way
around the shopping and dining area, keeping the store and Eddie in sight.