Whisper of Warning

by Laura Griffin

  “A lot of these seem to reference good and evil,” she said. “And those are the Scales of Justice, right? In that picture?”

  “That’s what I thought, too.”

  “Look, what do you make of this: ‘Now Eve we’re here we’ve won.’? Is he talking about Eve Caldwell?”

  “I assume,” he said. “Even her name is whatever you called it.”

  “A palindrome. Damn, you’re right.”

  “Listen, Alex.” He gave her a hard stare. “This is more than a word game. I’ve got three murders here, all potentially connected. If your client is someone named Sarah, or if she’s a doctor, she could be in serious danger.”

  She sat back and pushed the paper away. “Her name isn’t Sarah. And she’s not a doctor.”

  “Is she related to Eve?”

  “No.”

  “I need you to tell me—”

  “Her name’s Courtney Glass.”

  Courtney, of course. He supposed he didn’t blame her for going out on her own to get help. APD sure as shit wasn’t helping her any. If it were up to Webb, she’d be under arrest right now. And Cernak was a breath away from charging her in the Alvin homicide. He had the gun and the GSR test, plus the media and the chief and the hot-dog heiress’s legal team breathing down his neck and demanding an arrest. Nathan knew it was just a matter of time before the lieutenant bowed to all the pressure.

  Unless he or Hodges could come up with a more viable suspect.

  “She told me something else you might find interesting.” Alex looked at her watch. “I’ll pass it along, and then I’ve got to get going.”

  Nathan nodded.

  “There was some big lawsuit her ex-boyfriend was working on. David Alvin? She found a video clip on the Internet that showed Eve Caldwell and Pembry exiting the courthouse the day the trial wrapped up. She thinks all this is about that trial.”

  Nathan absorbed every syllable she said. He couldn’t believe a woman PI was sitting here cracking this case open for him. With the help of a hairdresser. It was humbling as hell.

  She checked her watch again. “I’ve got to go. I’ve still got work to do tonight.”

  “Of course you do.”

  She stood up and pulled a wallet out of that cavernous purse. “What do I owe you for the beer?”

  Nathan shook his head and laughed. “Not a goddamn thing.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Courtney lay sprawled on Will’s bed, eyes closed, breath even, until she heard the soft thud of the bathroom door and the hiss of running water. She got out of bed and quickly pulled on her clothes. She shoved her feet into flip-flops and picked up the duffel bag she’d packed in the wee hours of last night, while Will lay sleeping and spent after yet another round of lovemaking. He’d insisted on setting the alarm for six, insisted that they needed to rush straight to headquarters this morning and put a plan in place to deal with the threat against her.

  But she had her own plan.

  She crept into the kitchen and lifted the set of keys from the counter. Darting a glance at the bathroom, she worked the Chevy key free from the chain.

  Her stomach knotted. If he walked out here right now, she’d never be able to explain herself. She’d never be able to look him in the eye and convince him that she had to do this, that she didn’t have a choice.

  He thought she did. He thought he could pull a few strings, get her set up with some sort of security detail, and that would solve everything. He also thought he could clear her name.

  But Courtney knew differently. This thing was going to get worse, and even Nathan, a veteran on the force with a lot more clout than Will, wouldn’t be able to pull enough strings. That lieutenant had her in his sights, and yesterday had illustrated all too vividly that somebody else did, too. She didn’t intend to sit around waiting for a man to shield her from danger. Her freedom was at stake. And her safety. And the safety of her sister, and her neighbors, and anyone else who happened to be nearby next time some hired gun came looking.

  Her gaze fell on the pen sitting beside the phone, and her heart squeezed. Maybe she should leave a note. Maybe she should explain herself, try to lessen the impact of what she was about to do, because she knew he’d be hurt. He was an ex-soldier and a cop, a man who’d obviously seen more than his share of bad things, but he had feelings, too. And this was a betrayal, no getting around it. They had bonded last night. In between the groping and the moaning, they’d had some quiet, gentle moments of understanding. She’d never had that with anyone, and she felt guilty now for running away. She reached for the pen.

  The pipes went silent, and she froze. She glanced at the bathroom door. It remained shut.

  She tiptoed across the apartment, silently unlocked the door, and slipped out.

  Making someone disappear in the digital age was no easy task, but Alex relished it. She sat at her computer, her fingers flying over the keyboard, while she spoke with Courtney’s telephone company.

  “Thank you for holding. How can I help you this morning?”

  “Hi, this is Courtney Bass. I hate to bother you, but I’ve got my last bill sitting here, and I notice you guys still have my name wrong. It’s ‘Bass,’ not ‘Glass.’ I called about this last month.”

  “I’m sorry about that. Let me pull up your account. Are you calling from home?”

  “No, actually, I’m at a friend’s place. Let me give you my number.” Alex recited Courtney’s home phone number.

  “Just to confirm, Ms. Bass, could I have the last four digits of your social security number?”

  “Sure thing. That’s 4-3-1-0.”

  “Hmm…That doesn’t match my record. Could I have your mother’s maiden name, please?”

  “It’s McCowen. Sounds like my whole file’s messed up. I guess I got the new guy on data entry, huh?”

  “We’ll take care of it for you, Ms. Bass. Just give me your full social.”

  Alex rattled off a number ending in 4-3-1-0 and listened to the clack of computer keys as the customer service rep changed the record.

  “Thanks for calling, Ms. Bass. We’ve got it all straightened out now. And is there anything else we can help you with today?”

  “That’ll do it, thanks.”

  Alex disconnected and smiled with satisfaction. She planned to call back again tomorrow to tell them she’d been getting obscene phone calls and that she wanted a new number, which would further muddy the waters. Whichever skip tracer went looking for Courtney’s phone records was going to have a bitch of a time tracking them down.

  Locating someone was all about resources—namely time and money. The more time and money eaten up by the search for a person, the lower the likelihood of success. According to Courtney, the people after her had no shortage of funds. But Alex could make their job time consuming and tedious as hell, giving Courtney a chance to get underground.

  Alex moved on to the next item on her list: the cable company.

  “Hello, this is Courtney Glass. I’m moving and I need to disconnect my service.”

  “Are you calling from home?”

  “No, actually.”

  “I’ll need your social security number, please, to access your account.”

  Alex recited Courtney’s actual social and waited for the rep to pull up her file.

  “Thank you, Ms. Glass. And when would you like your service disconnect?”

  “I’m moving tomorrow,” Alex said. “So let’s do it as soon as possible.”

  “We’ll put you down for tomorrow, then. And I’m showing a balance of eighty-two dollars and fifty cents on your account. We’ll need a forwarding address where we can send the bill.”

  “Certainly,” Alex said, and gave her a P.O. box in Nashville.

  “Will that be all today?”

  “That’s it, thanks.”

  “Thank you for calling, Miss Glass. And good luck with your move.”

  Alex made phone calls until all Courtney’s records with her Austin-based utilities were in shambles. In
some cases, she altered Courtney’s name, providing any PI who came looking with a potential alias he’d have to track down. In other cases, she had the service canceled completely and the final bill forwarded to the Tennessee P.O. box.

  Next, Alex got on the phone with several airlines and had their frequent-flyer accounts altered so they no longer had a record of the various flights Courtney Jane Glass had taken over the past ten years. One less clue for someone to follow in the search for her.

  Finally, Alex pulled up the website for an apartment locator in Nashville. She’d get the firm searching for an apartment, which would generate a credit check linked to Courtney’s social. Someone looking for her would see that she was using a Nashville-based apartment finder.

  The phone rang and Alex checked the number. She punched speakerphone.

  “Lovell Solutions.”

  “Alex, it’s Nathan Devereaux.” A pause. “Am I on speakerphone?”

  “Yep.” Alex kept typing while Nathan mumbled an obscenity. Most people hated speakerphone.

  “I need to reach Courtney.”

  “Then why are you calling me?”

  “Don’t get cute, Alex. Where is she?”

  Alex entered one of her many e-mail addresses, along with Courtney’s name, in the Contact Us section of the website. She’d bet she had an agent on the phone to her within the hour.

  “I don’t know,” she said patiently. “But even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “You helped her leave town, didn’t you? Listen, I need to track her down, ASAP. She’s wanted by the police.”

  Alex pondered this news briefly, then decided he was lying. Every last thing Courtney had told her had checked out.

  “I have no idea where she is,” Alex said, and it was more or less true.

  “This is serious. You could lose your license—”

  “If you see Courtney, give her my best. I’ve gotta go.”

  Alex disconnected and called Courtney.

  “Do you have any active warrants I need to know about?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Just checking.” Alex left the apartment finder site and clicked onto Greyhound.com. “I’m almost done here. You all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, I’ll call you in ten.”

  Courtney hung up the phone and stared through the tinted-glass window of the juice bar. She watched the morning commuters race past—in their cars, on their phones—oblivious to one another in their rush to get to work. Buses hissed to a halt, loading and unloading. Bicycles whizzed by. Noise enveloped her as the juice bar filled up with health-conscious Austinites ordering veggie frappés with a shot of wheatgrass.

  She was surrounded by people, yet she’d never felt more alone.

  She thought of Will’s hands. They were big and strong and callused—from lifting weights, she guessed. They were scarred. They were warm and knowing, too, and she remembered the precise feel of them gliding over her skin. Heat pooled inside her, and she bit her lip.

  Maybe she should stay.

  A woman pulled up to a stoplight in a battered white Pontiac with the windows rolled down, and Courtney thought of another Pontiac from years ago.

  She remembered standing in the driveway of their rented house just a few short weeks after her father’s funeral. Fiona had been holding their cat, Twix, and crying while their mother crammed boxes and suitcases into the car. It was time to get a move on, time to make a fresh start, and pets weren’t allowed where they were going. Fiona had begged and sobbed, but their mom had insisted. Twix would stay behind with Grandpa.

  Their mother had been right. The dumpy apartment where they’d ended up in North Hollywood hadn’t allowed cats, or dogs, or even birds. It had been the first of many dumpy apartments with a no-pets policy and the first of many stops on their mother’s soggy, self-destructive journey.

  Courtney watched the Pontiac disappear and wondered if she was making a mistake. She didn’t really have to run.

  Her phone vibrated on the table. She checked the display to make sure it wasn’t Will again. She’d ignored three calls from him in the past two hours.

  But it was Alex.

  “Okay, phase one is finished. Are you at home?”

  “I didn’t go home. I just—” Courtney paused, trying to think of a way to explain the feeling of foreboding she’d had the moment she’d turned onto her street. “Something felt off, so I didn’t stop there. I’ll just make do with what I’ve got now.”

  “All right, then, just forget your stuff. We’re into phase two.”

  She recalled the three phases Alex had detailed at her office yesterday: misinformation, disinformation, and reformation. Courtney had expected the process to include getting a fake identity, but Alex had talked her out of that. Buying one was illegal, for one thing, and she could end up with a worse identity than the one she had now. Better to stick with her own identity, but fly well under the radar.

  “I’ve got you headed to Tennessee,” Alex said.

  “All right.”

  “Some of your bills have been rerouted to a P.O. box in Nashville leased by a friend of mine.”

  “Will they accept my mail?”

  “It doesn’t matter. We’re just leaving crumbs here.”

  “Okay.” Courtney’s stomach clenched. She was really doing it. She was really disappearing. She was leaving behind her job and her sister and Will—

  “You sound hesitant. Are you sure you’re up for this?”

  Courtney thought of Will. She thought of the look on his face last night when he’d pulled her bag off her shoulder and asked her to stay. He was in her head now, saying the same thing over and over.

  She could stay. She didn’t have to be like her mother. Her mom had never faced her problems, but had gone from man to man and place to place in a vain attempt to outrun herself.

  “Courtney?”

  A shiny black Escalade rolled past Bella Donna and turned into the neighboring parking lot.

  Her stomach fell out.

  “Courtney, are you there?”

  “They’re across the street. At the salon.” Her throat went dry, and she hunched down in her chair, even though she was separated from them by a four-lane street and a pane of tinted glass.

  “Are you sure it’s them?”

  “It’s them.”

  The driver backed the Escalade into a space just beside a Dumpster. They were waiting for her, confirming her very worst fears.

  “Can you get a plate number?” Alex wanted to know.

  “It’s too far away.”

  “Okay, forget it. Just get out of there. Did you get the money order?”

  “Yes.” Courtney collected her purse and the little duffel bag she’d stowed at her feet.

  “Drop it in the mail this morning, along with your ATM card. You left a few hundred bucks in there, right?”

  “Right, but why do you need—”

  “For a decoy. I’m going to FedEx it to friends in various parts of the Southeast. Have them make some withdrawals, make it look like you’re on the move.”

  “Oh.” Courtney shouldered her bags and felt confident suddenly. She’d clearly hired a PI who knew what she was doing.

  “Get yourself to the bus station, like we talked about, okay? You need to be on the ten-twenty heading north to Dallas. Then buy a ticket for the four-thirty to Memphis.”

  “Okay.” Courtney made her way past the carrot-drinkers to the back door of the restaurant. Will’s Suburban was parked out back beside a trash bin, right where she’d left it.

  “And you’re sure about this now?” Alex asked. “Once we get to phase three, it’s going to be tough to go back.”

  “I know.” Courtney took a deep breath and summoned her courage. The Escalade was less than a hundred feet away, and although she couldn’t see it, she felt its presence.

  “When we hang up, you need to ditch the phone.”

  Courtney pulled Will’s key from her pocket. “I know.”r />
  “That’s it then. Good luck.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And watch your back.”

  “This is starting to make sense.”

  Will cut a glance at Devereaux, who was in the passenger’s seat of the Taurus with a file open in his lap.

  “What’s that?”

  “This jury list.” Devereaux held it up. “Eve Caldwell was the forewoman. There were ten men on the jury and only two women. Maybe that’s what Pembry meant when he said, ‘Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.’ Get it? Corrupt foreman? Maybe he saw her death in the paper, and Alvin’s, and he was trying to send me a message.”

  Will gripped the steering wheel. He was having a hard time focusing on this shit today. All he could think of was Courtney.

  But Devereaux wouldn’t let up. “He also wrote, ‘Draw nine men inward.’ Maybe she drew them in, convinced them to rule for the plaintiffs. The court records show it was a ten-two split.”

  “You said nine men,” Will pointed out.

  “Yeah, but Pembry voted for the defense. So did this woman, Sarah Schumacher. Holy crap, ‘Harass selfless Sarah.’ It all fits! Pembry and Sarah were taking heat for not voting with Eve and everyone else.”

  Devereaux’s face was animated with excitement, and Will wanted to pound it. He couldn’t care less about any of this right now. He wanted to find Courtney. They’d been by her house, and her sister’s, and the salon, but they hadn’t found a trace of her.

  “We should drop by this woman’s office,” Will said. “Twist her arm some.”

  “I already twisted it.”

  “Then we should twist it some more.”

  Devereaux shot him a warning look. Hell, Will didn’t mean they should hurt her—just lean on her a little. Will could be very intimidating when he wanted to be.

  Right now, for instance.

  He’d had a hot ball of anger in his gut ever since he’d gotten out of the shower to find his bed empty and his truck gone. He’d stood in his parking lot, cursing a blue streak and feeling like a horse’s ass. He should have seen it coming. It was just the sort of move he should have expected from Courtney, and he was the world’s biggest idiot for not spotting it a mile away and coming up with a countermaneuver.