Phelps. The name. How had a dead Jim Phelps become a dead Stephen Larocca?
“Who called the sheriff?” I asked.
“A deputy and a coroner were already on the scene when we were notified of the death. I assume it was the brother who found him.”
How had they pulled it off? Where had they gotten a uniform and a car? They couldn’t withstand a real investigation, so they’d covered it up, made it appear the authorities had been notified.
“Did my husband meet with anyone else while he was here?” I asked.
“I questioned Tyler at the front desk, and he said he saw your husband with a fourth man,” Mr. Stover said, “who apparently was not registered here. He said he was medium height, sixtyish, slim, very distinguished looking with white hair.”
Judge Donovan. So Stephen and the two other men—Ian and James—had met with Donovan here. Why? Had that meeting precipitated Stephen’s death?
“Were they seen with anyone else?”
Stover shook his head. “Is there anything else I can get you?”
I looked about the room and my stomach lurched. “Yes. A cab.”
“Check again,” I insisted, wanting to grab the clerk by the throat. “The message would have been for a Ms. Whitcomb. I was a guest here until yesterday.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the clerk at the Hyatt in downtown Denver said, “but I’ve looked through everything we have, including all the messages in all the guests’ boxes. It simply isn’t here.”
I turned and walked to a line of pay phones, each enclosed in its own little wooden area, nestled around the corner. I’d checked my e-mail after arriving back at my hotel. Not a word from Cara or Patrice. They should have contacted me by now. And now nothing at the Hyatt. I’m a nervous mother in the best of circumstances, which irritates the hell out of Cara, but now I felt close to panic. I’d have to risk calling their hotel. I had to know they’d made it safely to New Mexico.
The desk clerk at the Wind Whistler’s Inn answered on the first ring. I asked to be connected to Evelyn Garrett’s room. The phone rang twice and then a male voice answered, “Yes.”
My heart stopped in midbeat. “Who is this?” I managed.
“Elizabeth, we’ve got to talk.”
James. My blood turned to ice.
“Where are they?”
“They’re safe. I’ve been waiting for your call.”
I wanted to pound the receiver into the wall, but I forced my voice to sound calm.
“How did you find them? How could you—”
“Cara phoned Phillip late last night.”
“From their room?” How could she be so stupid? How could she endanger herself and Patrice so foolishly? If I’d been with her she’d never have dared call.
“From a pay phone, using a calling card.”
And still you found her. You bastard.
Of course he had. He had Cara’s cell phone. Phillip’s number would have shown up among her recent calls.
“Let me speak to them,” I insisted.
“They’re not here.”
“Where are they?” I snapped. He was lucky we weren’t in the same room. I would have ripped him apart.
“Someplace safe.”
“Are they in New Mexico?”
“Elizabeth, you need to let me help you.”
The condescending bastard. He sounded like he was talking to a five-year-old.
“Like you helped the guy at the airport?”
“You’re still in Denver. I’ll come get you.”
I hung up the phone. What kind of equipment was he using? Or had Cara and Patrice told him where I was? Hotel telephones didn’t come with caller ID.
I sat shaking so hard I couldn’t stand. I should never have let them out of my sight. Suddenly the phone in front of me rang. I jumped back from it. The bastard had traced me—to a pay phone. I lifted the receiver just long enough to break the connection and then dropped it back. I wasn’t three feet from the cubicle before it started ringing again. I didn’t look back. I just walked out of that hotel as fast as I could.
Chapter 16
James had Cara and Patrice. How could I have let this happen? How could I have let them out of my sight for even one minute?
I lay sprawled on my hotel bed, staring at the ceiling, telling myself I could have five minutes to think, to form some kind of plan. Surely they wouldn’t find me in just five minutes. My bag was packed and ready by the door. I hadn’t unpacked when I checked in.
The phone startled me. Only Cara and Patrice would know what name I’d registered under. They would have had to call around to find which hotel, but they could have done that. Maybe James was lying. Maybe he’d traced them some other way. Maybe Cara and Patrice had seen him and ducked out before he got to them. Even if he’d taken them, they could have escaped. Maybe James didn’t have them after all. I lifted the receiver.
“Elizabeth, listen to me.” It was James.
I uttered a few oaths that had never before passed my lips. “Until I hear my daughter’s voice, I have nothing to say to you.”
“That’s not possible. Meet me tomorrow afternoon at three at the pueblo in Taos. I want everything Stephen left with you.”
“Bring Cara,” I ordered.
“I can’t promise you that. I want you to—”
I slammed down the phone, jumped out of bed and grabbed my bag. I ran out the door, that damned phone ringing after me.
I had no idea where I was going. Ducking out a side door of the hotel, I glanced at everyone on the street, wondering if one or more of them was working for James. Then I slipped into a coffee shop, walked through it and out the far door. I needed someplace to gather my thoughts.
My Marie Whitcomb identity had just died an untimely death. I had one more ID. If it were compromised, I’d be cut off from any source of money.
I flagged down a cabbie and told him to take me to the Denver Public Library. He dropped me in front of a huge, new building just down from the art museum. I climbed its many stairs and found a chair in the far back corner of the third floor. Surrounded by books, I pushed away my panic and forced myself to sort through my options.
Assuming Cara and Patrice were still in New Mexico, which they might not be, I couldn’t go there and rescue them by force. Or by wile. James might not be alone this time, and he’d demonstrated his access to sophisticated equipment. I was no match for him with or without his equipment, and heaven only knew what he’d told Cara and Patrice. He must have convinced them to cooperate with him, that he was there only to help. Cara had leaned in his direction before. He might well have won her trust.
James wanted what Stephen had left with me.
And now he’d taken my daughter hostage.
I needed help.
The only people I trusted were in Maryland. Even if they could help, it would take too long for them to get to Colorado or to Taos.
My own daughter had trouble believing her father had been murdered. I’d kept my concerns about Stephen totally private, spoken to no one connected to my new life about my marriage. How crazy would my story sound, especially when I’d have to answer most of their questions with “I don’t know”?
Of course, there was Peter. Somehow he was connected to all this. He’d loved Patrice once. Surely he’d help her if he could.
I went to the main check-out desk, requested and was given a cubicle with Internet access and booted up the machine. I found an official e-mail address for Peter fairly easily. Creating a new Hotmail account, I composed a message to him: “Need help. Elizabeth.” If Peter had any idea of what was going on, that should be enough.
There was no telling how long it would take for Peter to write me back. If he wrote me back. I gave him fifteen minutes. No answer. I couldn’t wait any longer.
I had no choice but to go to the police.
“You say your daughter and your friend voluntarily left Denver two days ago, driving south.” The officer had a comforting demeanor. He wa
s tall and burly and seemed sympathetic, but he’d only taken a few notes. “Do you know for sure they arrived in Taos?”
“No, that is, yes. Evelyn Garrett registered at the Wind Whistler’s Inn, but, as I said, a man answered her phone when I called.”
He gave me an aw-come-on-now look. “This Ms. Garrett is of age, I assume.”
“Of course.”
“And you entrusted the care of your daughter to her. How old is your daughter, by the way?”
“Twenty-three.”
He laid down his pencil. “I understand you may be concerned about not being able to locate your friend and your loved one, but they are both of age and free to come and go as they please and to associate with whomever they please. Unless you have some reason to suspect they have been injured in some way or that they are being held against their will—”
“They are being held against their will,” I said evenly.
“At the Wind Whistler’s Inn in Taos.”
“Yes.”
He lifted the receiver of his phone and hit 411. “Yes, I’d like the number of the Wind Whistler’s Inn in Taos, New Mexico… Go ahead and put that through, please. Thank you.”
I shifted uncomfortably while he stared a hole through me. When someone came on the line, he turned his gaze toward his desk. “This is Officer Bill Owens of the Denver Police Department. I’m trying to locate a Ms. Evelyn Garrett and a Ms. Cara Whitcomb…. Yes, sir, they were traveling with a dog…. You say they checked out several hours ago…. They were alone when they did so?… I see. Did they leave a forwarding address or mention where they might be contacted?… Okay. Thank you.” He hung up the phone.
Then he turned back to me. “Ms. Whitcomb, I understand a mother’s concern, but what we have here are two grown women. Under the Constitution of the United States, you have no right to interfere with their movements. They need not consult you or—”
“They were driving a rental car. Maybe you could put out an APB for the license plate.” I offered him a copy of the rental agreement.
He scanned the sheet. “This contract is in your name and the rental is a local.”
“Yes, but they were driving this car.”
He studied me, tapping his index finger against his lip. “You do know they have no legal right to be using this vehicle.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Tell you what. I’ll contact the rental company and see what comes up.”
This time he turned his back on me, punched numbers into his phone and mumbled something I couldn’t make out. He hung up the phone. “That car was returned yesterday morning to a rental office in Taos.”
“You see. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” I insisted. “They don’t have transportation because they’ve been abducted.”
“The woman who turned in the car answers to the description you gave me of your friend, Ms. Evelyn Garrett. There has been no crime committed that I can see, Ms. Whitcomb, except, perhaps, violation of your rental contract.”
And grand theft auto in Pennsylvania. And kidnapping. And murder. The lies I was tangling about me would land me in jail if I wasn’t careful. It took a lot of nerve to walk into a police station and give a policeman an alias.
“Thank you.” I stood, my face flushed with anger. I’d feared that going to the police would be a waste of time and it was. It had just cost me an hour and a half.
I went back to the library, walking this time, and got back on the Internet. I looked at my watch. It was close to 5:00 p.m. I checked my new Hotmail account, saying a little prayer before I downloaded mail.
Elizabeth, I’m sorry I scared you. I would never have harmed Patrice. My only goal is to help you. I was worried about your safety then and I’m more worried now. Ian. Koalas eat eucalyptus.
My heart stopped. I sat frozen, staring at the screen. Somehow Ian had intercepted Peter’s e-mail. The return address was the one that had been listed as Peter’s. So Peter was involved with Ian.
Confused and frustrated, I had to restrain myself from shaking the monitor. Damn it! What was I supposed to do?
Koalas eat eucalyptus. The words leaped off the screen at me. That was the phrase Stephen and I had used with Cara when she’d started school. She’d made it up herself, a kindergarten kid’s version of a spy code. She was never to leave with a stranger or even someone she knew unless we’d told her in advance. Or unless they gave her the code phrase. It meant it was safe.
But was it? How could Ian know about the phrase unless Stephen had told him?
Could I trust Ian Payne, a man I suspected of killing my husband? A man who had held Patrice at gunpoint? A man who had threatened both my own and my daughter’s lives?
Or had he? The memory of the incident at Patrice’s flashed through my mind. Ian could have killed me. He certainly could have killed Patrice. He hadn’t used real bullets on Odin. But I couldn’t get rid of the image of Ian standing there in the dark, pointing one hell of a big gun in my direction. Still, he hadn’t fired. Not then and not when we were escaping.
And he hadn’t been the only one with Stephen at the ski resort.
I needed to regain control, and I needed someone who was as capable as James to help me do it. Someone who had an inkling of what I was up against. Someone who, unlike the police, wouldn’t tell me that women who voluntarily put themselves in the hands of a possible assassin should be allowed to do just that. I had no choice. While I had my suspicions about Ian, I knew James had killed at least one man. And now he had my precious daughter and my dear friend Patrice. Ian was already in Denver. I had to make a deal with the devil.
I hit Reply.
Ian. Can you come? Elizabeth.
Then I sent the message, sat back and stared out the window. I could only pray that either James or Ian was a good guy, a true friend of Stephen’s. They both had access to high-tech equipment, and they both seemed hell-bent on finding me. If James was a good guy, Cara and Patrice were safe. If Ian was a good guy, he would help me find them.
And if he wasn’t, I would be leading him straight to my child—if he didn’t kill me first.
Chapter 17
I pulled on pantyhose and changed into the black crepe dress in one of the bathroom stalls of the library. This time I left off the scarf.
I fastened my gun in a holster I lashed to my thigh. My pepper spray was tucked in my purse. I felt as though I was taking a knife to a gunfight, but I didn’t let myself dwell on it.
Ian’s reply had been short and to the point. It had come back in just ten minutes.
Have dinner with me at The Broker. Seven o’clock. Ian.
I wondered how long he’d been in Denver. What was he doing here? Had he somehow tracked us? Or had he come to see Donovan?
I would have preferred to wear my sweatshirt and jeans, but The Broker was an upscale place, and I didn’t want to arouse suspicion—which meant I’d have to lose the backpack. Ian didn’t need to know I was working without a base of operations. I took a cab to the bus depot, rented a locker and left my belongings. I wasn’t about to take anything with me that he might want.
I arrived at the restaurant half an hour early and took a seat at the bar, where I could watch the door while I nursed a ridiculously expensive ginger ale through a straw. At exactly seven o’clock, I felt the back of my hair flutter.
“Good evening,” a voice whispered in my ear. I whirled.
“How long have you been…” I stared at him, blushing, feeling the fool. He was dressed in a black suit, white shirt and black tie, looking ridiculously handsome and every inch the gentleman.
But I knew not to be deceived by his trappings of civility. He had suggested, in none too subtle a fashion, that I was no match for him.
“Shall we?” he asked, offering his arm.
I took it, imagining how amused he must have been, sitting back there in the dark, watching me watch for him. The bastard.
The waiter showed us to a table covered in white linen. Ian helped me scoot in
my chair, then seated himself and ordered wine.
“So we meet again, under more civilized circumstances this time,” he said with a half smile. “I think you’ll enjoy the cuisine here a bit more than the last time we dined together.”
His gaze took in my face and hair, then traced the V of my neckline, before returning to my eyes. I was determined not to blush.
“You’re looking lovely. I’m glad to see you’re all right.”
I couldn’t decide if he was sincere or if this was all part of his game. I could play, too, if that was what it took.
“How’s the arm?” I asked. Odin had taken a chunk of flesh, small payment for what Ian had done to Patrice.
“Coming along. You surprised me. I’ll have a small scar to remind me never to underestimate you.”
I didn’t tell him that Cara had surprised me, too. Better to let him think she and I had planned the rescue.
The waiter placed a huge bowl of steamed shrimp and cocktail sauce between us and I wondered if Ian had ordered it.
“They serve shrimp like other restaurants offer complimentary bread,” Ian explained, reading my thoughts. The waiter uncorked the wine and poured some in a glass. Ian tasted it and nodded. “I believe the lady will enjoy this one.”
Then the waiter poured us each a glass and we ordered dinner, almost like normal people out for an evening enjoying each other’s company.
“What made you change your mind?” he asked, peeling one of the shrimp.
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