Crimson Eve (6 page)
His own house was homey. Timmy’s shoes on the kitchen floor, toys in front of the TV. The smells of cookies and peanut butter.
Timmy
.
Tony slipped into Carla’s bedroom.
He aimed the flashlight down, avoiding windows. Feeble light from a streetlamp puddled on the dresser. Open drawers. The shoebox of pictures was dumped on the bed. In the closet clothes were pushed to one side.
She’d been through here in a hurry, all right.
In Tony’s head, a clock loudly ticked. But he forced himself to check every inch of the room. A small red suitcase was missing from the closet. Tony could barely make out its wheel tracks on the carpet. Also gone were a laptop and case that had sat on the desk.
He should have been more careful this afternoon. But he was in a hurry to meet Carla at the estate. Then, it hadn’t mattered. He’d figured he could return here if necessary after he’d dumped her body where it wouldn’t be found. In that case he’d have known exactly what he was looking for and where it was. He hadn’t planned on killing Miss Wit until he’d forced every piece of pertinent information from her.
Tony panned the flashlight beam over the closet again. Something wasn’t right.
The hatbox on the closet shelf.
The top was crooked, and it wasn’t where he’d put it. He’d replaced it close to the shoebox, just as he’
d found it. Now the thing lay some four inches away from where the shoebox would have been, and it stuck out beyond the edge of the shelf.
Tony’s heart fell to his toes.
He pictured a frantic Carla, stumbling through the room. Yanking clothes off hangers and out of drawers was one thing. But out of a hatbox? Especially when it sat right next to the shoe-box of pictures . . .
But he’d looked through that hatbox. Nothing but baseball caps in there.
With his gloved hands, Tony lifted down the hatbox and set it on the bed. Holding the flashlight in one hand, he rifled through its contents.
Baseball caps, just like before.
He unstacked them, examined each inside and out. A green one sat on top, yellow next, followed by others of red, blue, and black. He reached the bottom one — white — and turned it over. Again nothing.
With all caps out, the hatbox was empty.
Why had Carla Radling, running for her life, stopped to look through this stack of caps? And then taken the time to replace it on the shelf?
He stared at the box, his blood running cold. He’d missed something. More pictures? Letters? Something important, tying back to the past.
Something that could get his
son killed
.
A minute ticked by. Tony’s fear melted away. In its place, a dead, iron-willed calm.
When he slipped out the back door, he relocked it, leaving no trace of his presence.
He hurried to his rental and drove to an unlit back corner of a grocery store parking lot. From there he would throw out the net to catch his target. People thought they could hide, just up and leave no trace. Didn’t work that way. There were
always
traces. Throw out the net, reel it in. Throw it out, reel it in. Keep doing that, and he’d catch Carla Radling.
First, some calls, using the second cell phone he’d bought for this job.
The people he called knew him as “Barry.” They weren’t surprised at his new cell phone number; his numbers were always new. Some had never seen him. They figured he was CIA, a private detective, whatever soothed their consciences. They never asked why he told them to do certain things. Barry wanted information, they gave it to him, he paid them — that’s all they cared about.
Within fifteen minutes he had people watching the roads leading north, south, east, and west. They knew the make of the car, color, license number.
Next he talked to a man in Spokane. The man agreed to take up his assigned post in Kanner Lake by six a.m. He would report to “Barry” the minute he heard anything useful.
Finally, a small surveillance matter Tony took care of himself. Nothing to it, with his experience. When you’re paid to dig up dirt on people, you learn a lot of tricks, and you always come prepared to play them.
That job done, he drove through the night streets, looking for Carla’s car. He knew where some of her friends lived. Maybe she’d been stupid enough to run to one of them, not believing his threats.
Hope so.
Tony smirked. The way he felt tonight, he’d shoot through a whole household of people just to get to Carla Radling.
The clocked ticked toward his deadline, but Tony had no fear. He knew he would win. He always won. Good thing his orders were for the target’s body never to be found. He would so enjoy getting rid of Miss Wit.
One piece at a time.
Carla hunched behind her steering wheel, back muscles tight, fingers cramped. Her left ankle ached. She’d give anything to put it up. With all the swelling, she’d kicked off her shoes long ago.
It felt like she’d been driving for hours.
At the edge of Kanner Lake, she’d nearly had a meltdown from the mere decision of which way to turn. West toward Spokane? North toward Canada? Nope — no passport. East to Montana? South toward Boise?
After a moment of paralysis, she headed toward Highway 41 and turned south. She hit Interstate 90, veered east for a few miles, then exited onto south 95 toward Moscow — a university town. Carla knew the road would be lonely and dark — the very thought made her sweat — but that also meant fewer cars. If Thornby had people watching for her Toyota, they’d more likely be on the freeway.
I hope
.
Eight miles out of Coeur d’Alene, passing the Kidd Island Bay turnoff, Carla started watching the rearview mirror. Her head pounded and her imagination ran wild. Every car behind her held an insane Thornby, ready to shoot at her out the window. Or she’d be forced off the road and strangled. Tomorrow morning someone would find her purple-faced body, ripped of clothes and dignity. Within a day her friends at Java Joint would be mourning her death over their lattes and mochas. Maybe even Wilbur would shed a tear or two.
Bailey would make a small fortune on all the lattes.
Dark forested hills alternated with open fields — usually beautiful country. Now the fields rolled sullen and cold, the trees gnarled and monstrous.
Carla passed the turnoff to Windy Bay on Lake Coeur d’Alene, followed by a sign that read “Moscow, 76 miles.” The road narrowed into one lane each direction. The Indian casino loomed ahead, the block-lettered sign flashing in garish yellow. Inside people drank and laughed, slot machines
chink-chinked
. A normal night — while she ran for her life.
Why
was this happening now? She hadn’t done
anything
.
Maybe the fact that she lived was enough. Imagine what could happen if she ever talked. And now that her enemy was rising to the greatest power he’d ever known . . .
He had a lot to lose, all right.
Carla swallowed hard. Even after all the years, the thought of him brought familiar pain. She’d been so young, so naïve. He’d played her like a fiddle. She should hate him. She
did
hate him.
Most of the time.
Carla slowed through the tiny towns of Worley and Plum-mer. As she sped up again, bright headlights shone in her rearview mirror. A large car — maybe an SUV — loomed close behind. Was it black? Was it him? How could she know in this darkness?
Just drive.
She passed a lumber company, logs stacked like gaunt corpses against the night sky. The forest closed in, trees crowding the road. Carla gulped in air until the trees shrank back, replaced with open fields.
Another tiny town — Tensed. Weird name. A sign read “Moscow, 37 miles.”
Her headlights bore into the night. Bugs hit her windshield with wet smacks.
Carla’s neck felt like iron. How long could she drive like this? And to where? Her brain was a battery-drained engine, chugging . . . chugging. Carla shook her head, blinked hard. She had to
think
.
Thornby knew the make of her car. Probably knew her license plate number too. What if he did have “people looking for her everywhere,” as he’d threatened? What if they were watching the roads in all directions? She’d chosen the most obvious southern route.
The hair on her arms rose.
She should get off the road — as soon as possible. Hole up for the night. In the morning she’d ditch her car for a rental. That was the most important thing — getting out of this car. More important than driving all night, putting miles between herself and Kanner Lake. Tomorrow in the rental she’d drive as far as she could.
But she’d have to show her driver’s license to rent a car. And use a credit card. She’d leave a trail.
And where would she go?
Carla’s eyes burned. She didn’t cry often — enough tears had fallen years ago to last a lifetime. But she’d never felt this alone and desperate. Not even then.
You’re doing this to me, aren’t You, God.
After Vesta Johnson’s death, Carla had gone to Pastor Hank’s church a few times. One Sunday he talked about how God could “use our past to change our present.” That a person first had to ask God to forgive the past, then “walk with Him in victory over it.” Sounded good, but it wasn’t for her. One, her past was unforgivable. Two, God seemed to only want to punish her for it.
Haven’t I been punished enough?
At ten o’clock Carla entered Moscow.
Highway 95 ran through the town. Carla glanced right and left. She had to find a motel off the highway —
with a place close by where she could hide her car. She didn’t dare leave it in some lit parking lot.
She passed a hardware store, a Rosauers grocery store, the Hillcrest Motel Inn, and the Mark IV Motor Inn. Highway 95 curved to the right. Carla checked cross streets. Which one to take? On impulse she turned right on Third Street and found herself on Highway 8, headed west toward Pullman, just across the Washington border. She checked her rearview mirror. Was anybody following her? Thornby might have friends in Moscow . . .
Fresh fear washed over Carla. Every minute could count. She
had
to get off the streets.
Businesses grouped on her right — a Jack-in-the-Box, a car dealership, a Wendy’s. Ahead she saw the sign for a Super 8 Motel, and her heart lurched. Carla veered right onto a street running by the motel, turned left into the parking lot. She cruised the lot, hoping to see that it circled the building.
It didn’t.
Now what? The minutes closed in, Carla’s pulse hammering. She was no longer on dark roads. These were well-lit town streets, her white car screaming to be spotted.
She continued west on Highway 8, passing up the Palouse Inn, a McDonald’s, a Shucks Auto Supply. Frustration nearly closed her throat. Carla pressed a fist against the steering wheel. How much farther before she hit the west side of town? The last thing she wanted to do was turn around.
There — past the 76 gas station, across a side street from a long strip mall. A sign for University Inn, a Best Western.
Carla swerved right, then left into the motel parking lot. It was a long squat brown building, two floors. No walk-out sliding doors on the first-floor rooms — only windows. Good. She couldn’t take stairs with her ankle, and a sliding ground-floor door in her room would be terrifying.
She rolled through the lot. It encircled the building, but even at the rear, she would feel too exposed to leave her car. She hesitated, then pulled back onto the side road, turning left, then left again on a dark road that ran behind the motel. She hit a cross street and found herself facing the strip mall. She checked both directions. Turn left, and in one block she’d be back on Highway 8. She turned right, then spotted a turn on her left, leading to a long delivery area running along the back of the strip mall. The area was dark and narrow, dumpsters hulking at its sides. She saw one large light pole, but no light coming from it.
Carla turned into the area.
There — on her right. Some small white building. Housing a generator of some sort? Carla headed toward it and saw she could drive all the way around it. Behind that building, on unlit asphalt with no person in sight, she found the hiding place for her car.
It would be a long, lonely walk to the lobby of the motel. With her throbbing ankle, Carla wondered if she could make it at all.
Wait. She should make sure the motel had a vacancy first. Put her suitcase in the room, then hide her car.
As the digital clock in her car flicked to 10:28, Carla pulled up in front of the Best Western. Gathering her nerve to step into light, hoping no friend of David Thornby watched her every move, she opened her car door and began her limp into the lobby.
Ten-thirty. Tony had sixteen and a half hours.
He’d checked the houses of Carla’s friends and found nothing. Then he began a patrol of every street, like a grid search at a crime scene. If Carla’s car was parked anywhere in Kanner Lake, he’d find it.
As he turned a corner, his cell phone for “Barry” went off. He snatched it off the passenger seat. “Yeah.”
“Roy here. I spotted her car.”
Roy was an Idaho state trooper, working the night shift.
Tony’s mouth curled. His net was working already. “Where?”
“Heading south on Highway 95, just north of Moscow.”
“Just now?”
“About twenty minutes ago.”
“Twenty — ! What took you so long to phone?”
“I got pulled off on a call. I
am
on duty, you know.”
Tony gritted his teeth. Twenty minutes —
wasted
. “Any idea where she went from there?”
“No. She could have pulled off in Moscow, headed west from there over to Pullman, or continued south on 95. But give me credit for telling you this much. Beats looking for her all over Canada.”
Tony grunted.
“I expect my money.”
Yeah, yeah.
“You’ll get it. Just keep looking.”
“Count on it.”
“Can you search the hotel parking lots in Moscow?”
“For awhile. The town’s not my jurisdiction, so I can’t be obvious about patrolling the streets. And I’m off at eleven. Have to get home after that. My wife’s nine months pregnant, and she’ll have a fit if I don’t show up on time.”
