IT GREW HOTTER on the floor of the car. Traffic was heavy and fast. Lindsey did a couple of uncomfortable swerves that made Joe wonder if he'd get out of this in one piece, with his sleek silver hide intact. He had no idea whether she'd lost the navy blue Honda or was still on its tail, but from the way she was changing lanes, ducking in and out of traffic, he was convinced she still had them. Twice he heard her rummaging in her purse. Looking for her phone? Trying to find it down among the incredible debris women carried in their purses? Or…? Oh, hell! She hadn't left it at home?
She didn't have her phone? She hadn't called the station? No help was on the way? He remembered Mike laughing once, because she so often left her phone at home.
"What good is a phone, Lindsey, if you don't carry it?" They'd been cozied up after dinner, on the couch, Joe and Rock stretched out on the rug before the fire.
"I carry a phone when something's urgent," Lindsey had said, "which isn't often. You think that's weird?"
"I guess not. Maybe that's sensible," Mike said, frowning and drawing her close. Sometimes this budding romance made Joe feel warm and safe, at other times he'd wondered where it was headed, and had wished both he and Mike knew Lindsey better. Had she scammed Mike once, then left him? And now was deceiving him again?
They were approaching Watsonville, he could tell by the smell of green vegetable crops and strawberries. If he could see out the window, there would be miles and miles of strawberries. She changed lanes again suddenly and sped off the freeway, slowing as she curved up the ramp. Above him through the window loomed a sign announcing FOOD/GAS/LODGING. She changed lanes fast again, and swung into a gas station; gas fumes were sucked into the car. She made several turns, as if pulling around back. Moving out of sight of Ray and Ryder? If, indeed, she was still with them.
When she left the car, when Joe heard her walking away, he peered up through the back window, ready to dive down again. She moved away fast, glanced once at the gas station's phone booth, which stood in plain sight, but didn't pause.
Across the side street was a Burger King, and there was the navy blue Honda, parked at the far side. Through the reflections of the restaurant window, he could just see Ray and Ryder standing at the counter.
Lindsey, keeping several parked cars between herself and the Burger King, hurried inside the gas station's little convenience store.
Now it was hard to keep her in sight through the sign-cluttered glass. Slipping up onto the back of the front seat where he could see better, Joe lay along it watching her speaking with the clerk behind the counter, an overweight grandmotherly type. The way the signs were placed, the clerk was more visible. Grandmother or not, she looked surly and rude. Soon they were arguing. Joe guessed that was a pretty stressful job, behind a gas station cash register, never knowing when some innocent-looking customer would pull a knife or a gun and you'd be cleaning out the till, praying he wouldn't kill you after you'd handed over the cash.
The clerk shook her head again, scowling at Lindsey. Lindsey seemed to be pleading with her while at the same time turning to look out the front window, across to the Burger King. Joe could still see Ray inside, watched him step down a short hall, maybe toward the restrooms. Or maybe there was a phone back there? Who would he be calling? Had they made Lindsey? Had he some plan to get her off his tail?
When Joe peered into the convenience store again, Lindsey was doling out money to the clerk. The next minute she was dialing the phone on the counter, making Joe wish he could read lips. Her eyes hardly left the Burger King. Was she calling the station? Had she dialed Mike? His ears pricked up when she got someone on the line. She was talking fast, using her free hand to gesture across the street as if the listener could see her. She hung up quickly as Ryder and Ray came out of the Burger King carrying two white paper bags.
Slipping out the door, she double-timed it behind the gas pumps and slid into her car. Joe was on the floor again, crouched behind the seat, tucking his white paws under, keeping his white nose down. As Lindsey slammed the door and started the engine, he would have given one of his nine lives to know if she'd reached the department. To know if they could expect some backup before things got dicey.
30
THEY WERE ON the highway again, still moving north. Joe was getting used to the vibration on the floor of the Mercedes, which seemed to have turned into a rumbling purr and was making him sleepy. Was he actually going to drift off while roaring down the highway not knowing where he was headed or what would happen to him?
He had no idea who Lindsey had reached on the phone, but certainly she must have called the department. Had she talked with Harper? Dallas? Had they put out an alert on the navy blue Honda? Or did they not have enough on Gibbs to do that? So far, Ray Gibbs was really only a "person of interest."
They were still on Highway 1, he could smell the sea. He kept wondering why, if Ray and Ryder were trying to avoid arrest, they'd chosen this slower route. Why hadn't they taken the busier, multilane 101? After they seemed to be in a hell of a hurry to get out of the village, here they were tooling along by the narrow, scenic route like a couple of tourists.
Did they think they'd be expected to go the other way? Think that with more cops on the 101, maybe watching for them, they'd be spotted more quickly?
Or were they not running? Had that not been Ray's Honda leaving the ruins? Was this some big fat coincidence, could both he and Lindsey be wrong despite the couple's hurried departure? Were those two simply driving up the coast for the weekend, with no notion that Ray's dead wife might have been found? Were they maybe headed innocently to visit friends in Santa Cruz or Half-Moon Bay?
If this was a wild goose chase, and if Clyde learned about it, he'd never hear the last, Clyde would rag him for the rest of his nine lives.
Which, given his present situation and Lindsey's erratic driving, might not be too long.
But what if that dark figure slipping through the ruins had not been Ray or Ryder searching for the possibly valuable old book?
He wondered what Nina might have told Ryder about her aunt Olivia at the time the two were friendly, before they both set their caps for Carson. Would Nina have bragged about some rare old book in the family, a book that had vanished when Olivia died?
He wondered if Olivia, finding herself very ill, had hidden the book, not wanting Nina to have it and sell it. Not wanting to destroy it, but vowing to keep the cats' secret, she'd have no other choice but to hide it.
Olivia dies, but Nina knows about the book and has a nice little drama to recount. She tells Ryder, and then after Nina disappears, Ryder thinks about the story, and starts going up to the old estate looking for Olivia's treasure. Starts looking again after she returns from L.A., maybe venturing down into that labyrinth of old, crumbling cellars and up into the unsafe rooms among the mansion's fallen walls?
But she didn't find it, did she! he thought, smiling.
DULCIE WAITED AROUND the station for nearly an hour, fidgeting and biting at nonexistent fleas, but Joe didn't come bolting in. She was burning to know what had gone down this morning. Dallas was back in his office, very likely filing his report. She wanted to go back there and read it. Or should she join Mike in the conference room where he, too, was recording the morning's events while stoking up on stale coffee?
She was about to head for the conference room when a sleazy little woman in pink tights came in the front door to complain about a traffic ticket. And then, at the desk, Mabel routed a call through to Dallas that, in seconds, brought the detective double-timing up the hall shouting at Mike. "It's Lindsey, she's following them!"