“And there’s Trixie,” I added.
“Who’s Trixie?” Ambrose asked. “Is someone really named Trixie?”
“We don’t know if that’s her real name. I found a matchbook from a local bar on Bob’s kitchen table this morning, with the name Trixie and a phone number written inside.”
“I swear I've never seen it before,” Bob said. “I have no idea how it came to be in my house.”
“And every time we call the number, the line is busy,” Kay finished.
Ambrose shook his head and took another bite of pizza. He chewed thoughtfully, then swallowed and said, “The searching of the car—don’t you think it's interesting that they were there at different times? It seems to me if they were working together they’d be searching it together.”
“But the woman in red probably hadn’t woken up yet, it was quite early,” I said.
“And Carl must have thought she had me tied up in her hotel room while he was searching the car,” Bob pointed out.
“Yes, and why was he searching a perfectly innocent car when he could have been in the hotel room interrogating you, or worse?” Ambrose frowned and shook his head. “It would have been much more intimidating for the two of them to be working you over rather than just her. Did she talk to him on the phone?”
Now it was Bob’s turn to shake his head. “No. No calls in or out. I don’t think she even looked at the telephone.”
“I have to wonder if they aren’t working at cross purposes. My guess is that she took Louisa’s car to give herself time to search it thoroughly. You had escaped and could show up at any time.”
Bob said, “That’s possible.”
“And I suppose the registration papers are different,” Ambrose remarked.
Kay groaned and shoved her plate away. “Louisa, all they have to do is read the papers in your glovebox to know where you live.”
Bob looked pale. “Oh god, that’s right.”
“By now they’ve probably been to your house,” Kay continued, “and found Bob’s car in your garage. It isn’t safe, either or both of them could be there.”
An electrical impulse zapped its way down my back and left me chilled. I leaned forward in my chair. “Um, Kay, that’s not all that was in my glove box.”
“What? What else?” she demanded.
“Do you remember those business cards you gave me when I started working for you, with the name of your store and my name on them?”
She paled a little. “They were there too?”
I nodded. “I keep a supply in the car in case I'm out and need one for some reason. And that means—“
“And that means they know about this place,” Bob said. He stood up abruptly. “My god, what have I done to you all? Louisa has to get to someplace safe. Kay, you too. You’re both in danger.” Jack went to Bob and leaned on him.
“I agree that getting to a safe place while I fetch the tape from that benighted restaurant in High Cross is a good idea,” Ambrose said. “Though I think the person most in danger is you, Bob.”
Bob started to speak, but Ambrose held up a hand. He went on, “Two people are intent on finding you. The fact that Louisa had your car would suggest that they might look upon her with a certain disfavor too. The business cards make it likely they’ll come here looking for you, but they won’t know Kay is Louisa’s cousin or be certain that she knows anything. But best to be safe.
“Here’s my suggestion. I have a cabin in the woods out near Parson’s Lake, a little getaway place I inherited from my uncle. It's about thirty-five miles north of here. You can all go there tonight, and in the morning I will get the tape and bring it to you at the cabin. The Albatross is either still on the truck or in the delivery company’s warehouse. I'll make some phone calls tonight but I doubt if I can get at it until tomorrow.”
“I can't go,” Kay stated flatly. We all looked at her. “Hey, I have a store to run. I can't keep chasing customers out of here, though in Doris’s case I would have done it even if I had been open.”
“I beg your pardon?” Ambrose was clearly at sea over this remark.
“Oh, that awful Doris woman who worked with Louisa’s husband showed up at my door earlier wanting to buy something. We had just discovered that the tape was carried off in the Albatross and I didn’t want to mess with her, so I wouldn’t let her in.”
“I don’t imagine she knows you’re my cousin,” I inserted. “We should tell her so she’ll stop coming around.”
“What makes you think that would stop her?” Kay wanted to know. “I'm sure she would relish further opportunities to be rude to you.”
“True,” I had to agree.
“Anyway, Ambrose may be my favorite customer but he’s not my only one. I've arranged for some pieces to be picked up early tomorrow, and I need to be here.”
“But, Kay—” I started. She interrupted.
“I closed today and that was no problem, but I have appointments tomorrow and I won't stay in business if I'm not here when I've said I would be.”
“But, Kay—” I tried again.
“Ambrose is right, Louisa, just because you work for me doesn’t mean I would necessarily know anything about Bob. I could say you don’t work here anymore. I could blacken your name.” She got a zealous light in her eye and started looking eager. “If someone does show up asking about Bob, I’ll send them off in the wrong direction. I can say that I fired you and the two of you ran off together. Oh, I know, I can say you ran off together and that’s why I fired you—”
“Kay, don’t do us any favors,” I warned.
Bob sat down at the table again and looked earnestly into Kay’s eyes. “Kay, you should come with us. Call your customer and put them off. Or come back early in the morning. I can't leave you here to face Carl Walsh by yourself. You’ve never even seen him. He could pretend to be a customer and come in and do something awful.”
“Bob, you are very sweet, but my mind is made up. I have a business to run. I'll bar the doors and arm myself with a butcher knife and a cell phone. Remember, you’re the one they’re after.”
I could have told him to save his breath. I'd seen that expression on her face too many times to imagine she would agree. Short of kidnapping her ourselves, Kay was going to stay in Willow Falls and we were going to Ambrose’s cabin.
Kay always gets her own way.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Bob turned off the engine of Kay’s car and we sat in silence, looking at the cabin in the headlights.
“Maybe we can spend the night in the car,” I said.
“Yeah, maybe.”
The place was a wreck. I couldn’t understand why Ambrose had sent us here. A sagging porch stretched across the front of a small, weathered building. If any paint had ever graced the wooden walls, it had long since silvered away. The roof was littered with pine needles and leaves, and green things were growing along the edges. Shutters over the windows gave the cabin a lost, blind air.
“We’re here. We might as well get out,” Bob said halfheartedly.
“This can't be the right place,” I said. “Are you sure it's safe? It looks like it will keel over if I lean against a wall.”
“We followed the directions exactly. It's not like we had a lot of roads to choose from,” he pointed out.
“I cannot believe Ambrose ever spent one second of his life here.”
“I know, but this has to be it. There must be more to Ambrose than meets the eye.”
“Well, that’s true,” I admitted. I suddenly remembered a certain period in high school when jocks kept losing their clothes while they were in football practice. They would arrive naked and dripping from the showers to find nothing in their lockers but a note typed on ordinary notebook paper that said, You boys be nice. Oddly enough the only victims were the boys who ganged up on other kids and made their lives a misery because they were not overdeveloped, physically adept and ordained to play high school sports. It didn’t happen every day, just often enough to keep them all edgy. No one ever found out who was doing it, though I always had my suspicions, but the clothes turned up at the local Goodwill store at Christmastime.