Part 31 (2/2)
”I see that. Modern technology, you know. Where the h.e.l.l are you?”
”Still in Montana.”
”What? I thought you'd be on your way by now! What the h.e.l.l's taking so long?”
”I've got her.”
”Then why the f.u.c.k are you still in Montana?”
”Big storm,” Ryder explained.
”Big storm? Big deal. You should have prepared for bad weather. Christ, you knew where you were going, what you were doing.”
”I know. I did.”
”Then, what's the problem?”
What was the problem? Ryder stared through the window into the darkened interior. He felt the wind battering the tiny, falling-down cabin in the middle of the Bitterroot Mountains, a ramshackle abode no rational person would try to make their home. Unless she was desperate. Unless she didn't want to be found.
He thought about the pa.s.sports he'd riffled through, remembering the different photographs, the changed names, the altered looks. He considered Anne-Marie Favier Calderone. She was a gorgeous girl who'd grown up in wealth and seemingly a princess-like existence who was frantic enough to change her good looks and adopt different personas to hide herself, a woman on the run who had eventually wound up in the middle of the mountains, isolated and alone, in a d.a.m.n cabin with thin walls, no heat, and barely running water.
Why? he wondered again.
Why would she go to all the trouble? Why would she willingly propel herself into all this hards.h.i.+p? How desperate was she to try and disappear off the face of the earth? What had been the reason that she would tumble to such depths as to steal from her grandmother, the one woman she'd sworn she adored?
It didn't make sense.
Unless she was scared out of her mind.
Unless her bravado was a mask.
Unless her d.a.m.nably stubborn att.i.tude was propelled by sheer terror.
”h.e.l.lo?” called the voice on the phone, but he ignored it.
With snow falling all around him, Ryder remembered her vanity. How she'd known how beautiful she was, how s.e.xy and alluring she could be, and she'd reveled in her good looks and charm, in her sensuality. She would never have sliced off her own finger and no accident would have been so clean. As if it had been cleaved by a butcher. Or a surgeon. Or one man who had been both-the monster that she'd married.
”s.h.i.+t,” he whispered, realizing he was making a huge, irreversible mistake-one it might already be too late to rectify.
”h.e.l.lo? For Christ's sake, Ryder? Are you there? f.u.c.k!”
His boots ringing, Ryder stepped to the far end of the porch and took a quick look down the side of the cabin to the bathroom window, just to make certain she hadn't done anything foolish like squeezing herself through the tiny window and dropping to the ground to escape. As far as he could see, the window wasn't open and the snow below it was undisturbed.
Still, he was uneasy.
And then he saw a shadow. Just a faint image of something beyond the veil of snow. His gut clenched and he reached into his pocket, his fingers curling over the b.u.t.t of his gun, but the image vanished as quickly as it had appeared and he told himself it was nothing.
Right?
Squinting, he decided it was a trick of light.
”h.e.l.lo? Are you there?” demanded the voice on the other end of the line. ”I asked you when you will get back here?”
”Never,” Ryder replied, finally responding.
”What? I can't hear you. Are you outside? I asked when you were coming back!”
The wind screamed as it raced around the corner of the house and the icy, snow-laden branches of the trees danced, shedding pieces of their white mantles.
”And I said 'never!' ” he repeated, a little more loudly. Then added, ”Oh, and by the way?”
”Yeah?”
”Go f.u.c.k yourself.”
Chapter 28.
”The cell phone company should get back to us soon,” Alvarez said as she stood. She and Pescoli were still in Blackwater's office, getting ready to hit the road again. ”Hopefully they'll have information on Ryder's position.”
”If his phone isn't turned off,” Pescoli reminded her.
”My guess is, he's made some calls, and if he has, we'll have a place to start,” Alvarez said. ”We'll take the position of the last ping, wherever it comes from, and work from there. Maybe we'll get lucky.”
”Maybe,” Pescoli said, not willing to bet on it as she recognized the quick staccato tap of Joelle's high heels in the hallway. From the sound of it, the receptionist was nearly sprinting and stopped abruptly at Blackwater's office.
”Sorry,” she said, sticking her head inside, her heart-shaped earrings still swinging in her earlobes. ”But I've got a news crew here from KMJC. And Nia Del Ray, the reporter, is being very insistent that someone make a statement. To her.” Clutching the doorframe in one hand, Joelle let her gaze skate over the detectives to land on Blackwater. ”Apparently someone over at the station heard that you already talked to the Mountain Reporter, and now she wants equal time. At least, I think that's how she put it. Any way around it, she's in the reception area and not budging.”
”You talked to Manny Douglas?” Pescoli asked her boss. She had no use for the wormy little reporter for the local newspaper. The guy was always crawling around, poking his pointy nose in where it didn't belong, getting himself and the department into trouble.
”I did. It was a good move.” Blackwater was making no apologies. ”The public might be able to help us locate Anne-Marie Calderone, and now, the others involved in the case. We can use the press to our advantage.”
”Or your advantage,” Pescoli said, and caught a warning glare from Alvarez.
Blackwater said softly, ”My decision.” He looked to Joelle, still waiting in the doorway. ”Tell her to hold tight. I'll talk to the public information officer, and we'll organize a press conference later today.”
”Today?” Pescoli repeated. ”You're not going out with what we've got, are you?” She was horrified. ”We have to hold all this close, or we could spook Calderone and Ryder, maybe compromise the case.”
”I said, 'later.' ” He was firm.
Pescoli said, ”This is a bad idea.”
”Maybe, but mine.” Even seated at his desk while she was standing, Blackwater still held the upper hand, was still in command. ”Just wrap it up, Detective.”
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