FOR THE BABY'S SAKE (10 page)

It was possible. She might see it as a better alternative than working her whole life. “When we find them, I’ll ask her.”

Sawyer slid out of the booth. “I hope like hell you get the chance.”

Chapter Nine

At each place, it was the same. Liz showed Mary’s picture first, then Mirandez’s. Then she’d tell the story. She’d been working in Europe for the past year and had missed her sister’s wedding. Having just returned, she hoped to surprise the bride and groom.

Everyone had looked at the pictures, shaken their heads, taken her card and agreed to call her if the couple checked in. Sawyer had concocted the story, hoping that people’s inherent love of a good surprise would keep any clerk from telling Mary and Mirandez that someone had asked about them. And if someone did have loose lips, perhaps Mirandez wouldn’t be too nervous if he thought only Liz had followed Mary.

They’d stopped at ten places before noon. “How’s that bagel holding up?” Sawyer asked.

“We can stop if you’re hungry,” she said.

“You don’t eat lunch?”

She waved a hand. “Sure I do.”

“Uh-huh. What did you have for lunch yesterday?”

Liz chewed on her lip. “Chips and a can of pop.”

“The day before?”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake. I had...chips and a pop.”

He leaned across the seat and inspected her. “You don’t
look
like you’ve got scurvy,” he said.

She let out a huff of air. “I take a multivitamin every day. Oh, damn.” She smacked herself on the forehead. “I think I forgot my vitamins.”

Sawyer shook his head. Ten minutes later, he turned the car into a gas station. Half the building was a convenience store. “I’ll get us some lunch.” He opened his door. “So, what kind of chips do you like?”

She smiled. “You’re not going to try to reform me?”

“I’m smarter than that. Do you want to come in?”

“No. I need to call Jamison. I left a message on his machine early this morning. That was before I knew we would be traveling together.”

“What’s he going to think about that?”

“He’ll be thrilled. He’ll think I’m safer.”

“You like Jamison, don’t you?”

“He’s a great boss. He trusts all of us. He knows we work hard, and he’s really loyal in return. He treats us more like good friends than employees.”

“He and Fraypish are friends, right?”

“For over twenty years. Jamison really respects Howard’s legal judgment.” Liz pulled out her cell phone and started dialing. “And he works at the right price, too.”

Sawyer slammed the door shut. He didn’t really care about what Jamison thought about Fraypish. He wanted to know what Liz thought about the man.

Why? He pushed open the door of the convenience store. Why did it matter? He and Liz had shared a couple kisses. Okay, a couple of really hot kisses that had made his knees weak, but still, it meant nothing. They would hopefully find Mary safe. She’d turn on Mirandez, and months from now, if he and Liz happened to run into each other at the grocery store, they’d nod politely and go their separate ways.

He grabbed an extralarge bag of potato chips. What did he care if she got fat and had bad skin?

He walked over to the counter and picked out two ham-and-cheese sandwiches. He stuck two cans of pop in the crook of his arm. A young woman at the cash register stopped filing her nails so that she could ring him up.

“Will that be all?” he asked.

“You don’t happen to stock multivitamins?”

She shook her head.

“Got any fresh fruit?”

She pointed to the back of the store. “Bananas. Fifty cents apiece.”

“I’ll take six.” When he got to the car, Liz was just snapping shut her cell phone. He dropped the bag into her lap. She reached inside and pulled out the chips.

“A big bag,” she said, looking pleased. She pulled out the soda. “Thank you very much,” she said. She handed him the bag, but he didn’t take it.

“There’s something else for you,” he said.

She peered inside the plastic bag. A smile, so genuine that it reached her pretty green eyes, lit up her face. “You bought me bananas.”

You’d have thought it was expensive perfume or something that sparkled. He opened his own soda and took a big drink. Liz Mayfield made a man thirsty. “I can probably find us a picnic table somewhere,” he said.

She shook her head and ripped open her bag of chips. “Let’s just keep going.”

They stopped at another eleven places before Sawyer finally pulled into the parking lot of Lake Weston. It was after seven, they hadn’t had dinner and Liz looked exhausted. She had dutifully gotten out at each stop, given her spiel and returned to the car, looking more and more discouraged.

“Look, here’s our place. I think we should call it a night,” Sawyer said. “Neither of us got much sleep last night. Let’s get checked in, I’ll find us some food, and you can crash.”

“No.”

It was the first word she’d said in two hours.

“What?”

“No. We have to keep going. Let’s just grab a sandwich. We can probably hit three or four more places tonight.”

“Liz, be reasonable. It’ll be dark in another hour. We’ll get a fresh start in the morning.”

Liz picked the map up and spread it across her lap. “Look, there’re two places just ten miles or so up the road. We’re wasting time.”

He was going to have to strap her down. But he didn’t think he had the energy.

He shook his head. “We have to get checked in. They close the office at eight. We need to get a key to our cabin.”

“Cabin?” she repeated.

“I got a
two-
bedroom cabin. It was all they had. I hope you don’t mind sharing a bath.”

“Oh. No, of course not. It sounds great. I mean, it sounds like it will suit our needs. Enough space, you know.”

She was blushing. He didn’t get it. Had she really thought he’d only book one room? Maybe in his wildest dreams. “You’re going to have to register. It’s in your name. If Mirandez happened to track you back here, I didn’t want there to be any record of me. Only problem is, you’ll have to put it on your credit card. The department will reimburse you.”

“That’s fine.” She opened her car door. “I’ll get us registered. And then we’re going to the next two on the map. Their offices might close around eight, too. We’ll need to hurry.”

The woman was a workhorse. “Fine. We’ll go to those two. But then we’re done. And I’m picking the restaurant. Get prepared because there may not be chips on the menu.”

* * *

I
T
WAS
ALMOST
NINE
O
’
CLOCK
when Sawyer ordered steaks for both of them. He’d found a supper club alongside the highway. The parking lot had been full, and he’d taken that as an endorsement.

The lighting was a little too dim, the music a little too loud. But the chairs were soft, and the cold beer he held in his hand tasted really good.

He thought Liz might fall asleep in her chair. Her eyes were half-closed. She looked pale, tired and defenseless. And it made him want to slay dragons for her.

If—or when, he corrected himself, trying to think a bit more positively—he found Mary, he would kick her butt for making this woman worry. For making the two of them traipse across the country in a hot car that didn’t have a working air conditioner.

He wished he’d learned that little piece of information earlier. Like before he’d left his own car at the station and decided to take a road trip in the Toastermobile. He’d turned the knob just after breakfast this morning, when the temperature had already hit the low nineties, and hot air had blown in his face. He’d looked at Liz, and she’d shrugged her shoulders and looked the happiest she had all morning.

Looking back, it had been an omen of how the day would go. One big bust.

But through it all, Liz had moved forward without complaint. He’d driven, and she’d read the map, directing him from place to place. Her instructions had been clear and succinct. At each stop, she’d gotten out and flashed her pictures. She hadn’t whined or complained. Hell, she could probably slay her own dragons. She was tough enough.

“We’ll go north tomorrow,” he said. He picked up a roll, buttered it and held it out to her. She shook her head no. He kept his hand extended and raised one eyebrow.

“I’m too tired to fight,” she said, and she grabbed it out of his hand.

He waited until she took a dainty little bite before continuing, “Thank you. You don’t eat enough.”

“I ate a banana.”

“So you did. Maybe that will be enough to keep you from falling down.”

“If it’s not, just prop me up and drive to the next place.”

He laughed until he realized she was half-serious. “You’re not going to give up, are you?”

“No. I can’t. I won’t.”

“What happens if we don’t find Mary?”

“We will. If we look hard enough, we will.”

God, he hoped he didn’t have to disappoint her. “Probably no need to start so early tomorrow. Maybe you could catch up on your rest.”

“I’m not tired.”

No, of course not. “Yeah, well, I am.”

She blinked twice. “No, you’re not.” She shook her head at him. “You think by saying that you’re tired that I’ll implicitly understand that it’s okay if I’m tired.”

Why did she have to be a psychologist? Why couldn’t she have been an accountant or an engineer?

“Did it work?” he asked.

“No. I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”

“Okay. But could you at least drink your water? Just being in the car today was enough to dehydrate a person.”

“Where did you get your medical degree?”

He didn’t take offense. She’d smiled at him. The first one of those he’d seen in a couple of hours.

“Off the street of hard knocks. It’s a fast-track program. You do your internship at a homeless shelter and your residency in the emergency room at Melliertz Hospital. They don’t have metal screeners there for nothing.”

“I’ll bet you’ve seen a lot of violence, huh?”

She leaned her head back against the chair. The flickering light from the cheesy candle on the table danced across the long lines of her graceful neck. She was a beautiful woman.

“I’ll bet you’ve
heard
about a lot of violence,” he replied. “I wonder what’s worse. Seeing it or hearing about it.”

A cloud of sadness drifted across her face. “I think seeing it,” she said. “When you hear about it, you can’t imagine how horrific it really is. Your mind just won’t let you go there.”

He had a bad feeling about this. He figured there was only one way to ask the question. “You’re the one who found your sister?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?” He braced himself, having investigated a few of those types of calls over the years. It was gruesome, ugly work.

“I tried her on the telephone but didn’t get an answer. After a couple of hours, I drove out to my parents’ house. They were gone for the weekend. She’d been dead for several hours when I found her.”

He knew exactly what it had looked and smelled like. He hoped like hell that they didn’t run into something similar with Mary. That Mirandez hadn’t spirited the girl away just so he could kill her and dump her body up in the boondocks. “I’m sorry,” he said, thinking it sounded a bit inadequate.

“I am, too,” she said, her voice trembling just a little. “But thank you. It’s still hard for me to talk about it. For some reason, you made it easier.”

It wasn’t a dragon but close. A sense of satisfaction, a sense of peace, filled him.

The waiter arrived at their table, his arms laden with heavy serving platters. He set two sizzling steaks down in front of them with sides of baked potato and fresh green beans.

Sawyer picked up his fork. “Bon appétit,” he said. In return, she smiled and picked up her own utensils.

Twenty minutes later, the dishes had all been cleared away. Sawyer sipped a cup of steaming-hot coffee and watched Liz. She’d done better with dinner than she had with breakfast or lunch. She’d managed to eat at least half the steak and most of the potato. “Let’s get out of here,” he said when he saw her head jerk back. She was literally falling asleep sitting up. Within a couple of minutes, he’d settled the bill and walked her out of the restaurant. He kept his hand firmly planted underneath her elbow. It felt so right that he refused to think about all the reasons it was wrong.

A ten-minute drive got them back to the cabin. “Let me check it out,” Sawyer ordered. He opened the compartment between the two seats and pulled out the gun that she’d seen him shove inside earlier. When he got out, he quickly walked to the cabin door, the barrel of the gun pointed upward. He twisted the doorknob, evidently found it locked, because she watched as he unlocked the heavy door with the real key the office had given them. Then in one fluid motion, he swung his body inside. Within seconds he was back, motioning for her to get out of the car. “Looks okay,” he said. He waited for her to get inside, then pulled the door shut behind them, turned the lock and looked with some disgust at the flimsy chain before hooking it.

“What were you expecting?” she asked.

“I didn’t know. A good cop just expects something.”

Sawyer Montgomery was a very good cop. She stood somewhat awkwardly by the door. The cabin wasn’t big but comfortable enough. The small sitting area had two chairs, a lamp table and a stone fireplace. A sign posted on the fireplace warned against actually using it. To the right, pushed up against the wall, was a double bed. To the left, two doors. She walked across the scarred but clean wooden floor and peeked into the first one.

Okay. Small but neat. The bath had a white tile floor and pale blue walls. Above the shower stall was a small, high window with a faded yellow shade.

She moved on to the second door. Reaching inside the door, she found the light switch. A single bed with a dark green bedspread and small dresser almost filled the space. The switch controlled the floor lamp next to the bed. Its dim light barely reached the corners of the room.

“It’s kind of a two-bedroom,” Sawyer said, standing directly behind her.

“It’s fine,” Liz said. “Which bed do you want?” she asked.

Sawyer edged past her and in four steps walked across the small room. He lifted the inexpensive white plastic blinds and inspected the windows. They were double-paned and locked from the inside.