Scared To Death (Live to Tell #2)(33)
“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”
“But you can’t stay in the house alone. What if whoever it is comes back?”
“Then I’ll be there. And this will be over.”
“What if something happens to you?”
“It won’t. I promise.”
Oh, but it might. Something terrible might happen to you, Brett Cavalon. Or to your precious family. You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.
Silence seems to have fallen on the other side of the bathroom wall, but it’s probably a good idea to wait a few minutes, just to be sure the Cavalons don’t inadvertently share any other interesting tidbits.
One would think the two of them would be more careful about what they say, and where they say it.
Although to be fair, they have no way of knowing they’ve been tracked to this dumpy motel. Gotta love modern technology. Homing device, indeed.
Then again, there’s nothing like a good old-fashioned surveillance tool, either.
The water glass, so filmy that no one in his right mind would dare drink from it, has done its job well. Back onto the grubby sink shelf it goes, its fluted sanitary—ha!—paper cap once more in place.
Twenty minutes later, the Cavalons exit their room, blissfully unaware that they’re being watched through a crack in the cheap curtains of the room next door to theirs, which was conveniently vacant last night at checkin time.
Conveniently vacant?
The place is just about empty.
Lucky for me. And so, so unlucky for the Cavalons.
The night manager didn’t bat an eye last night at the walk-in request for a specific room number. If he had, the explanation was ready: “I was born at 1:04 on October 4, so 104 is my lucky number.”
Almost a shame not to get to use the clever cover story. But it’s probably best to have as little contact as possible with people who might—should anything go wrong—be questioned later.
Incredible. Even against this dingy backdrop, with yesterday’s smudged makeup around her eyes and her hair pulled back from her face, Elsa Cavalon looks beautiful. She and Renny head toward their car in the parking lot as Brett goes into the office to check out. She keeps a protective hand on her daughter’s shoulder as they walk, and she does seem to glance from side to side, as if making sure the coast is clear.
But she never looks behind her, back at the motel.
She and Renny get into the car. Before long, Brett joins them, and they drive away. A moment later, the GPS tracker vibrates, indicating that they’ve left the vicinity.
As if I didn’t know.
But it was a good idea to set the device last night, just in case they left unexpectedly in the wee hours.
Now, the onscreen locator indicates that they’re heading toward the southbound entrance to I–95.
Too bad I have to go in the opposite direction.
But we’ll meet again before you know it…and next time, believe me, you will know it.
This time, the sleeping pill only worked until about three A.M. Marin has been up for hours, listening to the rain, worrying about the rat in Caroline’s purse and the anonymous texts to her phone, waiting for a decent hour to call the one person who can possibly understand what it’s like to fear for your kids’ safety in the wake of a public ordeal.
That last text was so ominous. And how did someone get her private number?
Come on—these days, you can get hold of anyone’s personal information, if you really want to.
After all, she herself managed to track down both a home and a cell phone number for Elsa Cavalon a while back, when she was thinking she might want to contact her.
Ever since, she’s been toying with the idea of reaching out to Jeremy’s adoptive mother, though she isn’t sure why.
Does she want to grieve with her?
To express gratitude?
To satisfy her own curiosity?
Thinking of the woman to whom she’d given that precious gift—her firstborn—Marin swallows the bitter irony that they’d both lost him, in the end.
She rubs her burning eyes and looks at the bedside clock.
It’s past six. Too late to take another sleeping pill, and too early to call anyone.
Nothing to do but brood.
Story of my life.
After surveying the pile of folded T-shirts on the bed, Mike removes two. Then he adds three pairs of boxer shorts, removes one, puts it back, and adds another.
Four pairs of underwear? Is that enough? Is it overkill?
He sucks at packing.
At a lot of things, really.
At times like this, he desperately misses Byron Gregson.
Not just because Byron was full of great tips—like “always keep a packed suitcase handy by the door”—but because, as an investigative journalist, his old friend had contacts all over the world. With just a few well-placed overseas calls, he probably would have been able to tell Mike that he’s way off base with his suspicion—or that he might be on to something huge.
But Byron did one too many favors for Mike when he agreed to look into Jeremy Cavalon’s birth parentage. He stumbled upon the link to Garvey Quinn, then made the mistake of trying to blackmail him—and now he’s gone forever.
And that’s something I have to live with for the rest of my life.
Without Byron here to guide him toward the right track, he has nothing to go on with this Cavalon case but a hunch. Yeah, terrific. A hunch—coming from a guy who’s so intuitive it only took him a year to figure out that his wife was sleeping around with—no, not his best friend. Hers.