Tailspin(89)

“That’s plain enough.” Mallett looked around the shabby room. “She was desperate, or she wouldn’t have come here. She wants nothing to do with you.”

“She tell you that herself?”

“Didn’t have to.”

Wes gave Rye a sad smile and said softly, “Son, you’ve got it wrong.”

“How’s that?”

Wes reached over, picked up a bishop from off the chessboard, and rolled it between his palms. “Brynn had it tough growing up. All the odds were stacked against her, but she put her shoulder to it, and worked like the devil to achieve what she set out to do. When she became a doctor, got her position in the hospital, no daddy was ever prouder than me.”

He paused, studied the chess piece, noticed that the paint was wearing thin in spots. “I didn’t want to be an embarrassment to her, something in her life that had to be explained or made excuses for. I didn’t want her having to claim kin with an old con.” He tipped his chin down and looked at Rye from beneath his brows. “Was me, not Brynn, who stipulated that she have nothing to do with me.”

Mallett held his gaze as he slowly lowered the front legs of his chair to the floor.

Their stare held until Brynn came out of the bedroom.

Mallett looked at her and said quietly, “Time to go.”

12:04 a.m.



Once they were underway in Wes’s second-or third-hand compact, little was said for the first fifteen minutes.

Brynn stared out the passenger seat window, tracking rivulets of rain as they formed and streamed down the glass. Following the path of one with her fingertip, she broke the silence. “He seemed well, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know what he was like before.”

“Before, he was just as he was tonight. Unchanged except for a little more gray hair and an inch or two around his middle.”

“He’s been hitting the pizza with his lady friend.”

Brynn gave a wistful smile. “I’ve never known him to have girlfriends.”

“Hard to work them in between parole and his next stint.”

“I suppose. And then there was me,” she said. “I must’ve cramped his love life, too.”

Neither spoke as Rye passed an eighteen-wheeler throwing up enough spray to engulf the small car. Once the truck was behind them, he asked, “Why do you lead people to think it was you who turned your back on him?”

“I don’t do that.”

“Yes, you do. Or at least you don’t correct them when they assume that’s the case. How come?”

She turned her head and looked at him. “You don’t want to know anything about me or my life.”

“How many times are you going to throw that up to me?”

“Don’t snap at me. I’m only upholding the rule set by you.”

He didn’t say anything to that, but his jaw tightened, and so did his grip on the steering wheel. The rest of the trip was made in silence except for the rain beating a relentless cadence against the roof of the car.

When they reached the hotel, a neon sign above the entrance to the parking garage informed them that it was full. Rye, swearing under every breath, searched the open lot and pulled into the first available space he could find nearest the side door they’d used earlier.

In a stilted voice, she asked, “Before I go, do you mind if I come in, use the bathroom, get some snacks from the mini bar?”

“No. Sure.”

They bleakly gauged the distance they had to cover in pelting rain. Neither was inclined to leave the shelter of the car. They stayed as they were for a full minute, then Rye said, “It’s not going to get any drier.”

They made a dash for the door. Just as they reached it, a pair of headlights drew Rye’s attention to the corner of the building.

A police car.

12:26 a.m.



He swiped their room’s card key, shoved open the door, and pushed Brynn through. In their haste, she stumbled over his boots. “Rye? What?”

“Cop.”

They ran down the long hallway, Rye frequently checking behind them, fully expecting to see officers in pursuit. But they made it to the end of the hall and out of sight around the corner. He bypassed the elevator and hustled Brynn through the door to the fire stairs.

She ran up them ahead of him, but with his hand at the small of her back, urging her onward. Over her shoulder, she said, “Maybe we should hide somewhere on the ground level until we can get back to the car.”

“Can’t leave my bag.”

They reached the seventh floor. Rye cautiously opened the door. In both directions, the corridor was empty. He motioned Brynn through. They jogged toward their room.

When they got to it, Rye moved Brynn aside, went down on one knee and checked to see that the thread he’d pulled from the hem of the bedspread was still stuck between the door and the jamb. It was. He unlocked the door. Brynn rushed into the room. Rye checked the hallway once again, followed her in, and bolted the door.

“The thread?”

“I saw it in a movie,” he said.

“As we left, you sent me ahead to hold the elevator.”

“That’s what I was doing. Good thing. Because as least we know no one has been inside the room.” They’d left only the bathroom light on. “Don’t turn on any more lights,” he told Brynn as he checked the floor of the closet to make certain his flight bag was as he’d left it.