Elusive (On The Run Book #1) (12 page)

“As strange as it seems, yes,”
Jack said, heading for the area at one end of the kitchen that a realtor would
have called a breakfast nook, except that there was a hulking computer on a
cheap pressboard desk instead of a dining table. Jack moved to the computer and
turned it on.

“So you think you’ll find some
answers on the computer?”

“I should—now that I’ll be able to
get into it.”

The computer had been whirring and
chugging, but a window popped up asking for a password.

“How are you going to do that? Do
you know his password?”

“I don’t need it,” he said,
plugging a small gray flash drive into one of the USB ports. “Password
breaker,” he explained as he typed a few letters. The screen filled with
numbers, which continued to scroll as Jack picked up a pencil and absently drew
on a scrap of paper. The spray of the Bellagio fountains materialized on the
paper. A window popped open on the screen, drawing his attention back to the
monitor and he murmured, “Hello,” then pulled a memory drive from his pocket
and plugged it into the computer.

Zoe stared at Jack’s profile,
working it out. “Eddie got that for you, didn’t she? You came here yesterday
and couldn’t get in Connor’s computer, so you asked her to get that password
breaker thing—I’m sure it’s another thing I don’t want to know the finer points
on.”

He ignored Zoe’s last comment and
merely said, “It wouldn’t be wise for me to head out on a shopping trip. I am
trying to keep a low profile. Besides, these things aren’t easy to find.”

Zoe walked a few steps into the
kitchen, her gaze focused high on the ceiling as she thought. “It had to be
this afternoon at the fountain—that’s what you were doing there. Why else would
Eddie walk all the way down there, then come back? And you did take her place,
right after she moved away from the balustrade. It was a—what do they call
it?—a drop!”

Jack glanced up at her, then
focused back on the computer.

“Fine. Don’t respond. I can tell
from your face—your deadpan, no expression face—that I’m right.”

The silence continued, so Zoe
said, “I’m looking around.”

He didn’t look up. “Go for it. I
sure as hell didn’t find anything around here. Not that I looked too hard.”

“I can see why you wouldn’t,” Zoe
said, pacing to the short hallway that led to a bathroom and a bedroom. The
door to the bathroom was open. A quick glance inside was plenty for Zoe. For a
second, she wondered why Connor would choose a shower curtain with black
flowers—it seemed a little girly, but then she realized the flowers weren’t a
pattern. It was actually mold.

With a shiver, Zoe moved on to
the bedroom. There was a mattress on the floor with a tangle of sheets and a
thin blanket flung to the side. A cardboard box served as a nightstand with a
small lamp and clock. Issues of
Money
and
Entrepreneur
and a few books were scattered around the floor. “This is so...
not
Connor,” Zoe called,
looking down the short hallway that opened into the living area.

Jack had his back to her as he
worked on the computer. “Makes you wonder who he really was, doesn’t it?” he
said without turning around.

“Yeah, it does,” Zoe murmured,
walking to the closet, which she edged open cautiously with her foot. A few
thin shirts hung above several pairs of crumpled shorts on the floor. “It just
doesn’t fit,” she said stepping back from the closet. “Connor wore Armani suits
and Hugo Boss ties. And he was so fussy about his car. It was always spotless.
He’d wash it right after it rained so he wouldn’t have any water spots on the
windshield. He wouldn’t live in this place.”

“And yet, he did,” Jack said,
gesturing to a pile of envelopes on the counter. Zoe walked back into the
living room and studied the envelopes addressed to Connor Freeman. “Those were
in the trash,” Jack said.

“Strange,” Zoe said, shaking her
head. “Give me one of those gloves.”

“What?”

“Your glove. You’re not doing
anything except pointing and clicking. Give me your left-hand glove. I want to
look at the books in the bedroom.”

“I don’t think Connor’s reading
material will hold a vital clue,” he said, but he stripped the glove off. Zoe
ignored his tone. He didn’t think she could find anything, but she was willing
to bet that Jack took a quick look around yesterday and when he couldn’t get
into the computer, he’d headed out. Poking around the dirty apartment was not
high on the list of things she wanted to do either, but if there was anything
here that could help them, it was worth digging through the layers of dirt and
grime. It couldn’t be worse than cleaning up after that renter who kept his
motorcycle and pet iguana in the duplex office, she thought as she marched down
the hall.

She moved the lamp and clock off
the box serving as the nightstand and opened the flaps. It was filled with
smaller, white boxes with a winged lion imprint on the top of each one. She
recognized the boxes. These were the paperweights GRS gave to clients. Jack had
brought some home when they first ordered them. Moving awkwardly, she used her
gloved hand to pull out a box and remove the lid. A heavy glass paperweight
rested in a square of foam. Zoe replaced the lid and rubbed her gloved thumb
over the smudged imprint, wondering why Connor would have a box of paperweights
here. She replaced the white box and reassembled the makeshift nightstand.

She went through all the pockets
of the clothes, which took some time. The closet smelled of sweat, and the tiny
room was hot. By the time she finished with the clothes, she was covered in a
sheen of perspiration, and she had nothing more to show for it than two fast
food receipts.

She skipped over the magazines
and considered the books. There was a battered copy of a
Bathroom Reader
, a few
paperback political thrillers and, strangely, a cookbook. Zoe couldn’t picture
Connor whipping up beef bourguignon, especially in this apartment, but then
again, she couldn’t actually picture
Connor
in this apartment. She moved on to the last few books, which were oversized and
heavy. Yearbooks, she realized, opening the glossy-pages. She found Connor
Freeman’s photo. His white blond hair was cut shorter, and his face was
thinner, but he had the same slyly superior grin that had irritated Zoe. She
closed the book, then immediately felt guilty. No matter how annoying Connor
was, he didn’t deserve to die the way he did. She put the yearbooks back as
she’d found them, surveyed the room once more to make sure it looked as it had,
then went back down the hall to the living room.

The memory drive was blinking and
Jack was stuffing a stack of papers in a garbage bag. “Papers that Connor
didn’t get around to shredding,” Jack said, then glanced at the computer. He
added the paper with his drawing of the fountain to the stack. “I’m copying
everything I can. About ten more minutes and we’re out of here.”

“Do you want any help with that?”
Zoe asked. Jack actually looked a bit harried. His hair sagged over his
forehead on one side, a sight Zoe recognized. He’d run his fingers through it,
which was usually a sign of exasperation with her. It had occurred frequently when
she’d have a perfectly wonderful idea like going out for ice cream on the spur
of the moment and he’d point out that no one went out for ice cream at
ten-forty-five at night.

But it seemed he wasn’t
exasperated with her. “No. The other glove would be helpful,” he said sharply
as he glanced out the window. “Find anything?”

Zoe worked the glove off and
handed it to him. “Besides that he was a slob and had eccentric reading tastes?
No, nothing.”

Jack handed the bag to Zoe, then
shot a quick glance at the sliding glass doors before he took a seat in front
of the computer, his gloved fingers rapping out an impatient beat on the mouse.

“Nervous?”

“No, just ready to get out of
here. We’ve been here long enough.”

“I don’t think this is the type of
neighborhood where people call the cops very often.”

“I’m not worried about the police.
The Dallas police don’t even know this place exists, and I doubt the Las Vegas
police are aware that Connor had any connection to this city. Eventually,
they’ll make the connection, but I don’t think they’ll be busting the door down
any minute. It’s one of the few times bureaucratic sluggishness is actually a
positive thing.”

That could only mean he was
worried about a visit from someone else—someone shady. “I see,” Zoe said.

He grunted as he stared at the
screen, his right heel tapping out a quick-time rhythm. Zoe was tempted to say,
“A watched download bar never fills,” but she bit her tongue. Jack was antsy,
and she doubted he would appreciate her humor. Instead of staring at the back
of Jack’s head, she moved into the living room, but didn’t sit down on the
couch. The cushions looked as if a layer of Doritos and Cheetos had been ground
into the fabric. The center cushion had a permanent indent, and Zoe supposed
that was where Connor had spent most of his time when he was here.

How long had Connor lived here?
Did he come back here “to visit?” He was out of town frequently, and Zoe had
always assumed it was on business trips to visit clients, but maybe he came
here instead? Zoe shook her head. Why would he come back here when he had a
beautiful—all be it almost empty—home in Dallas? To pig out on fast food and
play video games? Zoe just couldn’t imagine it. She glanced back at Jack. He
hadn’t moved. Zoe sighed and leaned against the arm of the couch. The cushions
shifted and she saw something shoved down between the sagging middle cushion
and the next cushion. She used her knuckle to work it out.

It was a small black moleskin
journal.
Now this looked more
like something Connor would use
, Zoe thought as she slipped the
elastic band off the cover and opened the book. About half the lined pages were
filled with notes: phone numbers, dates, and names. It was a gold mine of
information.

She turned the pages. She
recognized some airport codes and dates near the end. There was an odd list,
too, with random words. She looked up to tell Jack what she’d found. A man with
a gun was moving swiftly across the living room toward Jack.

––––––––

Las Vegas

Friday, 5:22 p.m.

––––––––

ZOE didn’t know a lot about guns,
but she knew that the long narrow extension attached to the barrel was a
silencer. Jack was still seated at the computer with his back to the room. The
man didn’t glance around. The sight of the man with the gun was so unexpected
and he moved so silently that Zoe almost wondered if she was seeing things. It
only took a second for the thought to register and for her to realize how
absurd it was.

She must have made some sound—an
inward hiss of breath—or a sudden movement. She wasn’t sure what she did to
draw the man’s attention, but he glanced her way, his dark eyes under wiry
eyebrows registering her presence. It was the man who’d tried to run them down,
then shot at her.

Zoe jumped up from the couch and
scrambled backward, dumping the journal. Jack heard her, too. As he stood, he
spun toward the man, who was small with stubby legs, a round face, and a bit of
a gut. If Zoe had seen him on the street, she wouldn’t have given him a second
thought, but with the gun in his hand and the determined look on his face, she
felt as if she were almost mesmerized and couldn’t look away.

Her shoulder blades hit the wall,
stopping her backward progress.

The stubby man’s dark gaze flicked
from her to Jack who stood, arms held out at his waist, palms down. The man
waved the gun back and forth a few times almost as if he was reciting “Eeny,
meeny, miny, moe.” He must have ended on Zoe because he pointed the gun at her,
then motioned her over to Jack’s side of the room with two tiny flicks of his
wrist.

As Zoe inched away from the wall,
there was a blur of movement as Jack heaved a kitchen chair at the man.

“Run,” Jack shouted.

Zoe swiveled on her heel and made
for the door. The chair crashed into something—a wall or the floor. As she
fumbled with the door lock, her fingers thick and clumsy, she glanced over her
shoulder.

The dining nook was empty. Jack
must have ducked down behind the kitchen counter.

The man kicked the chair away. It
skidded into the leg of the flimsy desk, which collapsed, causing the desktop to
tilt. The computer slid off the desk like a boat going over a waterfall. It
slammed into the floor in a spray of plastic.

The lock finally released and Zoe
flung the door open. Zoe backed through the door, watching as the man rounded
the counter that divided the living room from the kitchen, his gun pointed down
at the floor.

He’s
going to shoot Jack. Right here in front of me
, Zoe thought.

Jack popped into sight and tossed
the contents of a takeout container at the man’s head, then placed both hands
on the counter and vaulted feet-first into the living room.

The man swiped at his face with
his free hand, wiping away some sort of goo. He was too heavy-set to follow
Jack over the counter. He had to reverse course and go around the other way.
His gun swung wildly back and forth as Jack zipped around the couch. He looked
surprised to see her. “What are you doing? Run! Get out of here!”

Zoe stepped outside, then
remembered the black journal. She knew it was important. All those names and
dates and numbers. They had to have it. She spotted it on the floor and ducked
under Jack’s arm.

“Zoe,” Jack yelled as she scooped
up the journal and felt the man surge toward her. She didn’t look at him. She
twisted around and sprinted for the door behind Jack, but she could swear she
felt the short guy’s presence behind her. She expected to feel his hand yank at
her hair or shirt any second.

She shot through the open door and
ran out from under the steps into the sunlight, feeling as if her legs were
moving at Roadrunner cartoon-like speed, but her steps faltered as she scanned
the parking lot.

Where
was Jack?

Not at the car.

Not on the sidewalk or the parking
lot.

Zoe took off again, cutting
through the landscaped portion of the ground, her feet slipping on the white
gravel. She’d gone two steps when she heard a crack. She looked back and saw
the man laid out on the ground, flat on his face, Jack standing behind him.
Pieces of the flowerpot that had been outside the door were scattered around
them like candy from a broken piñata.

“That’s the craziest thing I’ve
ever seen you do,” Zoe said, astounded.

“Is that a compliment?” he asked,
a smile creeping into the corners of his mouth.

“Definitely.”

––––––––

Dallas

Friday, 4:55 p.m.

––––––––

JENNY had her ankles crossed and
tucked onto the base of her rolling office chair. She swung her knees from side
to side and gnawed on the lid of her blue Bic pen as she contemplated the
stacks of paper spread across her desk that represented everything she knew
about Zoe Hunter.

Jenny glanced at her phone, willing
it to ring. She’d left three messages with Mort. He was furious. She’d pointed
out that it wasn’t her fault if the police weren’t smart enough to listen to
traffic reports. That probably hadn’t been her best move, she thought with a
sigh.

It
was
her fault that Zoe had gone to ground. No
one could find her, and Mort was upset—rightfully so—that his number one source
of possible information had dried up. Jenny did feel guilty for tipping Zoe
Hunter off. Well, sort of. There had been something in Zoe’s face, a look of
fear and disbelief that struck Jenny. It made her think of a small animal
trapped by a predator. That look made her want to dig into this story and find
out if Zoe was as innocent as she appeared or if she was only an excellent
actress.

Her gaze switched to the newspaper
clipping that she’d thumbtacked to the fabric of her cubicle wall. “Vinewood
Man’s Disappearance Draws Questions as Business Partner Found Murdered.” It had
run this morning. She ran her finger over her byline, the corner of her mouth
twisting down on one side. She didn’t have that sense of accomplishment—that
charge—that she’d imagined she would feel with her first published news story.

She sighed. It really was the
worst possible start to a journalist’s career. You didn’t
become
part of the story. You
reported on it. Of course it was her first person account of her interaction
with Zoe that had interested the news editor. “Lead with that,” she said. “And
keep that boring financial stuff to a minimum,” she’d instructed after hearing
Jenny’s pitch for the article.

She was still in obits, of
course. There were no openings for a reporter, but she had the inside edge on
this story, and she wasn’t about to give it up. And there was Mort. Jenny
thought it was probably good for him to get worked up about something—it had
been so long since he’d shown any emotion—but she really wished he wasn’t
furious with
her
for blowing his investigation. So, besides pursuing the story for herself, she
was also trying to make up for her blunder. She was spending every spare minute
she had searching for Zoe.

She hadn’t gotten very far,
despite scraping in every possible source she could think of. The police and
Mort were holding things tight. Even Victor had drawn a blank.

Jenny shoved the “childhood
reality star” stack to the side. Her gut told her this situation had nothing to
do with Zoe’s time on a “deserted” island with her mom and step-dad. That left
her with the stack of info about GRS, which she’d already been through and
could practically recite by heart.

The final stack was much smaller:
the personal life. Jenny crunched down, leaving another indention in the pen
lid as she flicked through the papers. Zoe’s name came up on the tag line of a
few photos that had appeared in the paper: she’d participated in a breast
cancer 5K run, and she’d obviously taken classes at Greenly University because
she was pictured in a group of students participating in a campus cleanup day.
She’d run ads in the newspaper for her business, which looked like a virtual
assistant business, but she called herself an “Information Specialist.” She
specialized in copy-editing and listed several popular Smart Travel Guides as
her credentials, but it appeared no job was too small or too off the wall for
her. In her experience section, she listed everything from dog walking to
property management.

She’d married Jack Andrews in
Vegas. The divorce paperwork was filed about a year later, and despite the
divorce, both their names were still listed on the property in Vinewood.

Jenny swiveled her knees some more
and switched her attention to her computer monitor. The Internet was a Godsend
for research. The official documents and public records were like a sketch or
outline. It was a person’s Internet footprint that provided the color and
brought the sketch to life. Zoe probably didn’t realize it, but her photos
she’d posted on-line, her Facebook account, and her business website all gave
glimpses into her private life.

Jenny rotated the lid of the pen
as she clicked on Zoe’s Facebook profile picture. Posed in front of an outdoor
fountain, she was smiling widely, her arm thrown around someone’s shoulder who
had been cropped out of the photo. Bright sunlight glinted on her red hair and
highlighted a few freckles on her pale skin. She looked like a relaxed, fun
person with just a glint of mischievousness in her hazel eyes.

The business website photo had the
professional gloss of special lighting and a muted background. While her long,
red hair was arranged smoothly behind her ears, her casual oxford shirt and
jeans along with her relaxed stance seemed to announce she didn’t take herself
too seriously. Her short bio seemed to confirm it. “Jill of all trades. Digital
problem solver. A runner with a serious dessert addiction.”

Jenny flicked through the pictures
Zoe had posted on-line. There were a few of her among friends at dinner or
events like 5K runs or parties, but most of the photos were vacation photos of
Las Vegas—there were shots of several famous spots along The Strip, including
the iconic “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign and the Bellagio fountains.

Jenny’s cell phone buzzed and she
lunged for it. She had a text message from her hair stylist. “Did you come
through for me, Sheila?” she asked, as she pulled up the message. Sheila worked
at The Salon, which was pricey for someone like Jenny—someone on an entry-level
salary—but she managed to swing a few haircuts there because Sheila cut and
highlighted the hair of several important people. Not people who were famous or
wealthy, but people who worked for famous and/or wealthy people. It’s amazing
how much your personal assistant or your housecleaner knows about you, Jenny
thought. Sheila liked being “in the know,” and she liked to show off her
knowledge, which worked out great for Jenny because Sheila also liked to pass
that info on to Jenny.

The text message was a series of
exclamation points, which meant Sheila had big news. Yesterday, after Zoe
Hunter skipped out on her and Mort, Jenny had considered cancelling her haircut
appointment, but she’d gone, and the whole tale of how she’d messed up had come
pouring out. Jenny dialed Sheila’s number and gnawed on her pen lid until
Sheila answered, waiting as she went outside of The Salon for a break. “Okay,”
Sheila finally said, “now I can talk. You’re not going to believe this. That
woman you told me about, the one who ran off? She used an ATM in Amarillo
yesterday.”

“Wow...how did you find that out?”
Jenny asked, scribbling down the info.

“The bank manager’s personal
assistant was in today to get her highlights touched up. She said there was a
huge uproar at the bank this morning with the police wanting to know if she’d
used her ATM card. She had.” Sheila sucked in a breath. “But this is even
better. Her ex-husband’s account got a huge deposit at the beginning of the
week. Millions of dollars.
Millions
.
And now it’s gone. It was all my client could talk about. Her office has been
overrun with bank officials and the FBI.”

Jenny thanked her and made a
mental note to up her tip next time she went for a haircut.

Jenny chewed her pen and clicked
back and forth between some of the open windows in her screen. She enlarged the
profile photo and studied the background. Yep, those were the Bellagio
fountains behind Zoe. She was married there, had vacationed there, and she’d
driven to Amarillo...which would be on the way to Vegas. It wasn’t much to go on.
Lots of people got married in Vegas, Jenny reasoned, but there was something
tugging at her, a gut feeling. She reached for the phone.

The reporter from the Las Vegas newsroom
wasn’t incredibly helpful. “You can’t look up the crime report yourself?” Jeff
McCord asked with a long-suffering sigh.

“Sure, but I wanted to see if
there was anything that stood out—from a local angle.”

There was silence for a few
seconds, and Jenny thought he’d hung up, but then she heard his chair creak,
and he said, “Damn computer. They’re great, except—”

“When they don’t work,” Jenny
finished.

“Yeah,” he agreed, and she heard a
small smile in his voice. “Finally. Okay,” he said, drawing out the word. “I’ll
send this to you, but it all looks routine. A couple of burglaries, a few DUIs,
a house fire up in Henderson. That’s about it. Pretty quiet for a Thursday in
Vegas, actually. What were you looking for, specifically?”

It was Jenny’s turn to sigh. “I
don’t know...something unusual,” she said, thinking that short of calling every
hotel in Vegas, there was no way to know if Zoe had gone there, and Jenny was
sure that wherever Zoe was, she was taking pains to avoid interacting with the
police.

“In Vegas, unusual is normal,”
Jeff said. “Like this one. Guy drove onto the sidewalk today and ran into a
barrier in front of The Venetian. Wasn’t even drunk. No one hurt, but the car
was totaled.”