She reached for his arm. “D., please—”
He yanked from her grip. Stepped sideways to push his face into hers. “Do not say another word!”
Darell jerked around and steamrolled for the bathroom. Once inside he slammed the door.
Rage rattled in his chest. He glared at himself in the mirror, seeing nothing but a grizzled man, his eyebrows moldy gray bundles of straw, white hair tufted and wild.
He had
How dare she question his abilities? Even worse, his motives?
Leland Hugh materialized in his thoughts. Hugh in the fog, lost. Turning into him.
“Aah!” Darell thwacked the mirror with his palm and wrenched away. Bent over his cane, he fumed at the beige tile floor. Hugh was turning into more of a mystery than ever. Darell’s last hope for finishing his book could well lie in Craig Barlow’s manuscript. Tonight before he trapped the man if he could just glean some insight …
Hugh’s voice echoed in his head. Joined by Margaret and Kaitlan and Craig. Soon all four clamored, jumbling Darell’s brain. Concentration started slipping, slipping …
Darell buffed his face. What was that first thing he had to do?
His eyes rose to twin blue towels hanging on their gold rack. He frowned at them, through them …
Tonight’s meeting. He had to call Craig to set it up.
Just like that a moving pathway in Darell’s mind cleared. He stepped upon it. But as he rode along, purpose morphed to fear. What this day would demand of him.
At the sink he splashed his face, dried his hands, his movements jerky, nervous. By the time he left the bathroom his heart thwacked his ribs.
Margaret had moved across the hall to plant herself in the office doorway. Her face still scrunched with worry, one hand pressed to the side of her neck. “D., I’m sorry. I’m just … scared.”
“You ought to be. Sorry, I mean.” He made a move to brush around her but she stayed firm. He threw her a withering look. “Let me by.”
She slapped both palms against the doorposts, blocking the entrance. “Remember your book
“No. I don’t. Now move before I make you.”
“One of the stewards was involved. The husband knew it and set this elaborate plan to catch him. And the whole thing went awry—” “That’s a story, Margaret!” He banged his cane so hard against the floor shock waves jittered up his arm. “This is real!”
“I know. But what if—”
“Get out of my way!”
Movement in Darell’s peripheral vision turned his head. Kaitlan stood halfway down the hall, shoulders drawn inward, round-eyed. Her clothes looked thrown on, her hair mussed.
Margaret followed his gaze. The vibrations from her smoothed out, as if she’d been caught making a scene. Her hands fell from the doorposts. “Good morning, Kaitlan.” She forced a wan smile.
Kaitlan approached warily, head half turned, looking at them askance. “What’s going on?”
Darell glared sideways at Margaret. “We were just discussing today’s plans.”
“Nothing’s changed, right? We’re going through with this insanity?” Kaitlan pulled up beside him, hugging herself. Her cheek mixed deeper shades of purple and red, streaks down to her chin. The scrapes she’d taken from her fall stood out angry and rough.
Margaret sucked in air at the sight of her.
Kaitlan touched her fingers to the area and winced. “I know. I look terrible.”
Her vulnerability ripped at Darell’s chest. What Craig had done to her. And her cheek screamed only of the surface pain.
He would get her out of this.
“Absolutely no change, Kaitlan.” Darell planted a hand on Margaret’s shoulder and firmly pushed her aside. “I’m calling Craig right now as a matter of fact. And I need total silence”—he hitched his eyebrows in a glower at Margaret—“from the two of you.”
Nose in the air, he thumped his way across the office with rank determination. His heart rat-tatted—and that infuriated him.
He reached his desk, feeling like a prisoner approaching the noose.
forty-six
Darell sank into his desk chair and surveyed the phone. He could feel the eyes of the two women at his back. Margaret and her dread of his failure. Kaitlan’s life dependence on his success.
He picked up the receiver. Mentally he scrabbled for last night’s reasoning about his plan.
How serendipitous that Craig Barlow had possessed the nerve to hack into his manuscript. For once being thought old and infirm had worked to Darell’s advantage. The kid wouldn’t have dared such a thing three years ago, when Darell’s work was still being published.
Darell half turned. “Kaitlan, do you know the number to the Gayner Police?”
“No. I would just call Craig on his cell phone.”
“Okay, doesn’t matter.”
But somehow it did. That small unknown—a portent.
Darell dialed 411 and requested the number to the Gayner Police Station.
“Is this an emergency?” the operator asked.
As the computer-generated voice intoned the seven digits, he wrote them down, then disconnected. He stared at the receiver in his hand.
Darell dialed the number.
“Gayner Police.” A woman’s voice.
“Good morning. This is Darell Brooke. I’m trying to get through to Officer Craig Barlow.”
Stunned hesitation vibrated the line. “
In that inopportune moment it all flooded back. The adulation. The reputation he’d once wielded. How he missed it.
“That’s correct.”
“Wow! Hello! I’ve read
“I’m well, thank you.”
“That’s great. Great! Are you writing again? I can’t wait to read a new book from you.”
“Yes, I’m writing. In fact, that’s why I’m trying to reach Officer barlow. I need to ask him some research questions about police procedure.”
Silence behind him. He pictured Margaret and Kaitlan holding their breath.
“Oh.” Hesitation coated the woman’s response. “Uh, you sure you don’t mean the chief?”
“No. His son, Craig.”
“Oh, okay. He’s on patrol. I can contact him with your phone number. I’m sure he’ll call soon as he can. He’s a fan too.”
No kidding.
“That would be great.” Darell gave the woman his number. “Tell him I’m stuck on this manuscript until my questions are answered. I’d appreciate talking to him as soon as possible about setting up a meeting for tonight.”
“I will. So nice to talk to you!”
“Thanks. You too.”
