LITMIR.BIZ

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Fiona never seemed happy when she talked about her daddy. And she certainly wasn’t happy that man had come to talk to her that day.”

      Joslyn had been shocked when Clay had said the man was Martin, but now she looked thoughtful. “Can you remember anything else?” she asked Rufus.

      He pursed his mouth, but then shook his head. “Sorry, I didn’t hear anything that they said, and that’s about all I saw.”

      Joslyn handed him her business card. “If you remember anything else, give us a call.”

      “Sure thing.”

      As they headed out of the museum, Clay said, “You didn’t seem surprised that Fiona and Martin hadn’t seemed very friendly that day. Fiona had always been pretty close to him.”

      Joslyn tilted her head. “Well, she was closer to Martin when I first knew her, but, especially just before she left Los Angeles, he seemed to annoy her or upset her more often. She never wanted to talk about him. I guess in the past two years, they never healed the breach.”

      “He must have said something to her to make her upset. But he can’t possibly have anything to do with her disappearance. He wouldn’t hurt her.”

      “But the fact is that sometime after he spoke to her, she went missing.”

      “If she were in danger from Martin, he’d have taken her at the museum, and he wouldn’t have bothered to speak to her first.” Clay sighed. “Plus I have a hard time believing Fiona would be involved in anything shady that Martin might be doing.” He remembered his last big argument with Fiona in Chicago, and the reason she’d moved away from him.

      “He might have helped her leave. If she was in trouble and he could help, she’d accept it.”

      He remembered Fiona’s thready voice during their phone conversation. “The thing is, if she were safe with Martin, she wouldn’t have asked us for help. My phone call and your postcard happened after she disappeared.”

      “Maybe it wasn’t her?”

      “It sure sounded like her. I knew her voice immediately.”

      Joslyn blew out a breath. “And the handwriting on that postcard was pretty close to hers. I recognized it.”

      Clay rubbed his forehead. He knew what he had to do, but didn’t like being forced to approach Martin again, like a servant asking for a favor. “I have Martin’s extension at his office. I’ll give him a call and ask about Fiona.”

      The look Joslyn gave him implied that she understood what he hadn’t said, saw the emotions churning in his gut whenever he thought of Martin. But she also understood, as much as he did, that Fiona came first.

      There was a small hallway off the front foyer of the museum that offered them some privacy, so he headed there and pulled out his cell phone. He found Martin’s phone number and dialed.

      He tasted acid at the back of his throat as the phone rang. When a man’s voice answered, he almost couldn’t speak and had to swallow before he said, “Martin? This is Clay.”

      “I’m sorry, Mr. Crowley’s not available at this time. This is his assistant. May I help you?”

      Clay felt both relief and frustration. “Please ask him to call his stepson as soon as possible. It’s about Fiona.” He gave his phone number, but he had a feeling Martin wouldn’t call him back. Not to be dramatic, but simply because to Martin, Clay didn’t matter.

      When he hung up, Joslyn asked, “He wasn’t in?”

      “I left a message, but Martin doesn’t always return my calls.” Actually, Martin almost never returned his calls.

      “He might since this is about Fiona.”

      “But if he’s involved in all this, he’s not going to want to talk to us.”

      She sighed. “I’m afraid you’re right.”

      They exited the front double doors of the museum into the bright sunlight, and the heat slapped him like a ten-foot wave. Clay had to pause to adjust to the change in temperature. That’s when he saw it.

      Just a slight movement from the farthest end of the parking lot stretched out in front of them. Clay squinted in that direction, but didn’t see the movement again.

      He’d lost the men following them, hadn’t he?

      “What is it?” Joslyn’s voice was low but sharp. Her eyes also scanned the parking lot.

      “I thought I saw...I don’t know what I saw.”

      “How could they have found us?” Deep in thought, she began lightly rubbing a strange-shaped scar above her left eye. It seemed she wasn’t aware she was doing it. “Maybe your rental car...I’ll have to check it.”

      “Check what?”

      “Maybe they put a tracker on your car or mine when we were at Fiona’s office.”

      “That’s kind of high-tech. Then again, if they’re the same guys who rigged Fiona’s house, I guess I believe they could do it.” Clay kept sweeping his gaze over the parking lot even as they headed to his car.

      “Don’t unlock it just yet.” Joslyn began circling the car, checking the rims, finally dropping onto the sizzling asphalt to check the underside of the vehicle. “I don’t see anything.”

      Clay hadn’t stopped looking around, but they were the only ones moving around out here. The other cars in the lot seemed empty, and he couldn’t see the white Taurus, although many of the cars were white. He’d noticed that about Phoenix—lots of white and light-colored cars, probably to combat the heat. “Let’s get out of here.”

      The inside of the car was a furnace and he cranked up the air-conditioning.

      “Even if we don’t know for sure that they followed us here, we should take precautions,” she said.

      “Like what?”

      “Maybe there’s a tracker on our clothes. Or maybe they found a way to clone one of our cell phones, and that’s how they’re trailing us.”

      “People can do that?”

      “It takes special equipment, but yeah.”

      And men who had access to explosives might have access to that kind of equipment. “Okay, so where to?” He backed out of the parking stall.

      “The nearest mall.”

      Clay kept an eye out behind them as they drove, but he couldn’t spot a tail if there was one. He had done his fair share of tailing people back in his mob henchman days, but even then, he hadn’t been great at noticing them following him. How ironic that he could have used some of his criminal skills now. Still, he didn’t regret getting out of that life, paying his dues. He just wished he could feel as though he had finally settled that debt.

      There was a mall a few miles away that looked rather new, with a cluster of golden-red buildings rising up at the side of a freeway, surrounded by empty lots of stone and dirt. “Is this good?” he asked.

      “Yes. We don’t want anything too upscale. They may not have the burner phones we need.”

      They walked through the outdoor mall until they found a phone kiosk, and Joslyn bought several burner cell phones.

      “We need that many?” Clay asked.

      “You never know.” After Joslyn had paid using cash, they walked away and she said, “Plus, I noticed the kiosk didn’t seem to keep good records. If anyone knows we went here, they might have a hard time figuring out which phones we bought, and their numbers.”

      “That’s good thinking.” He’d had to find people for his bosses every so often, but it had never been an intricate business like this, and he’d never had to try not to be found.

      The

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