It was an appalling thought, one she hadn’t allowed herself to contemplate before now: She might never get home.
By now Jeff would have notified the police, but would he know where to tell them to start searching? She’d talked about her destination, but had he paid close attention or retained a thing she’d said? Even she couldn’t remember how specific she’d been when she’d shown him the map of the national forest on which she’d marked her trail. But even with only a general idea of where she had set out that morning, a search would be under way.
She would get home. Of course she would. And then—
What?
The crystal ball was as murky on her future from that point as it was on her immediate situation.
When she and Jeff reunited, they would be glad and relieved to see each other. But their quarrel would only have been suspended, not settled. The wedges between them would still be firmly lodged. Assuming he was having an affair, upon her safe return, would he end it strictly out of a sense of obligation? That would serve no purpose other than to keep everyone unhappy.
In fairness, how could she blame Jeff for having a lover when a stranger’s embrace and near kiss had made her burn hot?
Yes. There was that.
Her attempt to be a femme fatale had ended on an ironic twist: it was she who’d been seduced. She had put on that mortifying display, but when he began caressing her, she stopped playacting. He’d pulled her to him, and she’d felt him hard and insistent against her, and the truth had been undeniable. She’d wanted him.
Every feminine urge had sprung to life, and it wasn’t just the long dormancy that had made her sexual desire so acute. It was him. She wanted to experience him, every rough surface, every gruff word, his outdoorsy scent, the whiskey taste of his breath, the arrogant jut of his penis. She had wanted the totality of him with a reckless disregard for what was right and proper for Dr. Emory Charbonneau.
If he hadn’t ended it in that insulting manner, she would have made a further fool of herself.
Thinking about it agitated her and increased her anxiety, so that when she heard the pickup pulling into the yard, she retrieved the pistol, cradled it between her hands, and aimed it at the door.
He stamped in, looking more forbidding than she’d ever seen him. The pistol didn’t disconcert him in the slightest. He took one derisive look at it, then tossed the pillowcase containing her shoes over to her. It landed on the floor at her feet.
“Put your shoes on. We’re leaving.”
“Where are we going?”
“I’m taking you down the mountain, and I’m in a hurry.”
Chapter 12
Come October, the heating system in Jack Connell’s apartment building was cranked up to somewhere around eighty-five degrees, and it stayed at that setting until May. After coming in from a frigid wind that
whipped through the brick-and-mortar canyons of Midtown Manhattan, he exchanged his suit and overcoat for shorts and a Jets T-shirt, opened a beer, and carried it with him into his home office, a small room sparsely furnished with a desk—a door suspended between two sawhorses—and a secondhand chair on casters, one of which wobbled.
He called the number Greer had given him for the television news reporter who’d covered the protest march on the state capitol building in Olympia, Washington.
The phone rang several times, and when it was answered, the background noise was deafening. After several false starts, the young man explained that he was out, having happy hour drinks with friends. On the West Coast, happy hour apparently began at three thirty.
Jack shouted, “You talked to my colleague earlier today. Wes Greer.”
“Oh, the FBI agent?”
“Right. You told him that the group featured in your story’s video had come by bus from Seattle to participate in the demonstration. Were they isolated people with a common passion or an organized group?”
“A group. With a name. Can’t remember it now. It’s in my notes. When do you need it?”
“Yesterday.”
“Oh. Can I get back to you? I’ll have to call the newsroom and have somebody go over to my desk.”
Jack gave him his cell number. While waiting for him to call back, he went into the kitchen and made a sandwich of stale rye, hot mustard, and deli roast beef that hadn’t gone completely green, opened another beer, and was halfway through each when the reporter phoned.
“The group is Citizens Who Care. CWC.”
“Is there a contact person?”