Cold Vengeance - Lincoln Child [99]
Felder fumbled out his cell phone and dialed Poole’s number, but it immediately rolled over to voice mail.
He went back to the ladies’ room and barged inside. The window was still open, but it was clearly and visibly barred. Felder paused, staring at it, the full implications of that barred window suddenly sinking in.
He could swear he’d heard Poole opening and closing the stalls and calling out her name. But why would he do that if the window was barred, and there was no possibility of escape? He looked around the small, empty bathroom, but there was literally no place to hide.
And then—with a sudden, terrible clarity—Felder realized there could be only one explanation. Poole must have been in on the escape.
CHAPTER 54
CORRIE SWANSON HEARD THE FAINT RINGING of her cell phone, through her earpieces, as she lay on the bed in her dorm room listening to Nine Inch Nails. She scrambled up, plucked out the earbuds, sorted through the two-foot layer of clothes on her floor, and pulled out the phone.
A number she didn’t recognize. “Yeah?”
“Hello?” came a voice. “Is this Corinne Swanson?”
“Corinne?” The man had an accent of the Deep South, not as refined and melodious as Pendergast’s but not all that different, either. It instantly put her on alert. “Yeah, this is Corinne.”
“Corinne, my name is Ned Betterton.”
She waited.
“I’m a reporter.”
“For who?”
A hesitation. “The Ezerville Bee.”
At this, Corrie had to laugh. “Okay, who is this really and what’s the joke? You a friend of Pendergast’s?”
There was a silence on the other end. “This is no joke, but it happens that he’s the reason I’m calling.”
Corrie waited.
“My apologies for contacting you like this, but I understand you’re the one who maintains the website on Special Agent Pendergast.”
“Right,” said Corrie warily.
“That’s where I got your name,” said the man. “I didn’t realize you were in town until just today. I’m doing a story about a double murder that occurred down in Mississippi. I’d like to talk to you.”
“Talk.”
“Not on the phone. In person.”
Corrie hesitated. Her instincts were to put him off, but she was curious about the Pendergast connection. “Where?”
“I don’t really know New York well. How about, um, the Carnegie Deli?”
“I don’t do pastrami.”
“I heard they’ve got great cheesecake. How about in an hour? I’ll be wearing a red scarf.”
“Whatever.”
There were about ten people in red scarves packing the deli, and by the time Corrie found Betterton she was in a foul mood. He rose as she approached and pulled out a chair for her.
“I can seat myself, thank you, I’m not some fainting southern belle,” she said, pulling the chair from his solicitous grasp and sitting down.
He was in his late twenties, small but tough looking, ripped, old acne scars on an otherwise handsome face. He was dressed in a tacky sports jacket, with a Scotch Pad of brown hair and a nose that looked like it had once been broken. Intriguing.
He ordered a slice of truffle torte cheesecake, and Corrie settled on a BLT. As the waitress walked away, Corrie crossed her arms and stared at Betterton. “Okay, so what’s this all about?”
“Almost two weeks ago a couple, Carlton and June Brodie, were brutally murdered in Malfourche, Mississippi. Tortured and then killed, to be exact.”
He was temporarily drowned out by the clattering of dishes and a waiter shouting an order.
“Go on,” Corrie said.
“The crime’s unsolved. But I’ve stumbled across some information that I’m following up on. Nothing definitive, you understand, but suggestive.”
“Where does Pendergast come in?”
“I’ll get to that in a moment. Here’s the story. About ten years back, the Brodies disappeared. The wife faked suicide, then the husband vanished. A few months ago, they reappeared as if nothing had happened, moved back to Malfourche, and resumed life. She ascribed her fake suicide to marital and job difficulties,