I, Richard - Elizabeth George [66]
Sharon guided Charlie across the lobby, not to the heavy door through which she herself had emerged but rather to a less secure door that led to a cafeteria-style room that was, at this time of day, deserted. She made no preamble when they got inside. She said tersely, “You've figured it out. Someone must have phoned your house. Did they leave a name? A number I can call?”
“Someone searched my house,” Charlie said. “Someone tore it apart. After you were there.”
“What?” Sharon glanced around hastily. “This is serious trouble. We can't talk here, then. The walls have ears. If you'll give me the name, I'll contact them myself. It's what Eric would've wanted.”
“I don't have any name.” Charlie was feeling hot now, and she was growing confused. “I thought you had it. I assumed that because when you came to the house and then left with nothing and then the house was searched again… What were you looking for? Whose name? All I have is the…”She couldn't bring herself to say it, so horrible and low it seemed to her that her husband—a man she had adored and had thought she knew— had actually stolen from his employer. “I want to return the money,” she said in a rush before she could think of an excuse not to speak.
Sharon said, “What money?”
“I've got to return it because they're not going to let up if I don't. Whoever they are. They've searched the house once, and they'll be back. No one puts out that kind of money without expecting … what do you want to call it?… the goods?”
“But that's not how it works,” Sharon said. “They never pay. So if there's money somewhere—”
“Who are they?” Charlie heard her voice grow louder as her anxiety increased. “How do I contact them?”
Sharon said, “Ssshhhh. Please. Look, we can't talk here.”
“But you came to my house. You searched. You were looking—”
“For their names. Don't you see? I didn't know who Eric was talking to. He just said that it was CBS. But CBS where? LA? New York? Was it Sixty Minutes or just the local news?”
Charlie stared at her. “Sixty Minutes?”
“Keep your voice down! Good grief! I'm on the line here, about six steps away from losing my job or going to jail or who the hell knows what else, and then what good will I be to anyone?” She looked to the doorway, as if expecting a camera crew to come barreling through. “Look, you've got to leave.”
“Not till you tell me—”
“I'll meet you in an hour. In San Juan. Los Rios district. D'you know it? Behind the Amtrak station. There's a tea place there. I don't know the name, but you'll see it when you cross the tracks. Turn to the right. It's on the left. Okay? An hour. I can't talk here.”
She shoved Charlie toward the door of the coffee room and quickly walked her back to reception. In the lobby she said heartily, “You've saved me about ten days of work. I can't thank you enough,” and she strong-armed her right out into the sunlight, where she said, “An hour,” in a low voice before disappearing back into the building where the door clicked shut behind her.
Charlie stared at the darkened glass, feeling her body like an unwieldy weight that she was supposed to propel to her car in some way. She tried to assimilate what Sharon had said—CBS, 60 Minutes, the local news—and she set the information next to what had happened and what she already knew. But none of it made sense. She felt like a passenger on the wrong airplane without a passport to show at her destination.
She stumbled to her car. The shivers came upon her there, so badly that she couldn't for a moment get the key into the ignition. But she finally managed to steady one hand with the other and in this manner, she started the engine.
Back down the drive and onto the highway, she wove her way in the direction of the coast. As she drove, she thought about all the things she'd heard about this stretch of road in the years she'd been in Southern California: how it was the ideal place for dumping bodies, frequented by such notable serial killers as Randy Kraft; how contract killings took place in its pull-outs and abandoned vehicles were set fire to in the gullies