Until Dark - Mariah Stewart [32]
The ring of the telephone startled her, and she sat up with a jolt and reached for it.
“Hello?”
“I’m sorry,” the pleasant male voice on the other end of the line apologized. “I must have dialed the wrong room number.”
“That’s all right.” Kendra hung up the phone, then looked down at her watch. It was close to six.
She snapped on the remote and pulled up the channel menu, searching for the local news. She wanted to see how the case had been presented and how her sketch looked.
The pretty blond reporter led with the story, and, Kendra nodded, did a fine job with it.
There was the press conference with the state police, the FBI, and the chiefs of police from several local towns who’d been brought in to assist in the search of the park in Walnut Crossing. Kendra could see Adam standing off to one side, slightly behind Miranda Cahill. He leaned over and whispered something in Miranda’s ear, and she tilted her pretty head slightly, nodding solemnly without taking her eyes from the speaker.
A little surge of something—something mean and green—shot through Kendra. She swatted at it and tried to ignore it as best she could.
Adam doesn’t owe me anything, she reminded herself sternly. We’re friends. Just friends. We work on an occasional case together. That’s all.
“Damn it,” she couldn’t help but add aloud.
The tape that had been shot earlier of Kendra holding her composite drawing now took center stage, and she pushed aside her pique and leaned forward to see the face she’d drawn as others would see it. She was grateful that the camera had not lingered on her. She hadn’t realized how severe, how businesslike she appeared in her dark blue suit and crisp white cotton shirt. Only the small gold cross resting in the hollow of her neck lent any touch of warmth to her image.
It was a good sketch, though, she acknowledged, and true to the images the witnesses had presented to her. As true as her art could make it. And that, not how she looked on camera, was the only thing that really mattered.
She wondered if he—the man whose face was held on the screen—was watching, wherever he was. If he recognized himself in the sketch. If he was surprised by the accuracy of the likeness. If it frightened him to know that his secret—his face—had been revealed for all to see. Would it make him careless now? Angry?
The joint task force that had been formed to investigate the matter was announced. Four FBI agents were named. Adam and Miranda were the only ones Kendra recognized.
She turned off the television and picked up the phone, dialing the front desk, and requested assistance in renting a car.
“Yes, tonight . . . whatever you can get on short notice would be fine. Yes, I’ll be here.”
Next she called Adam’s room and left the message that she’d rented a car to drive home and had left the keys to the Audi at the front desk in an envelope.
“Thanks anyway,” she added, lest she sound too strident. “I appreciate your offer, but it’s probably a waste of your time for you to drive all the way to my place just to pick up your car. It isn’t as if you don’t have other things to do. Well, I guess I’ll see you next time. Thanks again . . .”
What was the point in staying another night? she asked herself as she began to pack her things. The job she’d been hired to do was done. And Adam? Well, he had more important things to do. Driving his car to Smith’s Forge was silly when he’d have need of it here. The fact that she had gotten the impression he wanted to see her again, well, she could be wrong about that. So all in all, it was better that she leave, alone, now, before she got in the way of the investigation.
And besides, she thought as she tossed her belongings into her suitcase, if Adam found his way back to Smith’s Forge, she wanted it to be for a reason other than to pick up his car.
“Hey, Selena!” Kendra called from her kitchen window. It had been less than forty