The house seemed chaotic, considering it was just the four of them. Andie was in the kitchen, actually speaking on two phones at once, her cellular and the Wheatleys'. Morgan was continually bopping between her room and Gus's home office, the two free lines. She was sure that staring at the phone would make it ring again, but she couldn't decide which one to watch. Gus trailed after her, letting her burn off the excitement. He gave Carla all the details as they traced the erratic steps of a six-year-old across the house.
Carla asked, "You sure Morgan isn't making this up?" They were standing outside Morgan's bedroom, the door open, keeping an eye on her inside.
"After those shoplifting allegations panned out, I don't have much room to doubt her word anymore."
Morgan hurried past them, then down the hall. Back to Gus's office. Gus and Carla followed at a safe distance behind so that Morgan couldn't overhear.
"Doesn't it scare you that she didn't speak?"
"Of course it does," said Gus.
"I mean, she would have said something. If she could have."
"That's sort of where Agent Henning and I came out." "So . . . why couldn't she?"
They stopped near Gus's office, just off the kitchen. He glanced across the room at Andie on the phone, then looked down, unable to look Carla in the eye. "I have this image in my head."
"Image?"
"I keep seeing Beth on the floor, her hands and feet tied. Crawling to a phone. She knocks it off the hook. Her mouth is gagged, she can't talk. So she pecks out this tune on the key pad."
"That's brilliant," she said, impressed.
He shot a look. "It's horrifying."
A yelp of excitement drew their attention to the kitchen. Andie hung up the phone and hissed out a loud "Yesssssss," like a tennis pro who'd just served an ace. She shouted, "We pegged the call!"
Gus hurried into the kitchen. "Where?"
"It came from Oregon. A pay phone just across the state line."
"A pay phone?" So much for his image of Beth crawling on the floor.
"Yeah. They're on their way to check it out." She pulled on her overcoat and grabbed her car keys. "I'm headed there myself."
"I'm going with you," said Gus.
"You can't. What if another call comes?"
He agonized for a moment but realized she was right. "What if another one does come? What do I do?"
"We've set up a trap and trace on all three house lines now. If a remotely suspicious call comes on any one of them, keep it going as long as you can."
Gus led her to the foyer and opened the front door. "Call me the minute you hear anything."
"I will. But, Gus, please. Try not to drive yourself crazy with worry."
He watched from the top step as she turned and hurried to her car. Too late, he thought as her car sped away. I'm way beyond worried.
Chapter Twenty-Nine.
Andie drove alone to the northernmost nub of western Oregon. In these parts, the irregular path of the Columbia River defined the state line, which accounted for the little pocket of Oregon that protruded into southwestern Washington. Her exact destination was near the city of Rainier, forty miles north of Portland on the Oregon side of the river.
Most of the trip was interstate at high speed. She played no radio, no books on cassette. She was alone with her thoughts, mostly about Beth Wheatley. Her mind did wander somewhat. Exit signs for connections to Route 101 reminded her of the trip she and Rick had taken along the coast, Washington to San Francisco, the long and scenic route. She had hoped it would be romantic, but Rick kept brooding over the fact that she had vetoed his preference for nude beaches in Jamaica. In hindsight, she should have seen the early warning signs of a guy who wanted to put his girlfriend on display, as if to show the rest of the world what he was getting. So intent was he on going that it took a threat to settle the matter. She vowed to dissolve copious quantities of Viagra--the miracle age for impotence--into his pina coladas. Rick backed off immediately. Nothing was more uncool than a cheesy-grinned tourist on a nude beach with a permanent erection.
The gray fog thickened as she crossed the bridge over the Columbia River, a far cry from sunny Jamaican beaches. Rain fell, then stopped, then started again as she drove through Rainier to a more remote area outside town. According to her technical agents, the call to Morgan's line had come from a pay phone along the highway. A public rest area, to be exact, just west of Rainier and situated at the foot of a forested preserve. She hadn't mentioned anything to Gus, but a pay phone was the last place she had expected the trace to have led them. With three dead women who looked so much like her, the thought of Beth Wheatley at a pay phone punching out "Mary Had a Little Lamb" just didn't add up.
Unless by some miracle she had escaped.
Rain gathered on the windshield, and the image in her mind was suddenly vivid. A desperate woman leaping from her captor's van as it rounded the corner. The rough pavement ripping at her flesh as she rolled into the parking lot. The mad dash to the pay phone, her attacker in pursuit. Her hands shaking as she frantically punched the buttons. The excitement of the call going through. The frustration of finding she couldn't respond to her own daughter's voice, couldn't speak at all. A gag, possibly. Or a rope around her neck. Her attacker grabbing her, pulling her back toward the van, but she hangs on long enough to bang out a tune her daughter would recognize.