“I only caught a few words of that,” Cambry said as they left the office. “Trouble. And a baby. Would you care to translate?”
There was no way Margaret was going to describe what had happened in that motel room. She had been relieved that Lassiter hadn’t shared her background with Cambry before, and this would be even more weird and difficult to explain. “I told that nice little receptionist that I’d thought I’d heard a baby crying for a long time somewhere in one of the rooms in the motel. I said that I was afraid someone had left a baby alone in a room and I wanted to be sure that it was safe. But there don’t appear to be any families registered. I might have been mistaken.”
“You must have been. These walls are paper-thin and I didn’t hear anything.” He was gazing at her curiously. “Can we go to the restaurant now?”
She nodded. “In a couple of minutes.” She took out a Post-it she had stuffed in her pocket. “There are only four other people registered in the motel right now. I have their room numbers.” She was moving quickly down the walkway, looking at the brass numbers on the doors. “I want to make certain it was only my imagination.” She stopped in front of a door. “Room twenty-six. That’s the first one.”
“You’re going to knock and ask questions?”
“No, I only want to listen.”
She stood there, close to the door.
I’m here. Do you need me?
Nothing.
She moved on down the sidewalk to the next door on her list.
Nothing.
At the third door, Cambry said. “Look, if you want to start knocking on these doors, I’ll take the flack if anyone gives you grief about interference or privacy. After all, a baby is a baby.”
But I don’t even know if it is a baby, or if it’s an animal of some sort, she thought ruefully. That cry had been too faint and remote to identify. But she knew that babies in peril arouse instant sympathy, so she had used that knowledge when she had gone to the office to explore possibilities. Threatened animals don’t arouse the same urgency. It had worked with Nita, the receptionist. And it had triggered the same warmth and sympathy in Cambry. She had told Nita she had a good heart, and so did Cambry. She smiled. “I don’t need to talk to anyone. I just want to listen and make sure that I was mistaken about what I heard.” She moved down the walk toward the last door on her list. “You’re right about those thin walls. You should have heard it, if I did.”
“Yeah.” He was watching her with narrowed eyes as she stood before that final door. “Ghosts? Poltergeists?”
She chuckled. “No way. Might have been the pipes in my shower.”
Nothing here, either.
Dammit, I didn’t think you’d be this close, but I don’t have anything else to work on. Help me.
“Are we done?” Cambry asked. “Or are you trying to starve me?”
“We’re done.” She started to cross the motel parking lot toward the diner across the road. “Thanks for being patient.”
“No problem. Toward the end, it was even becoming intriguing. I’ve never felt as if I was communing with a door before.”
And Cambry was no fool. He might not know what was going on, but he suspected it wasn’t what she had told him. She wasn’t going to explain, but she could address the suspicion. “It’s over.” She smiled. “No more doors.”
“Except this one.” He opened the glass door of the diner. “And I refuse to stand in front of it. That red booth over in the corner looks as if it has my name on it. If you promise not to do anything bizarre that will delay my meal any longer, I’ll let you share it. Let’s hope the food is passable.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The diner’s food was passable if you didn’t mind grease and burgers mixed with jalape?os and really good soft tortillas. And the coffee was strong, black, and aromatic, and the waiter kept it coming. They were able to buy two thermal travel mugs at the cashier’s stand and filled them to the brim with that coffee for Lassiter.
Cambry handed Margaret the bag with the sandwich and coffee as they were crossing the parking lot back to the motel. “You give Lassiter his food. You have a better chance of getting him to eat it. Sometimes he doesn’t pay attention to me.”
“He’s a grown man. No one should have to persuade him to do what’s good for him.”
“Right. But he’s going to be working all night and he often forgets to eat.” He made a face. “I sound like a nanny. How humiliating.”
“Yes, you do.” She looked at him. “Why? I know you work for him, but it’s more than that, isn’t it?”
“I told you: I owe him.” He smiled. “I was in Afghanistan with him and I got mixed up with drugs.” His smile ebbed. “When I got out of the service, I was pretty messed up. He got me off them. He stayed with me for six months before he had to report to train for the CIA. He was there for me, watching me, holding me when I had the shakes, yelling at me.…” He met her eyes. “Being a nanny. Which was a hell of lot harder for him than it is for me right now. You can see his temperament is light-years away from that particular vocation.”
“Definitely,” she said drily.
“And that I have to do what I can to repay him?”
“Yes.” She shook her head. “But not by pawning off the nanny duty on me. Not cool, Cambry.”
“He tends to ignore my sage advice. You, on the other hand, are obviously pissed off at him, probably with good reason. Sheer guilt will force him to pay attention to you. Get him to eat the sandwich and drink at least one cup of coffee.”
“No, there’s no way I want to do this.”
“There’s no way I wanted to stroll around the motel and hover like a gargoyle outside those doors.” He paused. “Or watch you at the restaurant tonight going off into space and missing a few lines of my fascinating conversation. It wasn’t me that you were listening to or for at that table this evening.” He nodded at the paper bag. “But if you’ll deliver that food and assure that it’s eaten, I won’t ask questions you clearly don’t want to answer. And I won’t even discuss it with Lassiter and possibly distract him from what’s important for him to do tonight.”
He was very sharp. She hadn’t been aware that her inattention had been so obvious at the restaurant. He had even used the word listening. He had guessed that she was doing the same silent monitoring as she had done outside those doors. Not that it had done any good. There had been no contact there, either. “That sounds a little like blackmail.”
“Perish the thought. It’s only an exchange that will benefit both you and Lassiter.”
“No, it’s not.”