“Not even Eli?”
“Especially not him,” Pilar said.
That had been hours ago, and now Chelsea was looking around Abby’s bedroom and trying to imagine what Orin Peterson was looking for. A photo? A document? But wouldn’t Abby know that she had either of those?
Unless someone else had hidden it, Chelsea thought. Maybe it was Abby’s dad who’d secreted whatever it was away.
Furniture! she thought. Since both Orin and Abby’s father sold furniture, maybe they knew of some secret compartment.
She turned the light toward Abby’s bed. It was plain wood, painted white, and looked old enough that her father would have seen it. There were round knobs on the four corners, but when she twisted them, they didn’t move. She felt down the square posts, feeling for anything that could conceal a hidden compartment. There was nothing.
Next she’d have to get down and look up under the bed. She had just bent down when a hand went over her mouth.
For a few seconds she struggled and tried to bite the hand.
“It’s me,” Eli said, and removed his hand.
“So all that about going to dinner with Melissa and Jeff was a lie? No government work?”
“I don’t have time to argue with you now. Peterson just parked his car down the road.” He put his hand tightly on her arm and began pulling her toward the back door.
“Damn!” Chelsea said. “He must have sneaked out of the restaurant.” In spite of Eli’s pulling, she didn’t move.
When Eli looked at her in the dim light, he gave a sigh of exasperation. He knew her look of stubbornness so well. She wasn’t leaving. “Oh, hell!” he muttered, then flung the closet door open and practically shoved her inside. He got in beside her and pulled the door closed. “Did you set this up?” he growled through clenched teeth.
“Of course,” she said, unconcerned about his anger. “While you were playing video games with Scully, I arranged with Abby for her to take her mother and ol’ Orin out to dinner on money Abby said she’d saved from her allowance. But then, I thought that tonight you were busy doing something for the president. Something that was so secret that you couldn’t tell me about it.” Her expression told him what she thought of that lie.
As she looked back toward the room, she was glad the closet doors had fixed louvers. They’d be able to see what Peterson did when he got here. She wasn’t worried about his finding her and Eli because she had Abby’s permission to be here. “How did you know I was here?”
“I didn’t at first. But when Jeff texted me that my FBI friend found an empty house, and that you said you couldn’t go to dinner, then Peterson, Abby, and Grace showed up at an expensive restuarant, it didn’t take much to see what you were up to.” They were in the back of the closet, close together in the narrow space. “What do you have on?”
“A black silk shirt,” she said. “Silk against skin is one of the great wonders of the earth.”
“Bet I could get it off,” he said. “And my hands might feel even better than silk.”
They started to kiss but the soft sound of a door opening took them back to why they were here.
When Orin turned on a bedside lamp, they could see him clearly. Just as Chelsea had done, he ran his hands along the bedposts.
The light inside the closet was dim but they could see each other well enough for Chelsea to shake her head no. She’d already looked there.
Orin left the bed and went to the far wall to Abby’s desk. It too was old. He pulled out a drawer, didn’t so much as glance at the contents, but held it up to look at the bottom, the sides, and the back. He examined the front of the drawer, seeming to search for a hidden compartment.
Chelsea made a face at Eli to say that the man was certainly thorough.
Just as Orin slid the drawer back into its slot, the doorbell rang. Instantly, Orin reached under his jacket and pulled out a gun.
Chelsea had to bite her lips to suppress a gasp. It was one thing to be hiding from a man who was trespassing, but another to be caught by a man wielding a gun.
With a look of I-told-you-so, Eli pulled Abby’s heavy winter coat over his head—and Chelsea went under with him.
Eli had his phone in his hand, the wool coat covering the light, and he tapped out a message to Jeff. DIVERSION NEEDED. ABBY’S HOUSE. NH4.
As soon as he sent the message, he lifted the coat from them and looked back at the room. Orin was looking out the window at whoever had rung the doorbell. It rang again, but he made no move to answer it.
After a few minutes they could hear voices and footsteps outside. Whoever had been there was leaving. Orin stepped away from the window, put the gun back in his pants, and started on the second drawer.
In the pretty little restaurant, Jeff and Melissa were having dinner. Since their first meeting they’d rarely been apart. Jeff was staying in the dreary apartment above the sheriff’s office, and Melissa had come up with every excuse possible to be there with him.