Jeff’s shout from the landing brought them instantly to their feet.
“What?”
Jeff looked down at Knight with scorn. “What part didn’t you understand? She’s not up here,” he shouted, flinging his arms wide. “Anywhere. The balcony door is open.”
The first thing that sprang to Jack’s mind was suicide. Even a jump from a second story could be fatal if it had enough purpose behind it. He charged up the stairs, pushed Jeff out of his way, and crossed the room in only a few strides. He stepped out onto the balcony and leaned over the railing, checking the parking lot below.
“I’ve already looked,” Jeff said. “She’s not down there. If she jumped, she survived.”
Knight, having run out the front door and around the unit, came into view, huffing with exertion. “See anything?”
Jack scanned the parking lot and beyond, looking for a telltale motion, when the whole damn landscape was a kaleidoscope of snow and shifting fog. “Dammit!” He banged his fist on the railing, then turned away to reenter the room. In the act of doing so, he noticed that the door to the neighboring balcony was also open. The room beyond it was in darkness.
“Cover the front,” he yelled down to Knight.
Throwing his leg over the low stucco wall separating the two balconies, he approached the dark bedroom, wondering if he was about to intrude upon someone who liked to sleep with the window open even with a stiff north wind blowing.
But the bed was neatly made and appeared untouched.
He entered the suite, which was a mirror image to the one occupied by Emory and Jeff. He went through the bedroom, walked out onto the landing, and flipped on the light fixture above the staircase, ready to ID himself as a federal officer if he surprised someone below. But the lower floor was vacant, too, and the door to the suite…
The locking mechanism had been popped out and lay on the floor.
“Same trick as on the door to the doctor’s office,” Knight said as he pushed open the door from the other side and walked in, having approached the suite from the front.
“Son of a bitch! Son of a bitch!”
Jeff came up behind Knight, but Jack noticed that he’d taken time to put on his jacket before joining them. His eyes on Jack, he said, “That’s all you have to say? Son of a bitch? What page do you find that on in the FBI training manual?”
Having had enough of him, Jack closed the distance between them. He poked Jeff in the chest with his index finger, the blow only barely buffered by the thick quilted fabric of his fancy jacket.
“Listen, asshole, if you’d gone up there immediately to see about your wife, chances are very good that she’d still be here.”
“You can’t blame this on me. It’s apparent that your fugitive has kidnapped Emory for the second time.”
“Nothing’s apparent. While we try to find out what happened to her, there’s something you should keep in mind.”
Jeff arched a brow. “Oh?”
“If Hayes Bannock has your wife, you probably top his shit list. Be afraid.”
* * *
Hayes had helped her over the low wall separating the balconies. They’d scrambled through the neighboring suite and out the door.
She was almost giddy with disbelief over what she was doing. She was fleeing into the unknown with a man being sought in connection with a mass shooting. Yet she felt much safer with him than she had with the law enforcement officers who were now kowtowing to Jeff for having suspected him of murder.
Placing her hand in Hayes’s and escaping with him had been instinctual. She had no reason whatsoever to trust that instinct, but she did. She ran with it. Literally.
Silently, and half blinded by blowing snow, they sprinted between buildings and across streets. Finally, they left the commercial area and entered a residential neighborhood that was notably run-down. Dogs barked at them from behind chain-link fences, but no one came out to check on the nature of the disturbance.
They didn’t slow down until they reached a midsize sedan parked at the edge of a rutted street. The model of the car was too old for a remote. Hayes used the key to unlock the passenger door. Without questioning him, she slid into the seat and buckled herself in as he rounded the hood and got in behind the wheel.
As Connell had predicted, he’d ditched his truck.
Staying off the main roads, keeping to streets that wound through neighborhoods, he drove carefully and within the speed limit, gradually increasing the distance between them and the suite hotel.
He’d told her he’d been successful at evading capture, and once again he was proving himself to be true to his word.