“Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’ve been trying to call you for a couple of days.”
“Really?” She pressed the phone closer to her ear as if it could solve the mystery. “I didn’t notice any recent calls from you. Were you using your cell phone?”
“Yes! Listen, I…” A murmur of distant voices floated in the background and Anna’s words got softer. “This isn’t a good time. Can I call you back?”
“Yeah, I just wanted to catch up. And I wanted to know if you think—”
“I’ve got to go!”
Anna hung up without saying goodbye, but not before a man’s unfriendly voice came through loud and clear. “All right, Ms. Fenton,” he said, just before the sound of a heavy door clapping shut was cut off by the line going dead.
It probably had something to do with work. Of course it did. So why did that voice send shivery fingers of dread down Chloe’s spine?
All right, Ms. Fenton. Chloe stared at the dead face of the phone. Hadn’t she heard that voice just a week before? You’re free to go, Ms. Turner.
The man’s name was Detective Jackson. He was the lead investigator in the case against Thomas. He’d questioned all of them. Chloe and Jenn and even Chloe’s mom and dad.
Why was Anna there now? She must know something. Something about Thomas or Chloe. Or Jenn. What could she possibly know?
Chloe knew the answer was just below the surface, waiting to be teased out, but she kept her fingers tightly curled. She’d find out on Monday. Monday would be soon enough.
Monday would be the day her life would start over. Or at least that was what she kept telling herself at night when she couldn’t sleep.
When her stomach growled, Chloe realized that the panic had passed for the moment. She could sneak back into her house and stick a frozen meal in the microwave and get a little work done.
Her boss was letting her work from home for a while, mostly because he’d been supremely irritated by the photographers outside the front door of the office. After this all died down, Chloe was pretty sure she’d be let go. Her work had gotten sloppy. Her boss was an old-school, no-nonsense accountant. He didn’t find this little media frenzy at all exciting.
Chloe crawled back through her door and slammed it behind her. For one heartbeat, she thought she’d broken the pane of glass in the door, but the sharp, musical sound went on too long and she realized that her phone was ringing. It was the landline, which hadn’t been tracked down by the press yet, because it was under her landlady’s name. Only a few people had that number…
She raced for the receiver and answered with a breathless hello.
“May I please speak with Chloe?”
Max’s phone voice was a little different from his regular voice, softened with a touch more Virginia twang.
“It’s me. Hi, Max.”
“Hey, there, Chloe. How are you doing?”
“Great,” she answered, only a little irony peeking through.
“I don’t want to be weird…”
“Okay.” A smile tugging at her face, she raised a curious eyebrow.
“I was worried about you.”
“That’s okay, too.”
“So I thought I’d come by and see how you’re doing. But maybe this is a bad time?”
A bad time? Her pulse surged into overdrive, heart beating so hard it should’ve hurt. But it didn’t hurt at all. “Right now?”
“I just checked into a hotel downtown. Is that near you?”
“It’s not far. But it’s hard for me to get away before dark. The, uh, cameras…” Wow, could she be a worse date?