“But it will take time,” I said.
“Yes.”
“And whatever opening we have here, it will close. The cops will pursue it their own way. Even if they can help, even if they believe us, they’ll make a lot of noise.”
“One more thing,” she said.
“What?”
“The kidnappers set us up. They knew about the Q-Logger.”
“We figured that out already.”
“But now I’m wondering, Marc. How did they find it?”
I looked up, remembering the warning in the ransom note. “A leak?”
“I wouldn’t rule it out anymore.”
We both started toward the car. I put my hand on her arm. She was still bleeding. Her eye was almost swollen shut now. I looked at her, and again something primitive took over: I wanted to protect her. “If we run, it’ll make us look guilty,” I said. “I don’t mind that—I don’t have anything to lose here—but what about you?”
Her voice was soft. “I don’t have anything to lose either.”
“You need a doctor,” I said.
Rachel almost smiled. “Aren’t you one?”
“True enough.”
There was no time to discuss the pros and cons. We had to act. We got into Zia’s car. I swerved it around and headed out the back way, the Woodland Road exit. Thoughts—rational, clear thoughts—were starting to filter in now. When I really considered where we were and what we were doing, the truth nearly crushed me. I almost pulled over. Rachel saw it.
“What?” she said.
“Why are we running?”
“I don’t understand.”
“We hoped to find my daughter or at least who did this to her. We said there was a small opening.”
“Yes.”
“But don’t you see? The opening, if there ever really was one, is gone. That guy back there is dead. We know he’s foreign, but so what? We don’t know who he is. We’ve reached a dead end. We don’t have any other clues.”
There was suddenly a trace of mischief on Rachel’s face. She reached into her pocket and pulled something into a view. A cell phone. It wasn’t mine. It wasn’t hers. “Maybe,” she said, “we do.”
Chapter 34
“First thing,” Rachelsaid, “we need to get rid of this car.”
“The car,” I said, shaking my head at the damage. “If this search doesn’t kill me, Zia will.”
Rachel managed another smile. We were in the zone now, so deep in, so far past scared that we had found a little quiet. I debated where we should go, but really there was only one alternative.
“Lenny and Cheryl,” I said.
“What about them?”
“They live four blocks from here.”
It was five in the morning. Dark had begun to surrender to the inevitable. I dialed Lenny’s home number and hoped that he hadn’t gone back to the hospital. He answered on the first ring and barked a hello.
“I got a problem,” I said.
“I hear sirens.”
“That would be part of the problem.”
“The police called me,” he said. “After you took off.”
“I need your help.”
“Is Rachel with you?” he asked.
“Yes.”
There was an awkward silence. Rachel fiddled with the dead man’s cell phone. I had no idea what she was looking for. Then Lenny said, “What are you trying to do here, Marc?”
“Find Tara. Are you going to help me or not?”
Now there was no hesitation. “What do you need?”
“To hide the car we’re using and borrow another.”
“And then what are you going to do?”
I turned the car to the right. “We’ll be there in a minute. I’ll try to explain it to you then.”
Lenny wore a pair of old gray sweatpants, the kind with the tie waist, a pair of slippers, and a Big Dog T-shirt. He pressed a button and the garage door slid to a smooth close as soon as we entered. Lenny looked exhausted, but then again, I don’t think Rachel and I were ready for our close-ups either.
When Lenny saw the blood on Rachel, he took a step back. “What the hell happened?”
“Do you have any bandages?” I asked.
“Cabinet over the kitchen sink.”
Rachel still had the cell phone in her hand. “I need to get on the Internet,” she said.
“Look,” Lenny said, “we have to discuss this.”
“Discuss it with him,” Rachel said. “I need Web access.”
“In my office. You know where it is.”
Rachel hurried inside. I followed, staying in the kitchen. She continued on to the den. We both knew this house well. Lenny stayed with me. They had recently renovated the kitchen into something French Farmesque and added a second refrigerator because four kids ate like four kids. The fronts of both fridges were overloaded with artwork and family photos and a brightly colored alphabet. The new one had one of those magnetic poetry sets. The wordsI STAND ALONE AROUND THE SEA ran down the handle. I started going through the cabinet over the sink.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?”
I found Cheryl’s first aid kit and pulled it out. “There was a shooting at our house.”
I gave him the bare bones, opening the first aid kit and checking the supplies. There’d be enough in here for now. I finally glanced at him. Lenny just gaped at me. “You ran away from a murder scene?”
“If I stayed, what would have happened?”
“The police would have picked you up.”
“Exactly.”
He shook his head and kept his voice low. “They don’t think you did it anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“They think it was Rachel.”
I blinked, not sure how to react.
“Has she explained those photos to you?”
“Not yet,” I said. Then, “I don’t understand. How did they figure it was Rachel?”
Lenny rapidly outlined a theory involving jealousy and rage and my forgetting key moments before the shooting. I stood there too stunned to respond. When I did, I said, “That’s nuts.”
Lenny did not reply.
“That guy with the flannel shirt just tried to kill us.”
“And what ended up happening to him?”
“I told you. Someone else was with him. He was shot.”
“You saw someone else?”
“No. Rachel . . .” I saw where he was going. “Come on, Lenny. You know better.”