But as she was pulling away, he clamped his free hand over the back of her head, and kissed her as though his life depended on it. It was hungry, and hard, and over almost before she realized it had happened.

He pushed her into the elevator. “For a long time, I’m gonna wish I’d gotten inside your clothes.”

He released the door.

When it reopened on the third floor, Brynn’s lips were still throbbing, and Rye’s parting words echoing in her mind. Later, she would dwell on what might have been between them, if only things had been different. If only he and she had been different. But there was more to regret than she had time for now.

She started down the corridor. The doors to all the private quarters were shut. No one was in the snack room or the communal parlor. As she got closer to the room at the end of the hall, butterflies took flight in her tummy, not because of the risk she was taking, but because of the joy she was about to bring to Violet and her family.

She tapped lightly on the door. The attendant on duty opened it and stepped out into the hallway. “Dr. O’Neal.”

Brynn smiled pleasantly and acted as though she always showed up here looking completely exhausted and disheveled, dressed in yesterday’s clothing. “Hello, Abby. How was your Thanksgiving? Did you have to work all day?”

“No. I came on at four this afternoon. How was yours?”

She smiled wanly. “Not at all customary.”

“I’m surprised to see you here tonight.”

“I wanted to check on Violet, ask what kind of day she had.”

The young woman’s smile wavered. “Oh. I thought you would have heard.”

8:01 p.m.

Rye stood staring at the elevator door long after it had shut out his last look at Brynn. He didn’t move away until his cell phone vibrated. It was Dash.

Rye answered querulously. “Is this my wake-up call?”

“You in bed?”

“Yeah.”

“How’s the hotel?”

“To be honest, haven’t really noticed. It’s got a rack. That’s all that matters.”

“And you’re in it?”

“Isn’t that what I said?”

“Yeah, but you’re lying.”

Rye was surprised that Dash knew that, but he tried to act annoyed. “You’re having me tailed, or what?”

“Do I have reason to?”

Rye swore silently. “Okay. Busted. Why’re you calling? Another job?”

“No. I just hung up from an enlightening chat with a Deputy Sheriff Williams.”

“Wilson?”

“Whatever.”

Rye put his back to the wall and rested his head against it. “What did he want? That mess in Howardville has been cleared up.”

“He wanted to know did I know where you were, because he ain’t in Howardville, and that ‘mess’ hasn’t been cleared up at all. He found blood on the floor of a parking garage in downtown Atlanta, and has a movie of you doing a Jackie Chan impersonation on a kid with a knife.”

Rye pinched the bridge of his nose hard enough to bring tears to his eyes. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

“Guess that answers if it’s true or not.”

He could feature the workout Dash was giving his cigar. For this occasion, he might have lit it. “Listen, Dash, I don’t know why Wilson called you—”

“Only contact they had for you.”

Rye thought of his parents, and his stomach bottomed out. “You didn’t give Wilson any next-of-kin info, did you?”

“Hell, no, I played a regular dunce. But I’d kinda like to know what I’m covering you for. Felony or a misdemeanor?”

“Vengeance. That kid with the knife was the one who zapped me with the laser.”

“Figured that might be it. But how was it that he was your ride to Atlanta?”

“Wilson knew about that?”

“Oh, yeah. The man’s a wizard. He knows all about you and the lady doctor shacking up in a low-rent cabin, about these two heavies hauling you outta there in a black Mercedes, and delivering you to Dr. Lambert. Who, Wilson said, was none too happy to learn that she had lied to him, obviously so she could run off with you again.

“They know that’s how come she lied because Wilson and APD have another movie of you, this one of you and Dr. O’Neal rendezvousing in the parking garage. Not all that tenderly, though. Wilson said it looked to him like she was reluctant to go with you at first, but that you succeeded in luring her out.”

“Hardly luring.”

“What would you call it? Coercing? Strong-arming? Kidnapping? If I was you, I’d settle for luring.”

Rye ignored everything except the fact that Wilson and Rawlins had tracked Brynn and him to Atlanta. If they had security camera video of what had taken place on the third and ground levels of the garage, it probably wouldn’t be long before they got the tag number of the Uber car that had taken them to the hotel.

“Dash, did you give Wilson this phone number?”

“No.”

“Or tell him about the hotel you booked for me?”

“Played dumb about everything. Are you at the hotel now?”

“No.”

“Huh. I thought maybe you and the doctor were availing yourselves of—”

“No.”

“Then where are you?”

Rye didn’t respond.

Dash said, “You’re not going to tell me diddly, are you?”

“If Wilson comes back to you and applies pressure, you can truthfully say you don’t know anything.”

“Just tell me if you’re okay. You were the one bleeding in that garage.”

“The guy cut my hand, but not bad. I got my revenge.”

“You didn’t castrate him.”

“Next worst thing. I’m done there.”

“That altercation, that’s all this deputy has on you?”

“I swear.”

After a significant pause, Dash said, “Not to his way of thinking.”

Rye had never heard Dash speak in such a solemn tone. “What’s his way of thinking?”

“He didn’t lay it out, but he dropped hints.”

“Like?”

“Like the condition of the man from the airstrip has been downgraded from guarded to serious.”

Rye groaned. “Brain bleed?”

“Wilson said his heart’s gone wonky.”

“How bad?”

“They don’t know yet. But Wilson wants to talk to you again.”

“As a material witness or a culprit?”

“Didn’t say, but he threw out the word ‘manslaughter’ and let it hover.”

Rye rubbed his brow. “What else?”

“He dropped a bombshell of a name on me.”

“Let me guess. Senator Richard Hunt.”

In a gruff and angry undertone, Dash said, “What the fuck, Rye? You couldn’t make an enemy who has a little less clout?”

“It’s too long a story to tell now, Dash, and it has nothing to do with me except that the shitheads who wrecked your plane and tried to scrub me are on Hunt’s payroll.”

“What’s a senator got against you?”

“Wasn’t about me. It was about the cargo.”

“Wilson kept referring to that black box. What’s with that?”

“You won’t hear it from me.”

“Then you’ll never climb into another of my cockpits!”

“Until tomorrow.”

He could hear Dash’s fuming breathing, the squishy chomping on his cigar, but by the time he spoke again, he’d calmed down a bit. “What about her?”

He could only be referring to Brynn. “Nothing about her, all right?” Dash waited him out. Rye glanced at the elevator, then added softly, “I’m done there, too.”

Dash didn’t say anything, and when the silence became uncomfortable, Rye yielded and spoke first. He asked if he was still booked on the flight to Columbus the following evening. Dash confirmed that and asked Rye what he intended to do in the meantime.

“Wilson and Rawlins—that’s his partner—don’t have anything on me, but they could delay me getting out of here tomorrow night. I’ll stay under the radar until my flight. I need the bunk time anyway.”

“How long’s it been?”

“Long.” Before Dash could tear into him about his lack of sleep, he said, “My phone’s almost out of juice. I’ll check in with you in the morning.”

“You still want the first thing that comes up?”

“You read my mind.”

He clicked off and started down the empty corridor, his boot heels striking loudly in the hollowness. The guard was absorbed in what he was watching on TV.

Even more so than before. Because when he heard Rye approaching, he turned around. A wide, proud grin spread across his otherwise basset hound face. “Hey, look. I’m on TV.”

When Rye reached the table, he stopped. “What?”

“News was delayed on account of a ball game, but see?”

The guard chuckled as he pointed himself out on the screen, which showed a wide shot of a moderate crowd of people. Rye recognized the backdrop as the courtyard he and Brynn had walked through only minutes before, the building in the background.

The guard stood out in the crowd because he was in uniform when everyone else was wearing civilian clothing or white lab coats.

Rye had difficulty making sense or lending credibility to the voice-over commentary. The captions superimposed across the bottom of the screen seemed just as nonsensical. But, gradually, he began to piece together a story that filled him with disbelief and anguish.

The guard said, “I guess I shouldn’t be lettin’ on about myself, when it’s all about Violet. Sweet kid.”

He was talking to himself. Rye was already running back toward the elevator.

Chapter 21

8:08 p.m.