55
Grace, who seldom took Joshua out for walks in his stroller when the South Florida summer sun was blazing down, was standing in the front doorway wondering if the rain was going to hold off long enough for them to cross Kane Concourse, get to the French bakery and dry cleaners on the East Island and home again, when the phone rang.
She hesitated, listened to the machine picking up.
‘Grace, it’s me.’
The voice was a whisper, but it sounded like Claudia, which couldn’t be right, since she was still en route to Seattle, but if her plane had seatback phones . . .
Grace shut the front door, abandoned the baby and ran for the phone.
‘Grace, it’s Claudia, please pick—’
She snatched it up. ‘Sis, I’m here. Are you all right?’
‘Not all right.’ Claudia was barely audible. ‘Grace, I’m at Papa’s.’
‘Why?’ Confusion and the beginnings of anger sent Grace’s voice higher. ‘What the hell happened?’
‘Just listen, for God’s sake.’ Still that inaudible, almost muffled voice. ‘I think something bad’s going on here.’
‘What kind of stuff?’ Realization hit Grace. ‘Is it Jerome?’
‘Grace, you need to—’
The line clicked and died.
‘I’m on my way,’ Sam told her from the Saab. ‘I’ll be home in ten.’
Alvarez had told him to take the day, temporarily turning the Adani lead over to Martinez and assigning Beth Riley to the case till Sam’s return, their first task as temporary partners to check which nightclubs had been open last night near to where Mildred had seen the two men climbing aboard the tandem.
‘I keep trying to get back to her,’ Grace said, ‘but her phone’s switched off.’
‘And you’ve tried your father’s number again?’
‘Still no answer.’ Grace felt sick with fear. ‘Sam, I have such a bad feeling about this.’
Sam trusted his wife’s ‘bad’ feelings. ‘I’m going to make a call to the Cook County Sheriff’s Office,’ he said. ‘Ask them to check it out.’
‘I have to get out to the airport,’ Grace said. ‘I have to get to Chicago, find out what’s going on.’
‘If anyone’s going to Chicago,’ Sam said, ‘it’ll be me.’
‘She’s my—’
‘No argument,’ Sam said.