read off names. “I can do that, too. But why don’t you take the easy route and just ask her where these people are?”
He didn’t answer, and his silence made her pen stop its furious chicken-scratching. “Oh,” she said as understanding dawned. “She’s not there, is she?”
“Bingo.”
“What did you do to her?”
“Why do you assume it’s something I did?”
She smiled again. “Wild guess.”
“Well, on this one you’re wrong.” There was definitely a defensive tone to his answer. And it made Hailey sure there was more he wasn’t saying. A lot more.
Not that that was any of her business, though it was an interesting twist of events. Pete the ultimate bachelor had the hots for some wily Egyptologist, and she’d just ditched his ass for greener pastures. No wonder he was pissed.
“I’ll look them up for you,” she said to cut the guy a break. “Anything else?”
“Yeah.” He hesitated. “I could use a plane.”
Her brow shot up. “You want to take the Roarke Resorts’ Bombardier for a test flight while the bad guys are out there tailing your girl?”
“It’s not for a test flight,” he said. “I need to find her. Fast.”
Whoever this Katherine Meyer was, she’d done one helluva number on Peter Kauffman. “I don’t know,” Hailey teased, leaning back in her chair. “I could get into serious trouble appropriating company resources for private use like that. It goes against Roarke Resorts’ company policy.”
“Screw company policy. Like you’ve never broken the rules before?”
“Me?” She feigned shock. “I’m a police officer, Kauffman.”
“Was a police officer, Roarke. And not a very good one to begin with. Look, can I have the goddamn plane or not? I don’t have time to charter my own, and I don’t have a fucking clue where I’m headed yet.”
Desperate. Oh, yeah. He was seriously fucked.
“Relax. Don’t get your panties in a bunch. Of course you can use it. I’ll call right now and have Steve fly up to Philly. He’ll take you wherever you need to go.” She dropped the teasing since it wasn’t doing much to lighten his mood and steered back to what was important. “Where will you be in an hour? I can probably get everything you need by then.”
“I’m not sure.” He hesitated. “Tell you what, I’ll call you. It’ll give me time to get a disposable phone and do a little research on my end.”
“Okay. Will do. And Pete?”
“Yeah?”
“She was wrong. Not to trust you. You’re one of the most dependable men I know.”
He was quiet so long, she wasn’t sure he was still there. Then she heard static, and his voice, filled with something that sounded oddly like regret. “Yeah, well, I never gave her many reasons to trust me.”
Before she could ask what that meant, his voice hardened. “I’ll call you in an hour, Hailey. And thanks.”
Then he was gone.
Hailey set the receiver down and stared at the notes she’d just made. She had roughly sixty minutes to do all the things Pete needed done in addition to running background checks on Katherine Meyer, David Halloway and Aten Minyawi. She’d definitely heard that last name before, she just couldn’t remember where.
As she reached for the phone again, she briefly remembered her father’s lawyer was sitting outside waiting to see her. Screw it. He could just go on waiting. She had more important things to worry about than Daddy’s will. There would always be tomorrow.
Kat stared out the bus window as she passed through the quiet streets of suburban Raleigh, North Carolina. Dusk was just settling in, and her butt hurt from the hours she’d spent on the Greyhound that had brought her here.
She’d switched to a Capital Area Transit bus once she’d reached Raleigh and was now tooling through North Raleigh on her way to the Brentwood neighborhood she’d marked on her handy little map. She seriously hoped the address she had for Charles Latham was still correct. It had been six years. It was possible he’d moved. Or died.
She prayed it wasn’t the latter. Of the four other archaeologists who had worked the tomb with her in Cairo, he was the only one left alive. A chill spread down her spine at the thought, but she pushed it aside. Car accident, heart attack, stroke—all normal ways to die. All ways that didn’t attract attention or cause questions. Even for men in their forties and fifties.
Convenient.
Too convenient as far as Kat was concerned. She’d kept tabs on everyone for safety reasons over the years. And when her colleagues had mysteriously