but they appeared behind us when we started for the museum.”
They’d gone to the air-conditioning parts manufacturer Fiona worked for, only to hear that three weeks ago, a man had called, claiming to be her brother, asking for extended leave for her, citing a family emergency. However, the manager hadn’t been able to get in touch with her after that and she’d been fired.
Who had called? It obviously wasn’t Clay. That may be why the police hadn’t followed up on the missing person’s report—if they checked with Fiona’s company, the manager had heard from her and so there wasn’t a problem, at least at the time Mary notified them of her disappearance.
Perhaps that had been the point of calling in to Fiona’s workplace—to forestall the filing of the report. Joslyn and Clay had exchanged tense looks. Did someone have Fiona?
They’d spoken to a couple of her coworkers who had been outside for a smoke break, but they hadn’t learned much—Fiona apparently wasn’t close with anyone at work, even though she’d been working there about fifteen months. It had seemed like a dead end.
But Joslyn remembered that Fiona often visited art museums in Los Angeles. She’d been friends with the guards at the museum and had formed friendships with other people who visited the museum regularly, mostly artists and critics. Clay had agreed that she’d done the same in Chicago, when she had lived with him in the years during college and after she’d graduated. So they’d left Joslyn’s car in the business parking lot and headed to the largest art museum in Phoenix, the Kevin Tran Museum of Art and Art History.
But they apparently weren’t alone.
Were their pursuers aiming to finish the job, since the explosion at Fiona’s house hadn’t gotten rid of them, or did they simply want to question Joslyn and Clay? “I wonder if they want to stop us from finding Fiona, or if they think we know where she is,” Joslyn said.
“It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to stop and ask them.” Clay signaled and switched lanes.
Joslyn had been in this exact situation barely a year ago, running from her ex-boyfriend, nervously looking behind her to make sure she wasn’t followed. Feeling as if her life wasn’t her own anymore. She had thought she’d put those days behind her, yet here she was again. “Phoenix is a grid. How are you going to lose them?”
“I have to get onto a freeway.”
He got onto the 101 almost casually, as if he’d always meant to head in that direction, and moved into the leftmost lane. He then slowed down, and soon the white Taurus was directly behind them. Clay was driving so slowly in the fast lane that cars were passing them on the right, and the Taurus couldn’t stay hidden. There were two men in the sedan, both with sunglasses on. The shorter one had curly, dark hair, while the other had close-cropped, dark hair. They also both had identical frowns.
“They know you’re on to them,” she said.
“It won’t matter in a moment. Hang on.” He cranked the wheel hard to the right and cut off an SUV. Its driver honked at them as Clay swerved right again and cut off a Toyota. He then zoomed right in front of a Mustang in the freeway exit lane only a few feet before it split from the highway, separated by a concrete divider. Joslyn knew the circumstances were extreme, but the sight of the cars looming so close in front of them made her heart shoot up to her throat.
His aggressive driving had carried them too quickly across the lanes for the Taurus to keep up. The driver couldn’t make it to the right hand lane in time to exit, and Joslyn saw both men glaring at them as they were forced to continue on the freeway.
“You lost them.” Joslyn had always been rather cautious behind the wheel, trying not to annoy anyone around her. Clay had cut off three cars in fewer than three seconds.
“Not yet.” Clay wove his way through the traffic and began driving in random circles.
He was a good driver, his motions controlled and precise, the car moving smoothly, almost effortlessly through traffic. But there was tension radiating from the corners of his eyes as he glanced in his rearview mirrors.
Joslyn kept an eye out behind them, also, and her heartbeat continued to gallop in her chest as she waited to see if the white Taurus or some other car would suddenly appear. But after several miles, she never saw the same car twice.
Clay finally nodded. “I think we did lose them.”
“How did they find us? Why are they following us?” She didn’t like not knowing. “Are you sure they followed us from her workplace?”
“They could have followed us from her house and we just didn’t see them,” Clay said. “Although I don’t like the thought that they were watching us the entire time.”
“I don’t, either.” It made her feel vulnerable, right when she had been working so hard to get back control in her life.
Clay’s mouth grew hard. “Maybe they were the ones who rigged her house to explode and they were waiting to see who would show up.”
For a moment, he looked so much like her ex-boyfriend that Joslyn had to look away. Tomas had hated being trapped by other men, and it had brought out an ugly side of him. He’d had many ugly sides.
She took a deep breath. That chapter in her life was over. Tomas was in jail. She was safe. She had been doing everything in her power to make sure she stayed safe.
Except that it hadn’t saved her from walking into this situation. “If they did rig her house to explode, they either wanted to kill her or anyone after her.”
“I don’t think anyone would expend manpower to watch an empty house for weeks, just to make sure the explosion killed someone looking for Fiona,” Clay said. “If they were staking out the house, it’s because they want to find Fiona, dead or alive.”
“So Fiona might be alive. On the run.”
“Let’s hope so. But if those men weren’t staking out the house already, it could mean they followed one of us to Fiona’s house.”
Joslyn thought back to what she’d had to do to find Fiona’s address. Had her digging around alerted someone that she was after Fiona? But who? What in the world had Fiona gotten into? “Did you have any idea Fiona was in serious trouble like this?” Joslyn asked.
He shook his head slowly. “I hadn’t talked to her in years. I didn’t even know where she’d gone after she left Chicago. I tried to find her but then...”
He’d gone to prison. Joslyn wondered why Fiona hadn’t reached out to him, especially when it seemed that he still loved her. Fiona hadn’t indicated there had been any bad blood or grudges between them, so why hadn’t she wanted to see her brother again?
“I didn’t know, either,” Joslyn said. “Fiona was just like any other girl when I knew her in Los Angeles, going to classes, hanging out with friends. Except...” She thought back. “She seemed a little sad sometimes, but I knew her mother had died and she didn’t like to talk about her father. I thought she just missed her mom.”
“She and Mom were close,” Clay said quietly.
“I still can’t get over the job she got here in Phoenix. She was qualified for a position that paid so much more.”
“She
