Part 2
“What key?” Claire said again, though the line was already dead.
Deputy Ortiz took the phone and checked the screen. The number showed as blocked. Before she could set it down, a message appeared.
Don’t trust anybody. I did this for us.
Claire read it twice.
Then she turned away from the phone and pressed both hands against the blanket over her stomach. “He knew.”
Ortiz pulled a chair closer. “Knew what?”
“That they were looking for me.” Claire’s voice sounded smaller now. “He didn’t ask whether I was safe. He asked whether they found a key.”
Jack remained by the door. In the woods, he had known what to do—watch the armed hand, control the distance, wait for help. In that hospital room, there was nothing he could aim at and no command he could give that would put the world back in order.
Ortiz photographed the message and placed the phone into another evidence bag. “Do you know about any storage unit, safe-deposit box, bus-station locker, anything like that?”
“No.”
“Did Mason ever give you a key?”
“No.”
“Did he have access to your identification?”
Claire looked up sharply.
“A few months ago, he took a picture of my driver’s license. He said he needed it to add me to his car insurance.”
“Did he?”
“I never asked.”
The doctor returned before Ortiz could continue. The baby’s heartbeat was strong, and Claire showed no immediate signs of early labor, but the doctor wanted her watched for several more hours. A victim-services advocate named Helen Ames arrived shortly before midnight.
Helen was in her fifties, with silver-streaked hair and a canvas tote full of forms. She explained Claire’s choices without making any of them sound simple. A confidential shelter in Helena had space the following afternoon. Until then, the county could place her in a motel under another name, with deputies checking the parking lot.
Claire stared at the floor. “Pike knows every motel around here.”
“We can use one outside town,” Helen said.
“He’ll know those too.”
“Pike is in custody,” Ortiz reminded her.
“He has friends.”
Jack thought of his house beyond the old mill road. The nearest neighbor was a retired schoolteacher half a mile away, and only one narrow lane approached the property. He had motion lights, radios, locks, a generator, and a wolfdog that woke when mice crossed the porch.
He also had no business inviting a frightened twenty-four-year-old woman into a house she had never seen.
“There’s a room at my place,” he said.
All three women looked at him.
Jack cleared his throat. “Just for tonight. The door locks from the inside. Ortiz knows where I live. The shelter can take her tomorrow.”
Helen studied him. “You understand why I need to ask whether anyone else lives there?”
“Just the dog.”
“Wolfdog,” Claire said.
Jack glanced at her. “He has better manners than most people.”
A faint expression crossed her face, almost amusement.
Helen asked Jack several more questions. Ortiz confirmed that he had worked with the county and state forestry offices for a decade, had no criminal history, and had assisted on searches before. Still, no one made the decision for Claire.
“I can take the motel,” she said.
Jack nodded. “That’s your choice.”
She watched him for a moment. He did not try to persuade her, and that seemed to matter.
“What if I need to leave?”
“I’ll drive you. Or Ortiz will.”
“What if your dog doesn’t like me?”
“Then he stays behind a gate.”
Claire looked toward the monitor, listening to the heartbeat beneath its soft electronic clicks. “One night.”
“One night,” Jack agreed.
Before they left the hospital, Ortiz received a call from a deputy searching the apartment Claire had shared with Mason. The place had been stripped of electronics and paperwork, but an unopened envelope had been found behind a dresser.
Ortiz brought it to the hospital just before discharge.
Inside was a rental agreement for Unit 214 at Summit Storage, a facility thirty miles south of Cedar Hollow. The customer name was Claire Bennett. Her driver’s-license number appeared beneath it, along with her old foster-program address and an electronic signature that looked enough like hers to pass at a glance.
Claire held the paper by its edges.
“I’ve never been there.”
Ortiz pointed to the date. The unit had been rented six days earlier—the night before Mason disappeared…
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