Her eyes flew open at that. “Good,” she said in a hard voice. “That’s about all I can tolerate. I won’t sleep for thinking a murder charge will be slapped on my head.”
“Not happening,” he said. “Hence the timing.”
She reached over and squeezed his fingers.
He laced his fingers into hers and smiled. “You’ll be okay. I promise.”
“All of us, I hope,” she said, then settled back to rest.
When they landed, he took charge and quickly whisked them off to a five-star hotel downtown. As she walked through the lobby, always two men were at her side, and she was quickly escorted directly to an elevator instead of registration. She looked at Bullard and Fallon. “Is this how you guys always operate?”
“If we can, yes,” Fallon said. “It’s best to avoid as many people as we can.”
“If you say so.”
Up in their rooms, she immediately looked at the huge double bed to one side. She walked over to it, then laid down and said, “I don’t know about you guys, but I need to crash.”
“Good enough, we’ll work in the other room,” Bullard said, and he and Fallon moved to the connected suite, leaving the adjoining door open. She wasn’t sure how it all worked, but what she started to see was the money needed to do all this and the access Bullard had to a seemingly unlimited amount of resources at a level she hadn’t expected. It had never occurred to her that he had that much money, but, to make all this happen, Bullard had to be very wealthy. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She had money too, but not at his level.
Money had never mattered to her, but it certainly mattered because of what it could do, and obviously he was a pro at making it work for him. Still, it was a surprise to consider that he was that wealthy. Maybe it was his company rather than Bullard personally, but she had no way of knowing. She was too damn tired to even worry about it, and she let her eyes close as she drifted off to sleep. When she woke up later, Bullard lay beside her. She rolled over and looked up at him. “Did you sleep?
He yawned and said, “I caught a few minutes, yeah.”
“Do you want to try to sleep longer?”
“Nope,” he said, “we have a meeting in two hours. We’ve got food and coffee coming.”
“The coffee’s always welcome,” she said, with a smile. She got up and looked down at her single dress and said, “Clothes would be nice too.”
“We can go out shopping first, if you want,” he said.
She shrugged. “I guess it’s not that important right now, but my clothing from the island may not be suitable for Africa.”
“It probably is actually,” he said. “We have a wonderful 74 degrees all year-round.”
She looked at him and frowned. “Seriously?”
“Yep,” he said, “it’s pool season every day.”
“Well, maybe my clothes will be okay then,” she said. “Did anybody go to my island and check?”
“Yep. All your personal belongings have been packed and shipped out. We already brought you your ID and purse.”
“Oh, I hadn’t even thought that far ahead. That still doesn’t mean I’m not going back, you know?” she said.
“I know,” he said. “I’m not trying to take you away from there.”
“Liar,” she said affectionately.
He burst out laughing. “Okay, so I am for a little bit, but I promise I’ll get you back there again.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, with a nod.
“Did you ever wonder how the world found out about me being there?”
“No,” she said. “I’ve been trying not to think about that too much. Obviously it must have been one of the islanders, but I don’t know who.”
“The old medicine woman is who I would say.”
“Why would you think that?” she asked.
“Because she’s the one who seemed to know so much.”
“You mean, the thing about Terk?”
“Yeah, and I do know who Terk is now, by the way.”
“Good,” she said. “I don’t understand how the messaging was coming back and forth though.”
“Neither do I, but, once I figured out you were getting those kind of messages, I knew where we were at.”
“Good for you,” she said, “because I sure as hell didn’t.”
He chuckled. “It’s all good.”
She shook her head. “And that’s just to make me feel better.”
A knock on the door interrupted his reply. He looked at his watch and said, “That will be breakfast.”
She hopped up and headed into the bathroom, and, by the time she came out, Fallon was there with food on a plate, motioning for her to go serve herself.
“We don’t have too much time, do we?” she asked.
“Not too much,” he said, “but plenty of time to eat.”
Chapter 15
As it turned out, Leia barely had enough time to eat, before Bullard motioned at her that it was time to go. He handed her a big briefcase, and she looked at it and frowned.
“I just found it in the gift shop,” he said. “Your ID documents are inside. And I thought you might want this,” he said, as he handed her a phone.
“Wow,” she said. “You just picked this up too?”
“Yes,” he said, “one of my team just delivered new phones, since we took ours swimming. I figured maybe you would want one.”
“Maybe,” she said, as she studied it with interest. “They’ve really changed in the last few years.”
“They have,” he said, “but they’re not so different. Easier and faster than the older ones, that’s for sure.” With that, they headed out toward the elevators. As she turned around inside, and the doors were closing, she saw Fallon still at the hotel room door just down the hall, doing something to the lock. “Don’t we want to wait for him?”
“No,” he said, “he’ll take the stairs, and he’ll meet us later.”
“So he’s following along to make sure we’re safe, is that it?” she asked drily.
“Absolutely,” Bullard said, with a smile.
When they got outside, she realized that they only had a couple blocks to go to the police station. “Can we just walk?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, “it’s probably better anyway. Trying to get a cab would be brutal.”
Once they got to the police station, they didn’t even have to wait. They were shown right into a room, where the detective introduced himself as Detective Bruce Wilson, then led them to a smaller room.
She looked around in surprise. “This feels like an interrogation room,” she said.
“It is,” he said, “but we’re not here to interrogate you. We are only interested in Dr. Leo Manfred.”
“That’s funny. Nobody gave a damn five years ago,” she said flatly.
He winced at that and said, “Did you actually report him yourself?”
“Yes! I reported everything directly to a detective. Orion Houtser is his name,” she said.