“Hold on a sec,” he says.
I look at my play, wondering if I screwed something up. Then Hurley surprises me by reaching over and taking the other two tiles off my rack.
“Hey!” I protest. “What are you doing?”
He doesn’t answer me. Instead he reaches over and takes my last play off the board, setting all the tiles on the table beside him. Then he plucks several more tiles from the board and adds them to the collection.
“Hurley, what the hell are you doing?”
“Bear with me a second,” he says, and he starts shuffling the tiles around until he has them all in a line. “What’s that say?” he asks me.
“Quinton Dilles,” I answer, stating the obvious.
Hurley then rearranges the same letter tiles, forming a new name. When he’s done, he leans back in his chair and gives me a pointed look.
“Coincidence?” I say, staring at the new name.
Hurley shakes his head. “Nothing with that man is a coincidence.”
“But it can’t be him,” I say. “He’s in prison.”
“He may be in prison, but somehow or other he’s the one pulling the strings. It makes perfect sense. He’s a game player and this sort of thing is just his style. Trust me, it’s no coincidence that our car renter is named Leon Lindquist, a pseudonym that just happens to use all the same letters as Quinton Dilles.” He scrapes the letters up and dumps them back into the bag they came from. “Pack everything up,” he says, clearing the Scrabble board and folding it up. “We’re leaving.”
Less than an hour later we’re on the road, everything we brought with us—including my still-damp underwear and my sweaty, stinky gym clothes—loaded back into the car. Hurley is wearing his gun under his coat in his shoulder holster and the Glock is tucked beneath his seat.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“First we’re going to stop at the house of my friend who owns the cabin. Then I’m going to Connor Smith’s office.”
“Connor Smith? You mean Dilles’s lawyer?”
“Yes.”
“But it’s the day before Thanksgiving. What if he isn’t there?”
“I suspect he’ll be there. He’s working on a pretty big case right now. But if he isn’t, I’ll go to his house.”
When my mind registers his pronoun use, I say, “You mean we’ll go to his house, right?”
He shakes his head. “I’ve involved you too much already. I’m doing this alone.”
“Don’t be stupid, Hurley. I’m already in this about as far as I can be. And what if you need backup?”
He looks over at me with a tolerant smile. “Well, if I was going to meet with a dangerous and deadly tree that might be a valid argument.”
“Very funny,” I say, pouting. “Make fun of my shooting all you want. It’s not going to change my mind.”
“I’m serious, Mattie. You’re not coming with me.”
“Then where am I supposed to go? I can’t go back home yet. If I do, I’ll probably be arrested, killed, or kidnapped again.”
“I know. That’s why you’re going to stay at my friend’s house.”
“Oh, great, I get to stay with some stranger?”
“No, you’ll have the place to yourself. He’s in Florida for the winter.”
“Then why didn’t we stay there in the first place instead of bunking down with the spider community in hillbilly hunter’s haven?”
“Because I don’t have a key to his house and it isn’t very isolated. As long as you keep a low profile, you should be okay there alone. It’s my face they’re looking for.”
“Wait. If you don’t have a key to the house, how are we going to get in?” Then I remember how he picked the lock on Callie’s apartment and say, “Never mind.” I sit back against my seat with my arms folded over my chest and pout, sensing that Hurley isn’t going to back down.
A little while later, Hurley parks on a street in the small town of Tomah. “Come on,” he says, taking the gun from beneath the seat and sticking it in his jacket pocket. “We’re going to make the rest of the trip on foot. I don’t want to risk my car being seen near the house.”
We walk several blocks through working-class residential neighborhoods until we come to a small ranch house. Hurley’s eyes are busy checking out the surroundings, watching for anyone who may be watching us. He steers me through a privacy fence and into the backyard, and as soon as we’re secluded, he takes out his lock toolkit and goes to work on the back door.
We’re inside within minutes and the first thing Hurley does is close the blinds on the front windows. The house is neat and sparsely furnished, and the air smells faintly of burned wood. There is a woodstove in the living room but there’s also a thermostat on the wall to regulate a furnace.
“Don’t use the woodstove,” Hurley cautions. “The smoke coming out of the chimney might attract attention.”
Next we head to the kitchen where Hurley opens the refrigerator. It’s on and cold inside, but the shelves are bare except for an open box of baking soda. Next he opens the freezer, which produces better results. Stacked neatly on the shelves are a dozen or so frozen, microwavable meals—my sort of cuisine. The pantry is well stocked, too, with canned soups, fruits, and instant oatmeal.
“I’ll be back later tonight after it’s dark and I’ll bring some groceries with me,” he says. “Make yourself at home in the meantime but stay inside and keep the blinds drawn and the doors locked. If you want to watch TV, use the one in the basement and keep the volume down. If anyone comes knocking, don’t answer. I’ll let myself in when I get back.”
“Hurley, I don’t think this is a good—”
“I don’t want to discuss it anymore, Mattie.” He walks off and enters a den, where there is a desk and a computer. He boots up the computer and when it’s done loading, he launches the Internet browser and types in Connor Smith’s name. One click later he’s scribbling down Smith’s office address and a couple clicks after that he has the man’s home address.
“You’ll be fine,” he says, stuffing the sheet in his pocket. He takes out a wad of cash and peels off a handful of twenties. Then he takes the extra gun out of his pocket and hands it to me along with a full clip. “I don’t think you’ll need either of these, but just in case I don’t get back for some reason, use them if you need to. I’ll see you later.”
Two minutes later I’m alone in the house, feeling frustrated, lonely, and bored. So I take the next most logical step and start snooping. Rummaging through the desk drawers, it doesn’t take me long to find out the name of the person whose house I’m staying in: Carl Withers. When I get on the computer I see that he has Outlook for his e-mail server and though I feel a few seconds of guilt, it’s not enough to stop me from browsing through his e-mails. On a whim, I search through his old saved ones looking for Hurley’s name and come up with nearly a page full. From these I glean that Carl is a widower who was a longtime friend of Hurley’s father. The e-mails are brief and nothing but chitchat.
Bored with my snooping, I decide to head out to the kitchen and fix something to eat. I opt for an oriental Lean Cuisine dish and carry it over to the microwave, which is mounted beneath a cabinet not far from the back door. That’s when I see the key rack.
There are two keys there, one that looks like it might be a spare house key and one that is obviously a car key with a fob. Curious, I leave the kitchen and explore the hallway that goes to the bedrooms. Halfway down it I find a small laundry room that also serves as a mudroom. There is a metal exterior door at the other end and when I open it, I discover the garage and a relatively new Lexus.