Chapter 35

His heart galloping, Joshua read the one-page profile of Dexter Bates.

The record included two mug shots: one from the front, another from the side. Bates was a handsome man, in a severe, angular sort of way, but with his I-wish-you-would expression, he looked like a guy you didn’t want to screw around with.

His eyes were his most striking feature. They were dark, intelligent, cunning. The eyes of a predator.

Bates had been incarcerated at a maximum-security penitentiary in Menard, Illinois. The vitals section stated that he was thirty-eight, stood six-one, and weighed two hundred pounds. He had a puckered scar on his right cheek, apparently from a bite wound.

He’d been convicted for attempted murder, and taken into custody a little over four years ago. His sentence was for ten years.

But he had been paroled on Monday, December 18. Two days ago.

On Tuesday, Rachel had gone on the run.

Bates was unquestionably the one from whom she was fleeing. This was the man who’d inhabited her nightmare.

When Joshua reflected on Bates’ attempted murder conviction, he felt a chill all the way down to his molecules. Rachel bore a long scar on her left side. She’d claimed, when Joshua had asked about it, that it had come from an “old accident,” and declined to elaborate further. Joshua never broached the subject again.

Without doubt, her “accident” was Dexter Bates.

Oh, baby. I’m so sorry.

Rachel would not have left their home without good reason to believe that Bates could track her from Illinois. Joshua remembered her sad tears shortly before her departure—

Bates must’ve done something to compel her to run. Hadn’t Tanisha said she’d overheard Rachel in the back office of the salon, screaming at someone on the phone, after which Rachel had abruptly left the shop?

Joshua pushed up his glasses on the bridge of his nose and continued to examine Bates’ photos, as if he could understand the man by scrutinizing his picture.

What had been Rachel’s relationship to this guy? Ex-boyfriend? Had to be. Or maybe she had dated him only once, and he’d gone nuts and stalked her. Or maybe she hadn’t known him at all, but he’d spotted her and gotten obsessed.

He could not imagine that she’d been in a serious relationship with a man like this, a man with such cold, unsettling eyes. The Rachel he knew was a shrewd judge of character.

Another possibility regarding Bates’ connection to Rachel lurked in the lower regions of Joshua’s thoughts, but he didn’t want to acknowledge it. It was too disturbing to consider.

He skimmed the remaining documents in the Recycle Bin, but found nothing else of importance. The inmate profile of Bates was a major discovery, however, filling in some critical gaps in his understanding of the situation. He’d finally identified Rachel’s enemy.

Their enemy.

If Bates was a threat to Rachel, he was a threat to Joshua, too.

In fact, Bates might regard Joshua as the bigger prize, a more satisfying target for his violence. An undoubtedly jealous man like Bates would be enraged by Joshua’s marriage to Rachel, would consider it a betrayal of the worst kind, and as a means of punishing her, would be eager to scrub Joshua off the face of the planet.

Joshua glanced at the gun case.

I wish I was wrong . . . but you know how I sometimes get these feelings.

He removed the gun from the box and loaded it, as Ariel had taught him. He placed it within easy reach.

Next, he picked up Rachel’s cell phone.

* * *

Joshua began his search in the phone’s address book.

Scrolling through the list, he found the expected numbers. His own cell phone number. The salon’s. Tanisha’s cell and home numbers. Cell and home numbers for a handful of women whom Joshua recognized as members of the salon staff. The number for the bank where they kept their accounts.

He also found two numbers that he didn’t recognize.

One was for Prescott Property Management. The number had an Atlanta area code.

The other was for a person named Thad. The area code prefix of 314 was unfamiliar to him.

Joshua turned back to the laptop, accessed the Internet, and found a site that listed nationwide area codes. The prefix of 314 was assigned to St. Louis, Missouri.

Thad, in St. Louis? Rachel had never spoken of a guy named Thad, or of knowing anyone in St. Louis.

Picking up the cell once more, he went to the call records. He checked incoming calls first: all ten of the calls listed in history had come from Joshua’s cell phone.

He reviewed outgoing calls.

“Ah ha.”

Most of the outgoing calls Rachel had placed to the salon, or to Joshua, but she had made two calls yesterday afternoon: one to Prescott Property Management, the other to Thad.

Why would she call a property management company? Did she own property somewhere? He knew nothing whatsoever about that, if she did. But what else was new?

And who the heck was Thad?

Joshua switched back to the address book, and before he could talk himself out of it, hit the button to call the property management company.

A recorded message greeted him: “Thank you for calling Prescott Property Management. Our normal business hours are nine a.m. to six p.m., Monday through Friday—“

Joshua terminated the call. He would look into this company further, perhaps pay them a visit and see if he could learn what business Rachel was involved in with them.

Next, he called Thad’s number.

Voice mail picked up immediately. A man with a soft voice spoke: “Hey, you know who it is. Leave me a message and I’ll hit you back. Have a blessed day.”

When the voice mail system beeped, Joshua hesitated, unsure what to say. Then an unexpected flood of words poured out of him.

“Hi, Thad, this is Joshua Moore, you might not know who I am, but I’m Rachel’s husband, and I got your number from her cell phone . . . I saw that she’d called you yesterday, and I’m calling you because she’s gone, she’s left our home here in Atlanta, and you were one of the last people she spoke to before she left, and I think she’s in trouble with some guy named Dexter Bates, I don’t know if you know him, but he just got out of prison and I think he’s after Rachel, and she’s run off somewhere, gone somewhere and didn’t tell me where she was going, but I want to help her—I have to help her—and I need to know if you can tell me anything about where she might’ve gone . . . I mean, she had to tell you something because she called you right before she left . . . I could be way off base here and maybe you’re only her financial advisor or something and don’t know what the hell I’m talking about . . . but I’m hoping, I’m praying, that you do, and that you can help me. Call me back as soon as you can, I don’t care how late it is. Please. Here’s my number . . .”

He gave his cell number, twice, and ended the call. He checked his watch. Ten minutes past nine o’clock. St. Louis was on Central Time. It was early enough in the evening for Thad to retrieve the message, and call him back that night.

All he could do now was wait.