Jennifer looked at the clock. Five till nine. Why was he staying so long?
The phone rang, startling her. Temple got up and answered it on the cordless, taking it with him into his office and shutting the door.
So that was why: he’d been waiting for a phone call.
Shakily she took her cup of coffee upstairs to her bedroom, closing and locking the door. Patricia had already made the bed and tidied her bathroom. Jennifer sat down on the bed and looked at the telephone. If she picked up now, Temple would hear the click; when she listened in, she always picked up just as he did, and she covered the mouthpiece with her hand so no noise would leak through.
Her heart pounded. She lifted the receiver and started punching buttons, as if she were making a call. She didn’t even put the receiver to her ear, and she heard Temple shouting, “Jennifer! Damn it, I’m already on the phone.”
“W-what?” she stammered, slurring her voice just a little. Maybe he’d think she had started drinking before she came downstairs. “S-sorry. I was just calling;—”
“I don’t give a damn. Get off the line.”
She heard a chuckle on the other end, a deep laugh that made her go cold and every hair on her body lift in alarm. Elton Phillips.
“Sorry,” she said again, then placed her hand over the mouthpiece and quickly clicked the button to make it sound as if she’d hung up.
“The stupid bitch,” Temple muttered. “Sorry about that.”
“That’s all right,” Phillips said, and laughed again. “You didn’t marry her for her brain.”
“That’s for damn sure. If I had, I’d be shit out of luck, because she doesn’t have one.”
“I’m beginning to wonder if she’s the only one whose bulb doesn’t glow all that brightly. You’ve made several mistakes lately yourself.”
“I know. I apologize, Mr. Phillips. Sykes has everything under control.”
“That remains to be seen. The Russian girls will be here tomorrow morning, and I want Mr. Sykes’s full attention on handling the shipment. If he doesn’t take care of this librarian problem before then, I’ll be very unhappy.”
Belatedly, Jennifer remembered that the answering machine function built into the phone included a “call record.” She blinked at the base unit, looking for the correct button. It had to be with the other function buttons. PLAY, DELETE, PAUSE—there it was: CALL RECORD. She depressed the little red button and prayed that it didn’t make a noise or beep a warning.
“He’ll grab her when she leaves the library for lunch, or when she goes home this afternoon. She’ll just disappear. When Sykes handles something personally, there aren’t any problems.”
“Really? Then why was Mitchell’s body found so fast?”
“Sykes didn’t handle it. He stayed behind at the club to find out who had seen them in the parking lot. The other two were the ones who handled the body.”
“A mistake on Mr. Sykes’s part.”
“Yes.”
“Then this is his last chance. And yours.”
Phillips abruptly hung up, and Jennifer almost cut the connection on her end. She waited, though, waited for a couple of long seconds. Why didn’t Temple hang up? She sat with her finger poised on the button. Was he waiting to see if he heard a betraying click? Cold sweat trickled down her spine.
Finally the line clicked, and in the next split second she disconnected, too, returning the receiver to the hook. She dashed across the room to unlock her door, then ran into the bathroom and quickly squeezed some tooth-paste on her toothbrush, turned on the water, and began brushing for all she was worth. Temple never came to her bedroom; she was panicking for no reason—
The bathroom door opened and Temple said, “What in hell—”
She jumped and shrieked, spewing toothpaste all over the sink. She was so shaky that she lost her balance and stumbled backward, colliding with the toilet and almost falling over it, but she managed to grab the tank and steady herself, sitting down hard on the lid.
Temple eyed her with disgust. “For God’s sake, you haven’t even had breakfast and already you’re drinking.”
With a trembling hand she wiped the toothpaste off her mouth and didn’t say anything. Let him think she was drunk; that was safer.
“Who were you calling?”
She indicated her hair, accidentally swiping the toothbrush against the side of her head. “I need my hair done.”
“No joke. Next time, make sure I’m not using the phone before you pick up and just start punching numbers.” He didn’t wait to see if she agreed; he just turned around and left. Jennifer rested her head against the sink, taking deep breaths and trying to slow her pulse rate. When she felt steady enough, she got up and washed her face, rinsed out her mouth, then used a washcloth to wipe the toothpaste out of her hair.
She hadn’t turned off the answering machine recorder. She went back into her bedroom; Temple had left the door open, so she went over and closed it again, then went to the phone and stopped the recording.
That little tape was golden. The question was, what did she do with it? Who could she take it to? Temple had often said that the new police chief, Russo, was “his” boy, meaning he had Russo in his pocket. He’d been glad when old Chief Beason retired, because Beason had been around a long time and had his nose poked into too many things, knew too many secrets. It remained to be seen if Russo was as blind as Temple thought him to be, but Jennifer couldn’t take the chance right now. It was too important that she get this right.