Page 38 of Blood Moon

“I didn’t take the flight, Max. I changed my mind.”

He cursed. “I was afraid you were going to say that. Where the hell are you?”

He hadn’t asked for details about her current location, soshe didn’t volunteer that she was in a bedroom at John Bowie’s fishing camp in a swamp she couldn’t name or find her way out of.

Without embellishment and as chronologically as possible, she summarized her day, leaving out segments of it that she feared would indeed cause a cardiac episode, such as their perilous escape from a henchman called the ogre. She finished by saying, “It’s been a long and eventful day, but I’m all right.”

“Just so I understand, you hadn’t changed your mind about returning to New York until Bowie hustled you out of the airport with what sounds to me like an unacceptable he-man tactic?”

“I’m glad he stopped me, Max. It gave us an opportunity to have an in-depth conversation. I talked him through that case in Galveston that I’d discovered. He knew a lot about it except for the fact that it had occurred on the night of a blood moon.”

“What did he make of that?”

“It got his attention, but he concluded that it was a bizarre coincidence. However, I think he was trying to convince himself, not me. I get the sense that he would love to reopen the Mellin investigation, but he’s reluctant to. I’m not sure why.”

“That’s easy. He knows that if he starts picking at a scab involving the integrity and competence of the police department that employs him, there could be harsh repercussions.”

“More than professional ones, I think. The Mellin case affected other aspects of his life as well.” Before Max could pounce on that, she said, “That’s only conjecture, of course,but I sense that whatever backlash he was subjected to then, he’s still grappling with now. He’s… troubled.”

After a short pause, he said, “Tell me again why you’re on that phone. What’s wrong with yours?”

She’d hoped to gloss over that, but she should have known Max had been ruminating on it. “Mine was out of juice.” She told herself the fib was to prevent him from suffering a medical emergency. “I didn’t want to wait for it to charge before calling you. Detective Bowie lent me one of his spares.”

“Spares? Plural? Charged and ready?”

Tired of the third degree, she snapped, “Yes, Max. So what?”

“This troubled man accosts you at the airport. He keeps spare burner phones handy. Are you sure he’s on the right side of the law?”

“It all sounds a lot worse than it is.” Lord, if he only knew.

He harrumphed, then asked, “This in-depth conversation you two had, where’d you leave it?”

“Unfinished. There’s a lot more I need to tell him.”

“And after you do?”

“I hope he’ll be more forthcoming about the Mellin case.”

Max exhaled, his chest rattling. “Beth. My advice?”

“I’ve already heard your advice.”

“All right then, I’ll give you a heads-up that may make you think twice. I returned from my lunch with the mayor to find Winston Brady waiting on me. Impatiently. He asked if I could explain why the production office had receivedtwo calls this morning from people asking about you. The first caller declined to leave his name. Brady didn’t think much about it. But a little while later, he got a call from Tom Barker.”

She swallowed but said nothing.

“That call concerned our new EP because A: He’s accountable to network executives and show sponsors. B: All of them are persnickety and uptight. And C: Brady is an ass-kisser whose main objective is to keep his own ass well covered.

“Sooo,” he continued, dragging out the word, “because he couldn’t reach you by phone, he wanted to know from me why Barker of the Auclair, Louisiana, PD was calling to verify your association withCrisis Pointand to ask what you were doing in their fair city attempting to contact one of his detectives, who’s a troublemaking malcontent.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. Oh.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That you hailed from Louisiana, that you’d taken some vacation time to go see old friends, and that your trip had nothing at all to do with your work on the show or the upcoming episode. It was nothing more than fluky timing.”