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“I need to call Nyla. We might be off base, but she needs to know. If the cops discover where she is, I’m not trusting them to protect her right now.”
When his phone began beeping, he saw the call was from Nyla. Immediately, an uncomfortable knot formed in his stomach. “It’s Nyla. I’m merging our calls.”
He clicked the phone. “Nyla?”
“Locke! Missiles are hitting the house, seemingly from every angle, and the walls and ceilings are collapsing all around me,” she said in a frantic voice. “I’m crawling my way to the underground tunnel.”
“There’s a tunnel in that place?” he asked, sliding into his jacket and grabbing for his pistol.
“Yes.”
“Where does the tunnel end?” he asked.
“South of the creek.”
“What creek?” Hollis asked.
When Nyla fell quiet, Locke realized why. “It’s okay, Nyla. Hollis, my private investigator, is asking that question. She’s from around these parts and knows the area. I was conversing with her when your call came through.”
“Oh.” Nyla then said, “The tunnel ends at Melon Creek. Karl told me to use the tunnel to get to the fish camp nearby. It’s owned by Lenny, a friend of his.”
“Good. Just make sure Lenny knows we’re on your side when we arrive to take you away.”
“Take me away? To where?”
Locke wasn’t ready to tell her where just yet. “To a place where I know you’ll be safe.”
“Okay.” Nyla then clicked off the call.
“I’ve turned around, Locke,” Hollis said. “I’ll be there to pick you up in less than five minutes.”
CHAPTER 9
Locke was convinced that Hollis aced the specialized driving course she had taken while at the FBI academy. That, with her knowledge of how to navigate around Tampa, was the reason she was taking shortcuts through back roads and alleys. Then there was the way she had made a rapid turnaround when she saw they were headed in the same direction as police cruisers and emergency rescue vehicles with flashing lights. More than likely, they were headed to where Nyla had been, causing a traffic backup. By now, the house was probably demolished, and the authorities were wondering if anyone had survived.
He hoped Nyla had made it through the tunnel okay and reached Lenny at that fish camp. Knowing how much Nyla meant to Karl, he wouldn’t have sent her to the man if he couldn’t trust him. At least he knew, thanks to Rexar, they weren’t being tracked.
Locke had called Striker to apprise him of the situation with instructions to keep Karl away from the television for a while, in case what happened to that house became a breaking news story. The last thing he wanted Karl to assume was that something had happened to Nyla. He might become uncontrollable if he thought that. Striker said that wouldn’t be a problem since he and Karl took walks around the property at this time of day anyway.
Locke and Hollis hadn’t exchanged too many words, preferring to let her concentrate on her driving abilities. Now that they appeared to be on a stretch of road where she wasn’t zipping in and out of traffic, he thought this was a good time to ask something that didn’t have anything to do with the case but was something he had wondered about.
“Your name is Hollis.”
Without taking her eyes off the road, she asked. “Yes, what about it?”
“I don’t know any other woman with that name. Were you named after someone?”
A smile spread across her lips. Even from her side profile, he thought it enhanced her beauty, and she should do it more often. Then, considering the effect her smile was having on him, maybe she shouldn’t.
“Yes, I was named after someone, but not anyone I know personally. It wasn’t anyone my parents knew personally either. My mom was a big soaps fan. I understand a character from her favorite show was someone named Hollis. She was determined to name her child after him, whether she gave birth to a girl or a boy. I think Dad would have preferred I was named after his mom, whose name was Elizabeth. However, I heard she and my mother never got along. After nearly twenty-five years of marriage, I guess Dad decided some battles were not worth fighting.”
“Your parents were married almost twenty-five years when you were born?”
She chuckled, and the sound of it had just as much of an effect as the smile. “My parents got married when Mom was twenty-five. After trying for years, they had almost given up having kids when my brother was born, when Mom was thirty-eight. They assumed he would be the one and only, but Mom got pregnant with me at fifty. Derek was their ‘surprise’ baby, and I was their “oops” baby.”
She paused and then said, “Needless to say, the last thing two people looking sixty in the face needed was an over-active child. So, Derek, being twelve years older, spent a lot of time with me. He was more like an additional parent than an older brother. As I said, he was the best.”
“How long ago was he killed?”
