Free The Shadow's Edge by Patrick Dakin Page B

would she run?
                 
                  Before leaving the Wilsons this time I remembered to grab my duffle bag. When I walked outside to the pickup, Bix trailed along behind me. When I climbed in and looked down at him, he stared dolefully back at me with those unfathomable eyes of his.
                  I leaned over and opened the passenger door. Bix shot around the truck and jumped in beside me. I pulled the door closed and glanced at the house where Miles stood watching. After I fired up the motor he nodded his approval.
                  I raised my hand in a tacit parting gesture and drove away.

 
     
     
     
                                                                                                      9
     
                  It was hard to believe, when I awoke early the next morning, that I had arrived in Colville only forty-two hours earlier. Given all that had happened it seemed like weeks had gone by. While I stared at the ceiling wondering what I could possibly do to unravel the mystery of my wife’s inexplicable disappearance, the phone beside my bed rang.
                  “Hello,” I said, convinced it could only be bad news.
                  It was Miles, proving me wrong. “She called here, Jack. She wouldn’t tell me anythin’ but she wants to talk to ya. I gave her yer number at the hotel. Expect a call real soon.” He hung up before I could say a word.
                  A couple of minutes later my phone rang again. I was poised over it with my hand resting on the cradle and snatched it up before the ring had completed. “Callie?”
                  There was a long silence. Then, as if it was emanating from a small child, I heard her say, “Yes, Jack. It’s me.” She sounded beaten, on the verge of a breakdown. And scared, too.
                  She also sounded far away, like a call from overseas back in the days when you could actually tell about those things. “Callie … honey. Where are you? Are you okay?”
                  “I’m in trouble, Jack. I need help. Can you … help me?”
                  “Yes, honey. Yes, I can help you. Just tell me where you are. I’ll come to you right now.”
                  “You can’t tell the police. You have to promise me.”
                  “I promise, Callie. I won’t tell anyone.”
                  Once again, silence. Then, “I’m so sorry, Jack. I did something bad.
    I---”
                  She was alive and nothing else mattered. “Callie, I don’t care what you’ve done. You just need to tell me where you are so I can come to you and help you. Please, baby, where are you?”
                  She started to sob. I could barely make out her next words. “I love you, Jack. I’m so sorry … for … everything.”
                  And then I was listening to a dial tone.
                  I dialed *69 but got no response, probably because the call had been routed through a switchboard. I dropped the phone to it’s cradle and sat on the edge of the bed with my hands to the sides of my head. “Goddamn it,” I cursed. If I had handled the call better I could have gotten through to her. I blew it. When she needed me most I let her down. Again.
                  Bix, lying curled in his corner, watched me silently for several moments and then whimpered softly.
                  The mournful sound of his mewling was perfect accompaniment to the despair I felt.
     
                  When the phone rang twenty minutes later I moved so fast to get it I nearly fell in the process. “Callie?”
                  “It’s me, Jack,” Miles said.
                  “Miles, she