Cover Of Night

She thanked him and hung up. There was no help there; as Marburg had pointed out, no crime had been committed. If Mr. Layton had family, either he’d been in touch with them or they hadn’t expected to hear from him yet, so he wasn’t officially missing. He had just vanished.

Maybe she mas making too much of this. Maybe Mr. Layton was fine, and he simply hadn’t bothered to come back for the few possessions he’d left here.

She thought back over the sequence of events. Yesterday morning he’d briefly come downstairs, but as soon as he realized the dining room was full, he’d stepped back from the door and returned to his room. Sometime between then and when she’d gone upstairs to check on the twins, he’d climbed out of his bedroom window and driven away.

At the time she’d thought he simply hadn’t wanted to eat with strangers, but given his method of departure and the fact that he hadn’t returned, she now had to wonder if perhaps he’d recognized someone in the dining room that he hadn’t wanted to let know he was here. Yesterday morning had been unusually busy, but the only stranger she could remember was Joshua Creed’s client – she couldn’t remember his name. Had Mr. Layton known him? And if he had simply wanted to avoid the man – for which she couldn’t blame him – why hadn’t he just remained in his room until Creed and his client left?

This line of reasoning at least made her feel better, because looking at it that way made it seem far more likely Mr. Layton had done exactly as Marbury thought, and simply left without bothering to take his possessions with him. If he’d wanted to avoid what’s-his-name bad enough to climb out a window and sneak away, then leaving his stuff behind probably hadn’t bothered him at all.

But why hadn’t he turned in his rental car, if not in Boise at least in some other town where National had an office? Cate wasn’t normally a conspiracy theorist, but Trail Stop wasn’t exactly the most-traveled-to place in the state; if someone Mr. Layton wanted to avoid had followed him here, that someone, logically, had found out he’d rented a car and where he was going. There were probably all sorts of rules against that kind of information being given out, but information was bought and sold every day, and a lot of those transactions were against the rules. So Mr. Layton had to know the car was a liability; if he wanted to continue avoiding whoever had followed him, surely he would want to get rid of it. Maybe he’d parked it somewhere and walked away, since that seemed to be his modus operandi, figuring he’d just deal with whatever extra charges were tacked onto his credit card bill –

Something the county investigator had said rang in her mind. She had already charged Layton’s credit card, so he hadn’t run out on the bill. The same circumstance applied to the rental agency; in fact, she didn’t think you could rent a car without having a credit card. So why was the rental agency trying to track Mr. Layton down? Was that standard? She had no idea what their policy was, but a reasonable person would think they’d just keep applying charges against his credit card for at least a couple of days.

On impulse she checked Caller ID, and frowned when she read "Unknown Name, Unknown Number." That was inconvenient. And since when did a business block its number from showing? Not only that, the caller hadn’t given her his name. Still, she thought she should pass along what Investigator Marbury had said.

She called Information, got National’s number, then waited for the automatic connect. On the second ring a woman’s voice said, "National Car Rental, Melanie speaking. How may I help you?"

"Someone from your company called me a little while ago about one of my guests," Cate said, "Jeffrey Layton. Mr. Layton didn’t return the car yesterday and this person was trying to track him down. I’m sorry, but the man who called didn’t give me his name."

"Someone from here called to ask about… What did you say his name was?"

" Layton. Jeffrey Layton." Cate spelled it for her, even though the names seemed common enough.

"A man called you?"

"That’s right."

"I’m sorry, ma’am, but there are only women working here today. Are you certain he called from this location?"

"No, I’m not," Cate admitted, wishing she’d thought to ask. "The name and number were blocked on Caller ID, but I assumed the call would have come from the office at the Boise Airport."

"The number was blocked? That’s unusual. Let me call up the file on Mr. Layton."

Cate heard the sound of computer keys being tapped. There was a short wait, then more tapping. The woman said, "That’s J-e-f-f-r-e-y L-a-y-t-o-n? Is there a middle initial?"

"No. no middle initial." Cate was certain about that, because she had verified his identification before accepting his credit card. She’d commented on the lack of a middle name or initial, and Mr. Layton had smiled as he explained that he didn’t haven middle name.

"What date was he supposed to have rented a vehicle from us? I don’t have anything under his name."

"I don’t really know," Cate said slowly, taken aback by that information. "I got the impression Mr. Layton had just arrived in Idaho, but I may be mistaken."

"I’m sorry, but I’m not showing anything. He isn’t in our system."

"No, it’s my fault. I must have misunderstood the name of the company," Cate said, then thanked the woman and hung up. Cate had been polite because she hadn’t misunderstood; she knew exactly what the caller had said – and he had obviously lied about being with National Gar Rental. Even the twins could have figured out he’d just been trying to find Jeffrey Lay ton, who must be involved in something nasty and who really had driven away and left his possessions behind.

She was definitely curious about what was going on, but above that she was infinitely relieved that Mr. Layton was probably alive somewhere, and not rotting away at the bottom of a gorge. She felt okay about resurrecting her annoyance with him.