They climbed the stairs and Shaw tapped on the door. Jordie pulled it open. While he’d been outside, she’d replaced the bath towel with her clothing. Her hair was still damp, though, and Wiley noticed.
He also didn’t miss the twisted sheets on the unmade bed, which he could see through the open bedroom door when Shaw went in to grab his boots, shirt, and the ball cap he’d shoplifted from the souvenir stand.
Wiley declined when Jordie offered him coffee. “No thanks. No time.”
“Josh?”
Sensing her apprehension, he dispelled her worst fear. “We have no reason to think he’s been harmed. But we have a possible sighting.”
“Where?” Shaw asked as he snapped the buttons of his shirt.
“Bayou Gauche. It’s between—”
“Been there,” Shaw said. “You have to wade through it.”
“It’s in the wetlands, which will make the search a challenge,” Wiley said. “We’ll drop Jordie at the FBI office. Gwen will stay with her while you and I go down there and check it out.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Shaw tugged on his boots. “Here’s your vest back.” He passed Wiley the bulletproof vest Jordie had used the night before. “We’re ready.”
They trooped down the stairs and along the narrow path, walking as fast as the loose stepping-stones would allow. Shaw went through the routine of unlocking and relocking the gate padlock.
As they crossed the street to yet another no-frills sedan, Shaw asked Wiley how he had learned about his apartment.
“Your man in Atlanta. Emergency contact info. I told him you wouldn’t mind.”
“I do mind.”
“I’ll take the secret of your French Quarter hideout to my grave.”
“You could’ve just phoned me, you know.”
“You have a car handy?”
Shaw didn’t answer. The less people knew about him and his life, the better. For him. For them. He’d opened up to Jordie more than he had to anyone in recent memory.
He held the backseat door for her now, then said to Wiley, “Let me drive,” and held out his hand for the keys. Wiley hesitated. Shaw said irritably, “You’ll be making calls and doing all that Bureau shit. Let me drive.”
Wiley tossed him the keys and got in on the passenger side. “Gwen said she’d meet us at the main entrance.”
The streets of the Quarter were still asleep, virtually free of traffic except for delivery trucks. But inside the car, the three of them were keyed up and anxious. Especially Jordie. “When and where did this sighting of Josh take place?”
“If it was Josh,” Wiley said. “But it sounds like him. It was Saturday afternoon at a parcel service drop-off box.”
“Where he sent the package with the cell phone inside?” Shaw guessed.
Wiley nodded. “Agents tracked it back to that box, situated on the parking lot of a strip center. They canvassed the business owners. One of them knocks off early on Saturdays. As he was leaving last week, he remembers a guy walking away from the drop box. He called out to him that he got lucky, made it in the nick of time before the last pickup. Something like that.
“The guy didn’t turn around, but he waved his hand in acknowledgment. The shopkeeper was shown a picture of Josh taken off the security camera in the convenience store. He said he couldn’t be certain, but it looked like the same guy.”
“What time did he knock off?”
“Three thirty. Fifteen minutes before the last pickup.”
“And three and a half hours after Josh learned about Jordie’s kidnapping on the noon news,” Shaw said. Musing out loud, he added, “But he sent the package to Extravaganza anyway.”
“In desperation, I guess,” Wiley said. “He was hedging his bet that you’d already iced her. Like he did when he called me later that night and bargained with me for her safe return.”
“I guess.” The explanation didn’t quite gel, but Shaw said, “At least this gives us a place to start searching for his haven.”