He had abandoned Shelby’s car in a car park and had stealthily stolen another to replace it. Ethan was sure Shelby had her entire department trying to find his location using whatever shit method he didn’t care about.

Now sitting in the stolen car that was parked at the vantage point he had carefully selected when he reached his destination, he directed the binoculars at several angles until he was able to get the perfect view of the mansion. Admiral Peterson’s wife, Eleanor, was sitting in the study engrossed in a book. Ethan could see her clearly in the lens.

He assumed Peterson to be out, but even if he wasn’t, he was still taking his chances. When he had arrived earlier, he surveyed the house and discovered there was no human security, which he found strange. But there were alarms, ready to go off and alert the occupant that security had been breached at the slightest break-in. Which was the main reason he wouldn’t sneak into the house.

Supposing the Admiral’s wife had been following the news, she was likely to recognize him as the mass murderer on the lam, but Ethan didn’t care. He was on a deadline and doing this by the book would waste time.

He hadn’t gotten the luxury of time to formulate what he expected to find in the house, and where Peterson would likely be hiding evidence. He was relying on blind faith. He knew it was a lousy move to show himself at Peterson’s house without a plan or backup. If anything mistakenly went sideways, the consequence would be very serious.

Hiding the gun he took from Shelby, he jumped out of the car and confidently walked past the manicured lawn to the porch where he knocked on the door.

Eleanor opened the door two minutes later. She was middle-aged with long dark curly hair, a slightly wide mouth, and a pointed nose. She wore black leather jeans topped with an ivory pin-stripped blouse. She looked affable and Ethan hoped he wouldn’t have to hurt her.

“Good day, ma’am. I’m looking for Admiral Peterson,” Ethan said.

She smiled warmly and told him the Admiral had left and that he would have met him if he had come ten minutes earlier. It suited his purposes just fine.

“Can I wait for him? It’s urgent.”

“All right. Come inside.”

Ethan followed Eleanor into a big lobby. They passed by a long hallway before they finally got to the living room which had heavy decor. She told him to have a seat and that Peterson would be home shortly.

“Should I get you anything?”

He wanted her to leave for him to inspect the place so he said, “Yes,” and asked for coffee, not because he wanted it, but to stall her while he did what he didn’t even know yet.

“I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

When she was gone, Ethan rose from the couch and started pacing the room. He used two minutes to study the place. He realized the house was too big for him to easily locate what he came here to retrieve at all costs. It might take all day and time was running like wildfire.

He walked to the flat-screen television, dropped to his knees, and pulled the drawer underneath the table. There was a melange of files in the wooden interior. He picked a file and skimmed a page. Nothing about illicit business. He went for another, and read through it quickly but found no pertinent information. They were random files about land properties, mortgages, and insurance policies.

He lifted himself from the floor and whipped his head around the place. Where would he search again? Ethan was out of ideas. There was no way he could get upstairs without the woman’s consent.

His only move left was to reveal himself to the woman and under coercion, she’d start being helpful. But Ethan didn’t want to scare off this nice woman like he had done to Judge Terry yesterday. That was why he hated embarking on a journey without a proper plan. He was starting to regret coming here.

He heard footsteps and jumped to the couch. Then the unexpected happened. The flat-screen television came on after he had accidentally sat on the remote. It didn’t land on any other station, but CBS where they were broadcasting the midday news and the headline was about none other than him. ‘ETHAN WILLOWS STILL AT LARGE. IS SOUTH CAROLINA SAFE?’

Initially, he didn’t think she had seen the picture attached to the headline, but when she dropped the content in her hands, he knew she had. Eleanor stood frozen as her eyes looked at the photo of the man accused of repugnant crimes she had let into her house. Survival instincts told her to run, but she was overwhelmed to do anything.

Ethan turned around to face her. She was shaken up and trembling nervously.

She cried. “Please, don’t hurt me.”

Ethan was saddened by her plea for mercy. Damn it! He wished this incident hadn’t happened. He was left with no choice. Eleanor knew who he was now, and chances were that she’d want to pull a stunt in response to survival instincts, so he snatched his gun and she started sobbing.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

That didn’t alleviate her fear.

He moved closer to her side. “This is how we’re going to work,” he said. “I won’t harm you if you obey my instructions and answer all my questions truthfully.”

She was too scared she couldn’t use her lips to form words. Her vocal cords went dead and for one second, she thought she was dumb. Since her lips had betrayed her, she nodded.

“Good.”

“Are you alone?” She had told him Peterson was out. He believed her, but he wanted to be sure there was nobody else in the house. He had no plan and he wasn’t ready to deal with another element of surprise.

She nodded.

“Okay. Where does Peterson keep his files?”

She didn’t talk immediately. It took two gulps of air into her respiratory system before she relaxed and said, “Upstairs, in the study.”

He motioned her to the staircase. “Upstairs, we go.”

Eleanor didn’t take her hands off the banister. She felt that if she did, she would miss a stair and plunge off to the ground. Trying not to hyperventilate, she managed to get to the last stairstep with the fugitive. They walked for two seconds in silence, then she pushed a door in the long carpeted hallway and entered. He followed her with the gun at her head. He wished he could take it off, but he was afraid of what she might do to protect herself and in response, he’d be compelled to hurt her. That was something he wanted to avoid. When he decided to come here, he had no plan so killing Eleanor was the last thing he wanted to do.

The study was comparably larger than the living room, with every item kept in the appropriate place. There was a walnut chair behind a desk—neatly stuffed with books, files, and a computer system. Two big shelves stood opposite one another, each containing books he felt dizzy from looking at. He spotted a ladder that was leaning against one of the shelves.

On a small table, a trove of portraits had been arrayed as though they were on a display. Eleanor stopped at the center and said, “This is where he keeps his things.”

That didn’t give him hope of finding what he came here to get. The study also was too big to search for evidence. By the time he would finish searching through the books, it’d probably be nightfall and Peterson might come to find him there. He was in the house and was still fumbling about what to do.

He spotted the apple laptop on the desk. If Peterson wanted to communicate, he’d use the device when he didn’t want to use his cell phone. That should narrow down the search.

“Whose laptop is that?”

“I use it. He too uses it.”

“Good. That means you know the passcode.”

“I do.”

“I want to see his emails.”

She wanted to rebel and tell him it was an invasion of privacy, but she remembered she was in a precarious position. If she blundered, she would wind up dead like the men he had killed in the storehouse.

Shifting those thoughts aside, she walked to the desk, sat slowly, and booted the machine. He stood right behind her, peering at the screen and holding the gun to her head. She browsed and pulled up Peterson’s email. All his emails popped up including the ones he had snoozed, sent, and received from pals in the navy and ones he had starred. The message section was marked ninety-nine plus, which meant he couldn’t go through all his emails.

Anxiety was starting to show. Time was running and he had nothing to account for. Eleanor noticed he was stuck because she glanced over at him and said tactfully, “Tell me what you’re looking for, and maybe I could help you.”

What was he going to tell her? That her husband was involved in illegal transactions and might be responsible for the bombing that occurred at the CIA HQ in Langley? He didn’t know what to say, much less explain for her elucidation because nothing would make sense to her. To an outsider, Admiral Peterson was the saint and he was the rogue navy commander.

He thought hard for one minute, then decided it was better she stayed in the dark. Besides, there was no time to explain anything to her.

“Scroll the mail.”

She did that and at some points, he asked her to stop for him to look at one or two mails he suspected held information. In the end, he found nothing.

“Get up.”

Eleanor rose to her feet. She looked at him wearily. “What now?”

What now? The question nagged him. He didn’t know. He was tired more than she was. Tired of running from the law. Tired of being perceived as a threat. Tired of everything. But he wouldn’t give up. He had come too far to quit now. He had to get to the bottom of this and find evidence to prove his innocence.

“I want to see the bedroom.”

“Tell me what you’re looking for.” Eleanor sensed that he was here not to harm her, but for something known to solely him. She was now ready to cooperate and help him find whatever he came to her house to get.

“The bedroom.”

She said dryly, “Be my guest.”

They retraced their steps to the hallway where they walked a distance to a room at the far end. They went inside the bedroom and he was fascinated by the elegance of the place. The bed was made and was without a trace of dirt. Seeing the neat sheets and pillows, he yearned for sleep. He remembered the last time he had had a good sleep. That had been days ago before all this nightmare.

He shook off the wishing thoughts of wanting to sleep in the middle of an important task. Then he focused on what he came there for.

Eleanor spread out her arms. “This is the bedroom.”

The sound of that made him more anxious. Here too was also big. He disliked the sizableness of the place. Where could he possibly search now?

“Open the wardrobe.”

“He doesn’t keep anything there. Just clothes.”

“Open it anyway.”

She reluctantly walked to the mahogany wardrobe and opened it, revealing an array of suits of different colors. He stepped forward, snatched a black suit, and started searching inside. He examined every seam of it, being careful not to leave any part unchecked.

Eleanor was looking blankly at him while he mishandled her husband’s suit. After he was satisfied it contained nothing, he dumped it on the floor and she yelled, “That’s for my husband!”

He ignored her and went for another suit, did the same and it followed the one on the floor. He said to her, “Help me check the suits. Anything that you find, let me know.”

Right now, Eleanor wanted to slap him rather than obey his instruction. But she didn’t, for fear of what he might do, and instead helped him search the clothes. Twenty minutes later, the wardrobe was empty and he had nothing to show for the ransack.

He and Eleanor exchanged a sullen look, then he skittered to the nightstand. He picked the portrait of Admiral Peterson and his wife, studied it, and started dismembering it. Eleanor was about to scream at him but restrained herself. He pulled the frames apart, expecting anything to fly out. When nothing did, he flung it on the bed and shot her a look.

“Open the drawer.”

“Why can’t you do it?”

“Because you might try something stupid.”

She stared daggers at him before she walked quickly to his side, knelt, and pulled back the drawer.

She brusquely said, “There you have it.”

“Take out the items one after the other.”

She crouched over the drawer. Her massive hair tumbled down effortlessly and she tucked strands behind her ears. Then she started clearing the drawer of its content and putting them beside him. They were nothing that would interest him—tickets, credit cards, passports, driver’s licenses, and the sorts. Unless he needed them too. But he didn’t ask her to stop. He watched her as she swiftly emptied the drawer till the last item was down with the rest.

Tired, she sighed and sat on the floor. Then she whipped her head around to look at the mess she had assisted him in creating. Grudgingly, she glanced at the fugitive and drawled, “Now what?”

Ethan picked the cordless telephone from the nightstand, said, “Now is the time you call your husband,” and unceremoniously placed the phone into her hands.

She breathed in a gust of air before she started dialing numbers.