CHAPTER TWENTY
Ilse was standing outside the hotel now. Sawyer, thankfully, was still there, sitting in an idling car with the windows down and the sunroof open, even though night had fallen. In the darkness, he looked a gloomy silhouette outlined through the faintly tinted windows of the loaner sedan.
She stood on the curb, watching the car but not approaching it as she waited for her phone to connect. She lowered the phone, double-checking the number to make sure she'd recorded it correctly from the website she'd found on the cop's phone, then lifted her device again, waiting.
Her dumb flip phone often had spotty connections, even in the city, but thankfully, after another long ring, there came a silence, then a breath and a voice, “Admissions office—how can I help you?”
“Umm, hello,
