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brow cleared, and he gave her a rueful smile. “We now know your father flew to Washington via Amsterdam and Atlanta, that he spent one night at a hotel near the airport. We’ve even spoken to the receptionist who remembers booking him in. Did you know your father is a handsome devil that women don’t forget?” he added dryly.
    “I did actually, yes,” Callie answered distractedly, stepping farther into the office. It had always puzzled her that her father had never married again, but his reply to that question had always been he had loved her mother too much to ever think of taking another wife. “My father flew to Washington?” she repeated slowly.
    “Via Amsterdam and Atlanta.” Lijah nodded. “No doubt in an effort to cover his tracks. Any idea why he chose Washington?”
    “I believe several of the guests at the gallery that night were from the Washington area…”
    “Twenty of them,” Lijah confirmed. “Twelve of them are men.”
    Callie gave a pained wince. “We can hardly knock on the door of each and every one of them and ask if they stole the Felix Griffith’s jewelry collection and killed Michael. Or if they now know where my father is.”
    “Obviously not,” Lijah confirmed grimly. “But hopefully if—when we locate Peter, he’ll know who we’re looking for. At the moment, we’re still having a little trouble locating which hotel Peter went to after that first one. Any ideas?”
    “He didn’t go to another hotel,” Callie revealed with certainty. “His sister, my Aunt Jane, is married to an American lawyer and owns a house in Georgetown,” she explained at Lijah’s questioning look. “She won’t be there now, though. She and her husband always go to Barbados for the winter.”
    “Shit, I wish I’d known that an hour ago. Daisy!” Lijah called to the outer office, a harassed blonde appearing in the doorway seconds later. “Forget phoning round the individual hotels. Get the address and telephone number of Peter’s sister from Callie here. No, forget that too. Thanks, Dayz,” he dismissed the blonde as he turned to Callie. “Do you have a cell phone?”
    “In my bag.”
    Lijah stood. “Then I think you should be the one to make the call to your aunt’s house. If Peter sees and recognizes your number, maybe he’ll pick up.”
    Callie began looking through her bag for her cell. “And if he doesn’t?”
    His eyes narrowed. “When you and I get to Washington later tonight, we’ll make your aunt’s house our first port of call.”
    Her fingers fumbled slightly on the buttons of her cell phone as she punched in her aunt’s number. It hadn’t even occurred to her before now that her father might be at Aunt Jane’s. Mainly because she hadn’t guessed that her father was in Washington at all.
    Her palm felt damp as she tightly gripped and held the cell up to her ear. Maybe in a few seconds, she might actually be speaking to her father. And, if possible, beg him to come home. “It’s ringing.”
    It continued to ring.
    And ring.
    Callie’s heart sank as the call went to voice mail.
    She put her hand over the mouthpiece to speak to Lijah. “Do I leave a message?”
    “No. Absolutely not,” he instructed grimly. “If Peter isn’t answering, then we have no idea if the location has been compromised.”
    “Compromised?” Callie slipped the cell phone back into her bag.
    Lijah gave a shrug. “That’s military speak for—”
    “I know what it is, Lijah,” she assured him quietly. “I’m a military brat, remember?” She knew compromised meant that her aunt’s house might now be known and infiltrated by the enemy.
    The enemy .
    Dear God, was it possible her father really had managed to find him ?
    And if he had—
    “Don’t let your imagination run away with you, Callie.” Lijah crossed the room to stand just in front of her. “We have no proof your father even went to your aunt’s house. It may just be locked up for the winter, like you said.”
    And her