by R. H. Herron
“Huh?” Confusion frizzed through her brain. God, she was tired.
Kevin took the phone out of her hands and zoomed in on the picture. “I’ve seen this guy.”
“What?”
“I’ve seen him at least twice. He’s dropped Harper off at a couple of meetings. You’ve never seen him do that? I thought he was her father.”
The truth was an electric jolt. “That’s not Harper’s father. Holy shit. That’s her boyfriend. Oh, my God, Darren Dixon is Ray!”
Kevin nodded, but he didn’t look convinced. “I don’t get it. How would she even know him?”
Jojo was only stumped for a few seconds. “Jesus. He’s the one who arrested us when we stole the rings.”
“I’m lost.”
“That was when he and my dad really started hating each other. Me and Harper were being stupid—it was supposed to be just a game. We didn’t think we’d actually get away with stealing anything, and we didn’t.” Jojo didn’t add that she actually had gotten away with it. Quickly, she touched the ring through her shirt. “He was the school resource officer, and I remember Harper trying to flirt with him to get out of it before my dad got there, asking for his number, being herself. That was one of the things I was super annoyed with her about, that she seemed to think it was such a trivial thing.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Two years—I was fourteen and she was almost fifteen.”
“You think she’s been seeing him since then?”
“I don’t know what to think. I’m beginning to think nothing Harper does will surprise me.” Jojo stood, then sat back down.
“So wait, is she not being held captive, then? Is she in on it? Whatever it is?”
Jojo jerked her head back and forth. “They found her blood at your house, remember? Maybe they were together, but he went too far that night, or what-the-fuck-ever. He’s holding her hostage now.” Please let her be a hostage. Please don’t let her be dead.
She went on, “We have to find out where he lives. My parents might know? But that might be doubtful, since he never got along with them, not even back in the day.”
“Maybe his address is online,” said Kevin.
Jojo shook her head. “No way. These guys value their privacy way too much to let that happen. If my mom wasn’t in fucking jail, I could text her and ask.” She checked her phone, “Or I could go by dispatch and ask them, but I have a feeling they’re probably not in the mood to tell me anything, either.”
“Can’t hurt to try, though.” Kevin typed on his laptop. “Okay, see, look. This site wants to charge me nineteen dollars to give me his background information.” He removed a credit card from his wallet.
“I’m telling you, you won’t get anything from that.”
A minute later Kevin turned to her with a triumphant smile. “Check it out. Do you think he lives in Danville?”
“Oh, my God. You have an address?”
“House ownership is public record. You can’t find me, because my house was bought through the corporation I set up for myself. But a regular person, unless he set it up in somebody else’s name, like his wife’s—”
“He’s not married.”
“That’s why his information is there, then.” He wrote the address down on the piece of paper in front of him. “What do we do now?”
This was madness. Whoever had Harper was undoubtedly armed. He was a murderer. And whoever he was, he would expect someone to come looking, eventually.
“We go,” Jojo said.
FORTY-FOUR
JOJO WAS GOING to scream if Kevin checked his watch again.
Of course, as soon as she had the thought, he checked his watch for what was probably the hundredth time. He thumped his leg so it juddered against his steering wheel. Outside the car windows, the neighborhood was coming alive—joggers ran past, people walked dogs, a newspaper delivery driver threw papers haphazardly out his window.
“Now?” Kevin asked again.
“Fine,” Jojo said. It hadn’t been quite thirty minutes yet, the amount of time she’d recommended they wait.
When they’d first arrived, twenty-seven minutes before, Jojo had gone into the backyard via the smooth-opening gate. It had been almost fully light then, though the morning was still chilly. She’d shoved up the bathroom window and crawled inside, her heart hammering. There was no car in the driveway, and the house was completely quiet. Please, God, don’t let him be home. Please let me find Harper. She didn’t dare think about what she’d do if he was inside the house—she’d scream and run and hopefully alert the cavalry. It was all she had.
She’d done a quick turn through the still-dim house, using her phone for light. She’d moved quickly through the rooms, almost expecting to feel a bullet slam into her back, to hear Dixon roar with rage at her for trespassing. As she ran out the front door, she knew without doubt that he wasn’t home and that Harper wasn’t in plain sight, but that hadn’t stopped the terror. She and Kevin had sat in his car on the street as her shaking wore off, waiting to see if police cruisers pulled up. “If he has a silent alarm, dispatch won’t hold that since it’ll be registered to a cop. They’ll send it out immediately. So if no one comes, no alarm.”
They had waited. Kevin had grown antsier by the moment.
“This is crazy,” he said now. “You could get into the backyard, but what’s it going to look like for a huge black man to walk to the door? If there’s any kind of neighborhood watch, we’re fucked.”
“I’m lighter than you, but I’m still too dark-skinned for this neighborhood. And I came out the front door and no one seemed to give a crap. I don’t think anyone’s watching.”
“Don’t you think we should go in through the back window again?”
“I think I was lucky to have gotten away with that the first time.” Jojo took a deep breath. “Come on, I’ll show you how it’s done.”
She held Kevin’s hand as they walked up the front steps. She plastered on a bright smile. She looked up into his face as she pretended to ring the doorbell. “Okay, see how I’m doing it?” She laughed out loud. “We look like we’re having fun, like we’re just here visiting friends.”
Kevin gave the fakest-sounding laugh Jojo’d ever heard. “This is a terrible idea!” His smile made it look like someone was torturing him.
Jojo leaned to the left and peered in the side window. She ostentatiously waved, as if someone inside were welcoming her. “Come in?” she said brightly and loudly. “Okay!” She opened the now-unlocked door, and they tumbled in.
Next to her, Kevin’s smile fell off his face. He gasped a breath. “I think I’m having a heart attack.”
“I looked in every room. He’s not here.”
He leaned forward and propped his hands on his knees. “I can barely stand up. I have no idea how you did that.”
Jojo’s pulse was racing even faster than it had been before. “I don’t know either. We’ll be okay.”
“Do we need gloves?” Kevin asked.
Jojo had thought of that a little too late, after she’d come in through the window. Whatever happened, her prints were already here. If they found a crime scene and reported it, it wouldn’t matter. If they were the crime scene—she tried not to think about getting arrested for burglary. “I don’t have any. You can use a tissue or toilet paper or something if you want to touch anything. But I don’t care very much.”
“Right. Me, neither.” Kevin looked like he felt a lot worse than she did.
Jojo gave him a quick side hug. “We can do this.” She wasn’t sure they could—oh, to have Mom there—but they had no choice.
Room by room, they explored. Darren Dixon was nowhere to be found, thank God.
But neither was Harper.
Two bedrooms and a bathroom showed no evidence of a woman ever staying there. The furnishings were
dark leather, very male. No female clothing in the closets, no makeup in the bathroom cabinet.
Kevin whispered, “Where’s the master bedroom?”
Jojo pointed at the room they’d just come out of.
He shook his head. “Too small for a house like this.”
She hadn’t even noticed the last door when she’d done her terrified rabbit run through the house earlier. Shit, shit, shit.
“I didn’t see that door before.” Her whisper was so quiet she could almost not hear it herself. Jojo put her fingertips on the knob and looked at Kevin. He gave her a nod.
She slammed open the door, and Kevin rushed in, banging on the light switch.
No one.
It was a big room, with dark blue carpet and a huge wooden bed. The sheets were pulled back, so this was obviously where he slept. The en suite bathroom was empty.
Jojo dropped into a squat and panted, her heart thumping like a jackhammer. Holy shit, how could there be this much terror inside her chest?
In the middle of the room, Kevin turned in a circle, raising his arms. “Well, where the fuck is she?”
Automatically Jojo held out her hand palm-down to quiet him. Her whisper was harsh in her throat. “You think she’s just going to be hanging out in his bedroom? He’s obviously got her hidden somewhere.”
Kevin shook his head and kept talking in a normal volume. “What if we have it all wrong? What if her boyfriend is just some dude who looks like this guy? I saw him in a car, twice. I can’t be sure of anything.”
“My dad always says there are no coincidences. Things look related for a reason. She has to be here.”
“I think maybe we’re going crazy.”
Jojo ignored him and scanned the room. She looked under the bed, finding nothing, not even dust balls, and pulled open both walk-in closets. One held clothes, all male, and the other held sports equipment.
She moved around the space, pushing on the walls.
“You think you’re going to find a hidden room or something?” His tone was sour.
“You never know.” But yeah, she did feel stupid. She pulled open the bedside table’s drawer, lifting it all the way out and up, to check for a secret bottom, not that she’d know what one would look like if she saw it. The drawer held nothing but a strip of condoms and an extra phone charger. Two photos were framed under the bedside lamp. One was an older black-and-white photo—his parents, maybe? The couple in the photo didn’t smile, standing rigidly in front of what looked like a church door.
The other photo was the framed rear profile of a girl.
It was Harper.
“Kevin.” It was the only word she could get out. The photo showed the back of Harper’s hair, caught in a messy braid, the top of her shoulder, and just the side of her jaw. But Jojo knew that jaw. She’d laid kisses along it. She knew it.
“What?”
“This is Harper.”
Kevin picked up the photo. “This looks like the generic white-girl picture that comes with the frame. This could be anybody.”
Jojo stabbed at the jawline. The glass rattled. “That’s Harper.”
Kevin set the photo down. He moved to the other side of the bed and started to press on walls, the same way she had.
But what if she was wrong?
She looked again, and then for a tenth time.
The girl could really be anyone. Random girl in a frame. A million girls with that jaw. No other identifying features visible.
Screw that. She knew it was Harper—her very bones shook with the knowledge.
Jojo took out her phone and texted Mom again.
Don’t freak. Inside Darren Dixon’s house—he’s not here—there’s a pic of Harper. If u get this text, can u bring thermal camera? It would take a miracle. She gave the address and sat on the edge of the bed to catch her breath, then jumped up immediately, disgusted that she let herself put her ass where Dixon rested.
“Let’s get out of here.”
Now Kevin looked at her incredulously. “But we know she’s here. Or nearby.”
“The longer we spend in here, the closer we are to getting caught.”
“You’re giving up?”
“Never.” How dare he even suggest that?
A ping. On my way.
Jojo held up her phone triumphantly. “My mom’s coming! I say we wait outside in the car for her to get here, and then we all come in together. If Dixon comes home now, we’ll just get arrested or worse. If my mom is here, at least she knows him, and if she brings a thermal camera, then we can check the whole house, fast.”
Kevin bobbed on his toes for a moment, thinking. “You go outside. I’ll stay in here. I was lucky to get in once.” Then he continued, his words slow and halting. “What if Harper’s here? What if she’s . . . dead?”
Jojo shrugged. “Then there’s not much we can do, anyway.” Such easy words for such an impossible thought.
Kevin’s voice was cool. “Then we kill him.”
Jojo paused. Then she said, “Okay.”
FORTY-FIVE
KELLY, A CAPTAIN who worked at Fire Station Two, wasn’t comfortable with any part of this, and Laurie knew it. Kelly kept looking at the door that led back into the fire station as if considering making a break for it.
As if Laurie were keeping her outside by force.
“Come on, Kelly. Please.”
“You can’t just borrow a thermal-imaging camera with no explanation, and expect me to just hand it over. You do realize that’s a seven-thousand-dollar piece of equipment?”
“And you have one on every rig now, don’t you?”
Kelly growled and stamped her foot. “Do you know how much trouble I’d be in if I roll up in the truck and we don’t have that camera on board when we need it?”
“When was the last time you actually used one?”
Kelly answered immediately. “Last week, on Harrison, that fatal. There was a baby seat in the back, and we used it to check the bushes to make sure there wasn’t a child lying there. You really want me to take a risk of not having that on my truck?”
Laurie and Kelly had been friends for at least seventeen years. It was anomalous in the city—firefighters and police personnel didn’t usually get along, let alone hang out. But back when Laurie was on the street, she and Kelly had ended up working more than a few major incidents together, both of them wet behind the ears, both of them careful to get everything right. They’d hung out at the local brewpub more than they probably should have. Kelly had given her and Omid the biggest thing on their wedding registry—the KitchenAid stand mixer. For her fortieth birthday, Kelly and Sarah had taken her out dancing, and the resulting hangover had almost killed her, but it had been worth it.
Kelly hadn’t understood when Laurie left the street. Why are you abandoning me out here with all these dumb boys?
Of course, Laurie had never told her the reason she’d gone into dispatch.
She needed that TIC. “A man was murdered, you know that.”
“And what you’re telling me is that you’re going to catch the suspect?”
“Not at all. I just want to help find my daughter’s best friend.” Laurie made a conscious effort to uncross her arms, to keep her body facing Kelly’s. “I have a couple of suspects in mind—”
“Do you hear how crazy you’re sounding? You’re not a cop.”
“Omid is in the hospital,” Laurie started. “And—”
“Jesus, Laurie, don’t give me that shit. Of course I’m sorry, and my crew sent flowers. But you can’t sob-story me into giving you this. And I gotta say, I’m getting really concerned. I know you’ve been through the shit this last week, and I think you’re probably in shock.”
“People who are in shock freeze. I’m not frozen. I’m just doing what no one else is willing to do.”
Kelly folded her arms and leaned against the brick building. “There’s a rumor you’re accusing guys on the force of some crazy stuff.”
“Man, word travels fast.”
“I’m worried about you. You know how trauma can get its hooks in us, right?”
“I’ve been to all the same trainings as you have,” snapped Laurie.
“You’re displaying levels of paranoia that—”
“You’re aware that paranoia isn’t a PTSD symptom, right?” The only reason Laurie knew this was that she’d Googled it after Sarah had mentioned it in the jail. If she was going crazy, she wanted to know it, but she wasn’t. “This whole thing sounds insane, but I promise you, Kelly, I’m not crazy. I have proof. I wish I could share it with you, I really do. You just have to trust me.”
“But—”
Laurie went in for the kill. “What if it was Rebecca?”
“Don’t do that.”
“You know my daughter was raped, right?” Laurie leaned hard on the r and the hard d of the word. “She has internal traumatic injuries. Some monster raped my baby and killed a man inside the same house. That same person has Harper somewhere. What if it was Rebecca?”
Kelly’s daughter Rebecca was fifteen and autistic, and she was the whole world to Kelly. It was the lowest blow Laurie could land, and she didn’t regret it.
Kelly glared. “If you get caught with this, I’ll tell everyone you stole it off the truck while I wasn’t looking. I’ll get in trouble for that, but at least I won’t lose my job.”
Laurie nodded. “And I will absolutely say that I stole it. Actually, I would’ve just done that if I knew where you kept it on the rig.”
FORTY-SIX
LAURIE WANTED TO fly to Dixon’s house, but she couldn’t afford to get pulled over, so she kept the speedometer to ten miles over the speed limit. She could feel the bones in her body clacking against one another every time she hit a bump, as if she were suddenly ancient and brittle.
The GPS led her to the address Jojo had given her. Laurie had never been here before, of course. Even back in the day, Laurie and Omid hadn’t gotten along with Dixon. He ran with a different group at the station, hanging out with the motorcycle guys, the ones who rented condos in Vegas for getaways and serially dated strippers.
