by Karen Lynch
Violet pretended to swoon. “He’s certainly nothing like the boys we knew in school. Let’s face it. If it had been Lukas Rand trying to feel you up at Vijay Patel’s party instead of Felix Madden, you wouldn’t have spent most of our junior year being called the nutcracker.”
“Shut up.” Heat flooded my cheeks, and I threw a pillow at her. “You are never going to let me forget that, are you?”
“No one’s going to forget that, my friend. It was in the yearbook, remember?”
I wish I could say she was joking. She wasn’t. And being the best friend that she was, she took great delight in bringing it up whenever she could.
She went back to her search. “I see him mentioned at a few celebrity events, but other than that, nothing.”
“I’m not surprised. He doesn’t seem like someone who likes the limelight.” I stood and went to the kitchen. “You want something to drink?”
“Whatever you’re having,” she called, not taking her eyes off her phone.
I poured two glasses of soda. As I picked them up to carry them to the living room, my phone rang. I froze, and the glasses slipped from my hands to smash on the tile floor.
Violet’s shouts freed me from my stupor. I jumped over the mess and raced to where my phone lay on the coffee table, playing Bad to the Bone.
The song ended just as I snatched up the phone. There was a notification for a missed call, and I stared at the name.
Mom.
Chapter 11
My hands shook as I hit the button to call her number. It went straight to voice mail. No!
“Jesse, what’s wrong? Who was that?” Violet asked.
“My mom.”
“What?” Violet jumped up and came over to look at my phone. “Oh, my God! What do we do?”
“I-I don’t know. It’s going to voice mail again.”
“If her GPS is on, you can track the phone,” Violet said.
I stared at her. Track the phone. I could track the phone. “God, I’m so stupid.”
I took off for the office. Why hadn’t I thought to do that when they went missing? My parents always kept their GPS on, and even if the phone was turned off, it would show the GPS location of the last call. I’d thought Mom had butt-dialed me, but what if she had been letting me know how to find them – and I’d failed her?
The computer already had an app installed for tracking all the phones in a household, and Mom had put each of our numbers in there. I clicked on hers and hit the “Find” button, and a few seconds later, a map appeared with a phone icon on it. I clicked the icon, and it displayed a message telling me the phone appeared to be off but that this was the location of the last call, three minutes ago.
My heart pounded as I read the Bronx address. My mother could be there right now, waiting for me to come find her. I would not fail her a second time.
I entered the address into the GPS app on my phone and turned to Violet. “I have to check this out. Will you come with me?”
“You don’t even have to ask.” She looked at the shelves of gear in anticipation. “Are we going to load up on weapons first?”
I rummaged through one of the bins and handed her a taser, the kind that shoots out the prongs. “Here, take this. And keep the safety on unless you have to use it.”
I was afraid to let her handle any of the bigger weapons. The most dangerous thing I’d ever seen her wield was a hammer in the school theater, and she’d nearly brained the drama teacher while working on a prop.
“Roger that.” She pointed the taser at an imaginary target and pretended to shoot. “What about radios? Do we need those?”
“No, because we are not splitting up,” I said firmly as we went back to the living room to grab our coats. I saw the mess of glass and soda in the kitchen, but there was no time to clean it up. Every second counted.
“Finch, I’ll be back soon. I promise,” I called as I sped out the door. Guilt weighed down on me for leaving him alone again so soon, but he’d heard the call and knew what it meant.
“Are you sure you want to come with me?” I asked Violet as we climbed into the Jeep. “It could be dangerous.”
She snapped her seat belt and grinned at me. “Are you kidding? This is all so cloak and dagger. I can’t believe you get to do this every day.”
I pulled out into traffic. “It’s not exactly like this. A lot of it is boring stuff. Well, except when something is trying to eat you.”
“Ha!” She waited for me to laugh with her, and when I didn’t, she murmured, “Holy crap.”
My GPS took us to a two-story, red brick house in a nice neighborhood. I parked across the street and looked for signs that someone was home. There were no cars in the driveway, but it looked like there was a detached garage behind the house.
“What do we do now?” Violet whispered.
“I’m thinking.” I gave her a sideways look. “Why are you whispering?”
She blushed. “Sorry. Caught up in the moment.”
I went back to studying the house. It looked well-kept, although the grass was ready for a trim. I could imagine a doctor or a lawyer living here, definitely someone with money. Which led to the question of why my parents would be here.
My gaze landed on two objects lying on the front step, and it took me a moment to realize they were rolled newspapers. The owner must be away and forgot to suspend the paper delivery.
“I don’t think anyone is home. I’m going to look around,” I said.
Violet reached for her door. “Not without me.”
We got out and crossed the quiet street. It was late morning, so most people had to be at work and school. I went up to the front door and checked the newspapers, and sure enough they were for yesterday and today.
Taking a deep breath, I rang the doorbell. I could hear the chimes inside the house, and I listened for footsteps that never came. I pressed the button again and waited. Nothing.
Leaving the step, I walked around to the fenced backyard that housed a stone patio, a postage-stamp sized patch of grass, and a detached two-car garage with what looked like an apartment above it.
I went to the garage and cupped my eyes to peer through a window in one of the doors. When my eyes adjusted, I could make out what looked like a car under a cover in one bay. The other bay was empty.
There was a set of stairs on the side of the garage, leading to the apartment above it. I climbed the stairs and knocked firmly on the door just in case. When no one answered, I tried the door, not surprised to find it locked.
I chewed on my lip, not sure what to do. I’d been in such a mad rush after that call that I hadn’t really thought about what I’d do when I got here. I couldn’t leave without knowing if my parents were here, but I wouldn’t know for sure unless I could get inside the house.
Violet joined me at the top of the steps. “What now?”
I heaved a sigh. “I’m going to try to get into the house. You go back to the car. I don’t want you getting into trouble if something goes wrong.”
“No way. You said we wouldn’t split up,” she protested. “How are you going to get in?”
“I don’t know. I have a pick set in my bag in the Jeep, but I’m not that good at it.” I had been practicing with the locks at home, but so far, I’d only managed to unlock a few padlocks. Nothing close to a dead bolt.
“No problem. I can do it.”
I stared at her. “Since when can you pick locks?”
She shrugged. “Remember last spring when I was auditioning for a role in that movie about the gang of teen cat burglars? I thought it might help me get into character more if I could actually pick a lock. Turns out I’m a natural.”
“Wow. I can’t believe you didn’t get the part.”
She sniffed indignantly. “I know. I’d make an awesome burglar.”
“Police. Hands in the air,” boomed a deep voice from behind us.
Violet and I raised our hands above our heads and turned slowly. A pit opened in my stomach when I
saw two uniformed officers below with their guns drawn.
“Yikes,” Violet squeaked. “Please, tell me you can flash your bounty hunter ID and get us out of this. I’m too cute to go to prison.”
* * *
“She’s doing it again,” Violet whispered fearfully in my ear.
I shifted on the hard bench and followed her gaze to the blonde, who stared back at us from the other side of the crowded holding cell. The woman had to be around forty, and her thick makeup and skimpy clothes made it clear what her profession was. The makeup couldn’t hide the ravaged face of someone who hadn’t had an easy life.
Violet pressed into my side. “What’s taking so long? We’re probably going to get shanked before they spring us.”
I smothered a laugh, happy to find any humor in our situation. After being arrested for trespassing, we’d spent the last four hours in this cell that stank of sweat, cheap perfume, alcohol, and vomit. It turned out that the neighbor whose house we’d parked in front of had been at home, and he was vigilant about reporting suspicious people on their street.
I’d shown the police my ID and tried to explain about tracing my mother’s phone to the house, but they hadn’t wanted to hear it. We were lucky they had arrived before we’d picked the locks, or they would have us for breaking and entering, too.
“I don’t think people get shanked in holding,” I said in a low voice.
A very tattooed and pierced woman near us, who looked like she was coming off an all-night bender, spoke up. “Oh, it happens. I knew a girl who got cut up good.”
Violet whimpered, and I patted her knee. “Just think. If you ever need to audition for the part of a criminal, you can use this to really get into character.”
She perked up. “Ooh, that’s true.”
A female police officer approached the cell and stuck a key in the lock. “James and Lee.”
“That’s us!” Violet sprang up and practically dragged me out of the cell.
We accompanied the officer to the clerk’s office to get our belongings, and then she led us to the reception area of the precinct where our savior waited for us. My one call had been to Conlan because he was the only person I could think of to ask for help.
I came up short when I entered the reception area and saw Lukas, not Conlan, waiting for us. What on earth was he doing here?
“I called Conlan,” I said dumbly when I reached him.
“Conlan is occupied elsewhere,” he replied brusquely. “Let’s go.”
He turned away and strode to the exit without looking to see if we were following. Violet and I had to almost run to keep up with him. Outside, Iian waited for Lukas. The four of us walked to a silver SUV with Kerr behind the wheel. Lukas took the front passenger seat, while Violet and I got into the back with Iian.
“It’s been less than eight hours since I last saw you, and in that time, you managed to land in jail for trespassing,” Lukas said as Kerr drove us away from the police station.
Finally, someone who would take me seriously. “Like I told Conlan, I got a call from my mother, and I traced her phone to a house in the Bronx. We went to check it out and got arrested.”
Lukas turned his head to look at me. “What did your mother say?”
“I didn’t talk to her. The call ended before I could pick up.”
His eyes burned into mine. “So, you and your friend decided to go off on your own with no idea what you could be walking into.”
“I…”
“Did it not occur to you that someone could have been using your mother’s phone to lure you into a trap?”
My shoulders slumped. “I was so shocked by the call that I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“That must also be the reason why you didn’t call us before you ran off half-cocked,” he said pointedly. “Did we not agree I would handle this?”
“You said you would go after the goren dealer. I didn’t think you wanted me to call you about anything else.”
He looked out the windshield with an audible sigh. “Let me rephrase what I said this morning since I wasn’t clear enough then. Anything that concerns your parents is of interest to me. The next time you get a lead on them, you call me immediately. Is that understood?”
“Yes.” I pressed my lips together. How was it possible for someone to give me butterflies in one encounter and make me feel like a scolded child in the next?
“Good.”
I leaned forward. “What about the call I got from my mother? Her phone didn’t just end up at some random house. We have to go back and search for it.”
“Faolin and Conlan are there now. They found no sign of your parents or your mother’s phone, but Faolin said it looks like someone was in the house earlier today.”
“I was so close.” Despair washed over me. What if my parents had been there while I was outside? If only that neighbor hadn’t called the police.
Lukas’s voice cut through my heavy thoughts. “The person in the house could have been there lying in wait for you. Remember that. As for your little adventure, the charge has been dropped.”
“Thank God,” Violet whispered, speaking for the first time since we left the station.
Relief swept through me. “Are you taking us to my Jeep?”
“Conlan will return your vehicle to you. You’re fortunate the police were slow to impound it.” He held out a hand. I slipped the car key off my key ring and gave it to him.
Lukas went back to staring out the window, apparently done with the conversation. No one spoke for the remainder of the drive, and I had never been so happy to see my street.
Kerr pulled up to my building, and Violet scrambled out like her seat was on fire. I followed her and turned to look at Lukas, who had lowered his window.
“Thank you for helping us out today,” I told him.
“Yeah, you came just in time,” Violet piped in. “Another hour and I would have been carving a shiv from a bar of soap.”
Lukas shot me a questioning look, and I shook my head. “She’s an actress. Drama is her middle name.”
The corners of his mouth twitched, and I waited for the smile that didn’t come.
“Try to stay out of trouble for at least a day,” he ordered in a less severe tone. “I have more important things to do than bail you out of jail.”
“I’ll do my best.”
He signaled to Kerr, and they drove off without another word. I waited until they had disappeared from sight before I turned to go inside.
Violet grabbed my arm. “Is he always like that? I think he scared me more than the thought of spending the night in jail.”
“That was nothing. And Faolin’s worse.”
“Then I really don’t want to meet Faolin.” She shuddered. “I’m going to head home. I need a shower after four hours in that cell.”
I made a face. “Me too. Thanks for coming with me today.”
“What are best friends for if not to get arrested together?” She sobered. “I’m sorry we didn’t find your parents.”
I summoned a smile. “Not this time, but I will.”
Violet pulled me in for a quick hug. “If anyone can find them, it’s you.”
* * *
I shivered and pulled up the collar of my jacket, but it was little protection from the frigid December wind that stung my face. I was going to be frozen through by the time I reached the Jeep, which I’d had to park two blocks away.
A minute later, when icy drops of rain began to pelt me, I discovered it could be a lot worse. I gasped as the sky opened up and dumped its contents on my head, and I looked around frantically for shelter. The sign for a diner beckoned me like a beacon, and I ran to it.
A bell jingled when I opened the door and entered the diner, which felt like a sauna compared to outside. My glasses fogged, and I removed them so I could see the hostess who greeted me.
“Table for one?” she asked, taking a laminated menu from the hostess stand.
I pushed dripping-wet hair out of my fa
ce. “Yes, please.”
The diner was small with four booths along the windows and tables against the wall. The hostess led me to one of the booths where I grabbed a handful of napkins to dry my face and glasses. I was still drying off when a waitress came over to take my order.
“Do you have soup?” I asked her without looking at the menu.
“Today’s soup is chicken noodle,” she said. “It’s really good.”
“Perfect. I’ll have that with lots of crackers and a small Coke.”
She left, and I pulled out my phone to check for messages. Disappointment pricked me when I saw there were none. It had been three days since I’d gotten that call from my mother’s phone, and except for one call from Lukas to tell me they’d found nothing in the house, it had been radio silence. The house, he’d informed me, belonged to a lawyer named Cecil Hunt, who was on vacation in Hawaii. Faolin had checked into the lawyer, and he looked clean. In other words, a dead end.
My chest squeezed, and I fought back the hopelessness that tried to well up in me. The more time that passed, the odds of finding my parents got smaller. I would never give up on them, but it was getting harder to stay positive.
I had been doing my best to keep busy, and I found that bounty hunting was a good way to do that. I’d brought in a Two yesterday, much to Levi’s delight, and he’d already given me two more jobs. I no longer got funny looks from the other hunters whenever I visited the Plaza, and I was starting to feel like I’d been accepted by them. Bringing in a bunnek on my own had pretty much taken care of that.
The waitress brought a steaming bowl of soup, and I almost moaned at the first mouthful. It was homemade and hearty, and perfect for such a cold, miserable day. I hadn’t had a good home cooked meal since Mom and Dad disappeared. It hit me now how much I missed that.
A fresh wave of melancholy threatened, and I shook it off. Reaching for my jacket I’d tossed on the seat beside me, I pulled out my ear buds and stuck them in my ears. I selected my favorite playlist on my phone and listened to music while I enjoyed my delicious soup and watched the rain lashing the window.
