Pushing the depressing thoughts aside, he stepped inside the warm house and introduced Erica. The two women greeted each other and Max said, “I’m still looking for Lydia, Bea. Have you seen or heard from her?”
“Have a seat, you two.” The rail-thin yet spry woman didn’t look seventy. Energy radiated from her and he could see Erica was drawn to her. Bea asked, “Would you like something to drink? Eat?”
Erica shook her head. “I don’t care for anything, thanks.”
Impatience tugged at him. He forced it away. This woman had been able to reach a part of his sister no one else had touched. He supposed he should be jealous. But he wasn’t, he was just glad Lydia had someone she trusted. “Me, either, Bea. We don’t have a lot of time, but I wanted to introduce Erica to you.”
Bea’s sharp eyes homed in on Erica. “You’re Molly’s mother, aren’t you?”
Max saw Erica flinch, but she nodded. “Yes.”
“I recognize you from your picture on the news recently. I also followed your story three years ago.” She clucked her tongue. “I just couldn’t believe a child could disappear from the zoo on a field trip.” Her lips pursed. “I’ve had close to a hundred children come through my home in the last thirty years and none of ’em went missing on my watch.” She narrowed her eyes. “Well, Lydia might be the exception to that. But I always knew she’d come back.”
Max interrupted, hating the pain in Erica’s eyes. “I know you told me on the phone that you haven’t seen Lydia.” He leaned forward. “Please, Bea, this is for Lydia’s own good. You’ve been around the system enough to know that protecting her isn’t going to be good for her in the long run. We need to find her.”
For the first time, doubt creased her brow and she sighed. “Max, I’ve never had a biological child, but if I did, she would have been just like Lydia. Lydia’s like my own.” She paused. “I didn’t get her young enough. I would have raised her better than what she had. Deep down Lydia has a good heart. She just can’t seem to stop making stupid decisions.”
“I know.”
“And while she has her faults, she’s good to me.” She nodded toward her ankle, which was wrapped up in a brace. “She came by a day after I fell about a month ago and bought me this. Said I should go to the doctor, but I don’t have any insurance. Yep, she’s good to me.”
“And you’re good to her. Maybe too good.” He took her hand. “You know I’d pay for any doctor visit you needed.”
She flushed and waved him off. “I know that, but I knew it was just a sprain and would heal in time.”
Max leaned back. “Look at it this way. We want to find Lydia because we want to help her. Someone may be after her, and I want to find her first.” He gripped her hand. “Please, Bea, tell me what you know.”
The woman twisted her fingers together. “What do you mean someone’s after her and wants to hurt her?” He told her about the attack they’d saved her from the other night. Bea listened, eyes wide. “You really think she’s still in danger?”
“I don’t know, but we’re trying to find her before it’s too late.”
Bea closed her eyes for a moment then stood and said, “All right, I’ll be right back.”
As she disappeared down the hall toward the bedrooms, Erica asked in a low voice, “What makes you think Lydia is in danger, other than the attack the other night?” She shot a glance toward the hall. “I thought that was just a random thing of Lydia being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
He shrugged. “Just a feeling.”
Bea’s sprightly steps echoed on the hardwood as she returned to the kitchen. She set a shoe box on the table and heaved a sigh. “You’re sure she’s in danger? Because I promised Lydia I’d guard this with my life.”
“What’s in it?”
“I don’t know.” She huffed in indignation. “I didn’t look. I just made her promise it wasn’t drugs or anything that could get me arrested. She swore it wasn’t.”
Max lifted a brow. “And you believed her?” It wasn’t like Bea to have her head in the sand. She’d had enough kids who were hooked on drugs come through her house to know how it worked. You couldn’t trust them. Period. He would have looked the minute Lydia walked out the door.
Which was probably why she left the box with Bea.
Bea was nodding. “Yes. Strangely enough I did believe her about this. She said it was a memory box. She’d come by to visit it every once in a while.”
They all looked at the box for a moment, and then Max reached for the lid, wondering what he was about to find, and knowing it probably wasn’t going to be anything good.
*
Erica desperately wanted to snatch the box from the table and just dump out the contents. Instead, she curled her fingers into fists and held on to her unraveling patience as Max removed the lid.
He stared down into the box, his expression unreadable, and then pulled out a photo. Erica scooted forward to see. “That’s you, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Surprise tinged his voice. “This was taken on Lydia’s eighteenth birthday. She was sober and being civil to me. I took her out to eat at her favorite restaurant and the server snapped the picture.” He ran his fingers over his sister’s face, and Erica’s heart cramped at the pain etched on his features.
He shook himself and set the picture aside to pull other items out. A cheap necklace with a heart pendant, a pack of cards, a college application. “She has dreams,” Erica whispered.
“Yeah. She’s wanted to be an architect for as long as I can remember.” Max cleared his throat and held up a small piece of paper. “A business card.” He read it and looked up. “Kenneth Harper, Brown and Jennings Construction. It’s the same company that called her cell phone.”
“Then they’re next on the list,” Erica said.
He pulled out the last item—a thick envelope. He opened the flap and reached in.
Erica gasped as he withdrew a stack of money.
Max set it on the table and stared at it. “Whoa.”
“Where would she get that?” Erica asked Bea.
Bea shook her head, the dumbfounded expression leaving no doubt she was just as surprised. “She never said anything about it.”
Max counted the bills. “Twenty fifty-dollar bills.”
“A thousand bucks?” Erica lifted a brow.
He sat back and crossed his arms. “I have no idea where she would have gotten this kind of money.”
Erica picked up another picture. “Who’s this?”
Max took the picture from her and flipped it over. “It just says, ‘Me and Red.’”
“Who’s Red?”
Bea said, “She was in rehab with Lydia at that place across town.”
“Billings Rehab Center,” Max said. “I went to visit her while she was there, but she wouldn’t see me. That was when she was first sent there. After I kept going back, she finally understood I wasn’t going to give up and started letting me visit.”
Bea nodded and told Erica, “She was court ordered to go to Billings after she was kicked out of high school for having drugs on her. She spent four months there.”
Max looked at Erica, disappointment evident on his face. “It seemed to help. For a while. She started talking to me and we were working on our relationship, but then—” He shrugged. “After she got out and celebrated her eighteenth birthday, things went downhill fast.”
“Do you think Red would know where Lydia is?” Erica asked.
Bea sighed. “Red’s probably your best chance. She and Lydia were real close. Probably still are.”
“Do you know where we can find her?”
“No. All I know is she goes by Red. I don’t know her real name or where she’s from. Nothing.”
Max stood. “I can probably get her name from the rehab center.”
“That’s protected information, isn’t it?” Bea frowned.
Max smiled and met Erica’s eyes. “We have our ways.” The smile slipped as he looked at the money. “Ju
st keep this here for now, okay? Until we find out where she got it.”
Erica shook her head. “There’s no way a drug addict would have a thousand dollars tucked away. It would be gone in a split second.”
“You think it’s not hers?” Bea asked.
“I don’t know. If it is, the reason she’s holding on to it has got a stronger hold on her than the drugs.”
Hope flashed in Max’s eyes. “Yeah. True.” He slapped the lid back on the box and stood. “Let’s go see if we can find that reason.”
TEN
As Max walked around to the driver’s side of his truck after opening Erica’s door for her, he found himself checking the road. When he settled behind the wheel, he glanced in the rearview mirror. Something was making him uneasy, but he couldn’t say what. He felt watched, and he didn’t like that he didn’t see anyone doing the watching.
“I think that was productive,” Erica said.
“Definitely.” With one more glance in the mirror, he grabbed his phone and called the number for Brown and Jennings Construction. “I’ll see if we can stop by and talk to Kenneth Harper.”
Erica nodded. “After we talk to him, I need to go in to the office for at least a couple of hours. Rachel’s already left three messages on my voice mail and it’s only ten thirty.”
Max drove, his mind mulling over the thousand dollars cash in the box. Where would Lydia have gotten that much money? And a thousand even? All fifty-dollar bills. He looked in the mirror. Nothing alarming caught his attention. A blue Toyota behind him. A white Honda next to him.
The phone continued to ring. Just as he was about to hang up, a harried voice answered, “Brown and Jennings.”
“Could I speak to Kenneth Harper?”
“He’s out at a site giving an estimate.” Papers rustled in the background. “Looks like he’ll be back here around lunchtime.”
“He have a cell phone?”
“Who is this?”
“I’m a private investigator trying to track down a young woman named Lydia Powell. Do you know her?”
“Nope, sorry. Name doesn’t ring a bell.” There was a pause, and then, “Wait a minute. Yes, it does. Isn’t she the girl the cops are looking for?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, I remember seeing her name on the news. Why are you looking for her here?”
“I found your company’s business card in some of her things.”
“Oh. Wow. You’ll have to talk to Ken. He’s the owner, and if Lydia talked to anyone around here, it was probably him.”
“Okay, thanks.” Max hadn’t held too much hope that this woman would know something, but it had been worth a shot. “So may I have the cell number?”
“Sure.” She rattled it off and Max repeated it so Erica could write it down.
He hung up and tried the number. No answer. He left a message and then drove Erica to her office. Several cars filled the parking lot, including hers.
“You mind if I come in?” he asked.
“Of course not.” She climbed from the truck, and then glanced behind him. “I don’t think we were followed, do you?”
“I didn’t see anyone, but I was wondering the same thing at Bea’s house.” He thought for a moment. “I’m going to call her and tell her to be on the alert.”
Alarm crossed her features. “You don’t think someone would try to hurt her, do you?”
“If they thought she knew something about Lydia, they might.” He frowned. “I was careful—very careful—about being followed.”
“But not careful enough?”
“I’m not a hundred percent sure, and I don’t like that.”
He made a call to Bea, who said everything was fine but she’d keep her eyes open, and another to a buddy named Nick Kirby, who was still on the force and still a good friend. He explained what he needed and said to Erica, “Nick’s going to hang out and watch Bea’s house for the rest of the day and night.”
Relief crossed her face. “Good. I would hate to be the reason trouble arrives on her doorstep.”
He followed her into the building, trailing a few steps behind her, eyes roaming, senses tuned to the area around them. He wouldn’t mind seeing her office, but the main reason he wanted to go in was to make sure there wasn’t a bad surprise waiting inside for her.
He was probably just being paranoid.
But that was all right.
Inside, the warmth hit him and he shed his coat to hang it on the rack. Erica turned to the young woman at the desk and said, “Rachel, this is Max Powell.”
He shook hands with the pretty receptionist and thought he saw a bit of a family resemblance. Cousins, Erica had said. “Nice to meet you.”
She eyed him curiously. “You, too.”
He looked around. “So, this is it, huh?”
“Yep.” She smiled. “This way to my office.”
“I put your mail on your desk,” Rachel said.
“Thanks.” Erica turned into the office three doors down. Max stepped up to help her slip her coat off. As he did, his fingers accidentally slid across the back of her neck, touching her soft skin.
She shivered and turned to look at him, surprise on her face. He cleared his throat. “Where do you want me to hang this?”
Erica blinked and nodded to a coat rack behind the door. He hung the jacket up for her. “Nice office,” he said. He practically groaned at the lameness, but right now he needed to get his mind off the way her skin had felt. Because in that moment, all of his arguments about why he should ignore his attraction to this woman had flown out the window.
“Thanks. It’s nothing much, but it serves its purpose.” She shifted through the messages and the mail. With a frown, she pulled an envelope from the stack. “This is weird.”
“What is it?”
“It’s addressed to me, but there’s no return address or stamp.” Erica slid her letter opener under the tab and pulled out a sheet of paper. Her face went pale and she dropped into the chair behind her desk.
“What is it?” Max asked. He stepped forward and took the paper from her. It said, “I warned you. Stop looking for her or she dies.”
“The same message as my phone call last night.” She rubbed a shaky hand over her eyes. “It has to be about Molly, right?”
“Or Lydia.”
“But the person is warning me. You haven’t gotten anything about not searching for Lydia, have you?”
He rubbed his chin. “No.”
Excitement darkened her green eyes. “Molly’s still alive, Max.” Her throat worked and deep joy filled her face. “If she’s alive, I have a chance to get her back. You can’t imagine the horrible thoughts I’ve had about who might have taken her,” she whispered.
“I can imagine. But you have to keep fighting those thoughts, praying against them.” He reached over and took her hand. The fragile strength brought his protective instincts surging to the surface.
“I know. I do every day.”
“And keep believing you can get her back.” As soon as the words left his lips, he wondered if he should encourage her to continue hoping. Three years was a long time. Odds were completely against Erica being reunited with her child.
Odds he was sure she could quote him.
She pulled her hand from his and reached for the note and he held it aloft with thumb and forefinger. “Let’s see if Katie can get anything off this.”
“Fingerprints. Yes, of course. You’re right.” She took a deep breath and rubbed a hand down her face. “I usually think a little more clearly. It’s just…”
“I get it.”
She reached for the phone. He noticed she didn’t have to look up Katie Randall’s number. She hung up. “She’s on her way over to pick it up.”
As they waited, Max decided to ask Erica a question he’d had on his mind for a while. “What made you volunteer at the homeless shelter?”
She flushed. “Well, if I’m going to be honest, I’ll have to admit my motives weren�
�t completely pure at first.”
Intrigued, he leaned forward. “Why do you say that?”
She picked up Molly’s picture. “One of the first tips that came in was that she’d been seen at the shelter eating a free meal. No one remembered who she was with, just that she was there. The police got several calls about her being seen there so we all felt it was a legitimate tip.”
“So you went there.”
“I did. Of course no one would talk to me. But I noticed the rapport between the servers and the homeless. I signed up to serve the next day. It took time, but they came to trust me. I learned that Molly was there two days after she was kidnapped, but I didn’t learn anything else over the next few weeks. I developed a relationship with the people there and—” she shrugged “—I stayed.” She eyed him. “They’re not all criminals.”
“Realistically, I know that.” He rubbed his chin and eyed her. “But what about the ones who are?”
She said, “I won’t say I don’t take precautions. Of course I do. But I’ve come to care for these people. I’ve listened to their stories. And shared mine. I’m not homeless, but ‘there but for the grace of God, go I,’ you know?”
“Yeah. I know.” And he did. He understood what she meant.
“Why don’t you come with me? Help me serve? Meet the people?”
An outright refusal hovered on his tongue, but the look on her face kept him from expressing it.
A knock on the door made them both jump. Relieved he didn’t have to answer right away, Max turned to see Brandon in the doorway. Erica hopped to her feet and rushed to her brother. “Are you all right? What are you doing here?”
“I’m all right. Feeling a bit rough, but I had a new case I wanted to get the paperwork on.” He held up a hand to halt her protests. “I can’t just sit around doing nothing.”
Jordan stepped into the room behind his friend and lifted his brow when he caught sight of Max. “You’re becoming a regular fixture, aren’t you?”
Max remembered that when they’d first met, Brandon had made a reference to Jordan as Erica’s boyfriend. And while Erica quickly set the record straight, it appeared that Jordan might have a different take than Erica.
He was surprised by the spike of jealousy he suddenly felt.
Hide and Seek Page 9
