by Susan Stoker
Clenching his teeth, Driftwood said, “I know. I don’t need it. I can find what I need in her apartment and I’ll call 9-1-1 if necessary.”
“Well, I’m not sure. This is highly unusual,” the manager said, rubbing his chin.
“Please,” Driftwood begged. “This isn’t like her. I’m worried about her. I’m not up to no good. I swear.”
“All right…but only because I’ve seen you with her before. I’m not the kind of manager who lets any ol’ person off the street into my apartments.”
“Thank you,” Driftwood said in relief, making a mental note to get a key made for Quinn’s apartment as soon as possible.
“Wait here,” the old man said as he turned around and went back inside his office/apartment.
Driftwood did his best not to scream in frustration as he waited for the man to return. After at least a minute, he reappeared with, honest to God, a huge circle keyring with about forty keys on it. It jingled as the man shuffled through the lobby.
“Those cameras work?” Driftwood asked as they headed for the elevator.
The manager looked up. “Yeah, why?”
“Just in case.”
The old man shrugged.
“I’ll meet you up there,” Driftwood told him, knowing he wouldn’t have the patience to take the elevator to the second floor. Not waiting for the man’s answer, he headed for the stairwell.
It took several more minutes, but finally the manager was walking down the hall toward Quinn’s apartment. The keys jingled as he walked and the sound grated on Driftwood’s nerves.
“I’ve just got to find the right one,” the man mumbled, fingering the keys as he stood in front of the door. Finally, after what seemed like hours but was really only a minute or two, he said, “Gotcha!”
The manager put a key in the lock and the knob turned with a click.
“Step back,” Driftwood said, gently pulling the man back.
“Hey, wait. You said that I could watch you. Don’t want you stealing nothin’.”
“He isn’t going to take anything,” a low voice said from down the hall.
Turning in relief, Driftwood watched as Quint Axton and Daxton Chambers came toward them. The SAPD officer and Texas Ranger had impeccable timing. Beth must’ve gotten ahold of them immediately for them to already be here.
“As he said, please step back,” Dax told the manager. “We appreciate you assisting, but please let us do our jobs.”
The manager nodded and took a step to the side, but he didn’t leave.
“Let me go in,” Quint told Driftwood.
“No.”
Dax put a hand on Driftwood’s arm. “Let us do this.”
“No. And we’re wasting time. Move,” Driftwood bit out.
He entered the apartment and called out, “Quinn? Are you here?”
The silence that greeted him was eerie. Driftwood tried to walk farther into the apartment, but Dax stopped him once more.
“Careful where you step.”
Driftwood looked down—and felt his heart skip a beat at the small reddish stain on the hardwood floor. Stepping over the blood stain, he called out, “Emmy?”
When he got to the kitchen, he stopped in his tracks.
There on the counter was Quinn’s cell phone.
He began to shake.
The stockpot she’d been so determined to bring back to his house was sitting on the floor next to an open cabinet, and there was a large bag full of what looked like clothes on the floor beneath the counter.
Driftwood heard Quint and Dax searching the apartment, but he couldn’t move from his spot in the kitchen.
She’d been here. Right here. But now she was gone. The door was locked, it hadn’t been broken into from what he’d seen. But that small stain on the floor told its own story.
“She’s not here,” Quint said, reentering the room.
Feeling as if he were moving in quicksand, Driftwood took his phone out of his pocket and clicked on Beth’s name.
“So?” she asked in greeting.
“Check the cameras. She’s not here. Her phone is, but Quinn’s missing.”
Chapter Fifteen
Quinn’s mouth was drier than she ever remembered it being in her life. But that wasn’t her main concern. She was freezing. Literally shaking, she was so cold.
Prying her eyes open, she tried to figure out where she was and why in the world she was so bitterly cold. But when she did look around, nothing made sense.
She was in a small room with white walls and no windows. There was no furniture except the chair she was sitting on. Directly in front of her were three fans, all on high and pointed straight at her. Quinn could also feel air hitting her from behind as well.
The air conditioning in the room had to be cranked all the way down, and she was also wet. Her hair was dripping into her lap, making the air hitting her even colder. Her ankles were secured to the legs of the chair and her arms were tied behind her back.
But the most alarming thing was that she was wearing only a bra and her panties. Quinn had no idea where her clothes had gone.
She grimaced, and realized her face was throbbing in pain as well.
Then it came back to her. Opening her apartment door and being hit in the face. Being jabbed in the leg with a needle and everything going black.
She jerked against her restraints, doing everything in her power to break free, but it was no use. The zip-ties holding her to the chair were too tight to break and she realized the chair itself was also secured to the floor.
“Hey!” she yelled. “Is anyone there? Let me go!”
Silence greeted her, and Quinn felt her breathing speed up as she began to panic. Had she been left here? Why? And why the big chill out? “Help!” she yelled. “Someone! I’m here! Help me!”
She heard noises at the door, and she continued to struggle. “Get me out of here! Please!”
The door opened—and Quinn wasn’t surprised to see who entered, but it was the second person who entered the room who made her eyes widen in shock.
“You!” She breathed the word in disbelief.
Driftwood paced the hallway outside Quinn’s apartment in agitation. He’d been kicked out to try to preserve evidence. Beth was already hacking into the security cameras in the building while they searched through Quinn’s apartment, not bothering to wait for them to ask the manager for access. She was scouring them for anything that would be helpful, from footage inside the lobby as well as the parking lot. Quint and Dax had called in their crime scene investigators but in the meantime, they were trying to see what they could find in Quinn’s apartment themselves, to figure out what had happened.
And Driftwood was left to pace. And worry.
A noise at the end of the hall made him turn his head—and he saw red. He was moving before he’d even thought about it.
Willard had come out of his apartment, and he was holding a pair of shoes.
Quinn’s shoes.
He’d recognize the flip-flops anywhere. She carried them in her purse and changed into them as soon as she could after leaving work. She always said wearing closed-toe shoes and socks strangled her feet.
His hand was around Willard’s throat and he had him up against the wall before the other man could escape back into his apartment.
Quinn’s flip-flops fell to the ground as Willard grabbed hold of Driftwood’s hands, trying to pry his fingers off his throat.
“Where is she, asshole? What’d you do with her? Is she inside your place?”
The other man didn’t say anything, couldn’t. His face was turning red as he tried to get air into his lungs.
“Whoa! Easy, Driftwood!” Quint yelled as he ran up and took hold of his arm.
“Let him go,” Dax ordered as he came up on his other side.
“He’s got her shoes,” Driftwood bit out. “And the other day we caught him red-handed putting those freaky religious fliers on my truck. He’s always staring at Quinn. He’s got her.
I know it!”
“Fine. But you strangling him won’t do anything to help find her. Let go of him,” Quint demanded.
Driftwood stared into Willard’s eyes, wishing he was alone with the man. He’d force him to confess what he’d done with Quinn. Where he’d stashed her. But his friends were right. Killing him wouldn’t make it any easier to find her, even if it would make Driftwood feel better.
He loosened his grip on the man’s throat and watched in satisfaction as he wheezed in and out and brought his hands up to his throat to massage it.
“Where is she?” Driftwood bit out. “Tell me right now, asshole!”
Then Willard did something extremely odd. He lifted his chin, pointed to his throat with a finger, and shook his head.
“What are you trying to say? I don’t understand,” Driftwood responded. “Start talking and quit this pantomime bullshit.”
Willard opened his mouth and pointed to it this time, while he shook his head again.
“Damn it,” Driftwood swore. “Enough!” He reached for the man again. This time to shake some sense into him. To hit him. To do anything to make him stop playing games and fucking tell him where Quinn was.
A voice coming from down the hall stopped him.
“He’s mute.”
Driftwood turned to stare at the manager. He hadn’t left. He’d been standing in the hall watching everything unfold the entire time.
“What?” Quint asked.
“His name’s Willard Whitley. He’s mute. Lived here for eight and a half years and I’ve never heard him say a word. He works out of his apartment, pays his rent on time, and hasn’t ever caused me any problems.”
Dax turned to Willard. “You can’t talk?”
Willard shook his head. Then took two fingers and pointed at his eyes before pointing them down the hall.
“You saw? You saw what?”
Willard used his pointer finger and jabbed it toward Quinn’s door.
“Quint, search his apartment,” Dax said, taking hold of Willard’s upper arm.
Without pause, Quint slipped through the open door next to them. No one said a word as Quint did a sweep of Willard’s apartment looking for Quinn. He reappeared again in less than thirty seconds. “She’s not there. But I found these.”
Quint was holding a stack of bright blue pieces of paper.
“Those are the fliers we saw him putting on my truck,” Driftwood said.
“He wasn’t putting them on your vehicle,” the manager said. “He was taking them off. I thought the same thing and was pissed, but then I watched the security tapes. There were these two guys lurking around the parking lot and they were putting that shit on everyone’s cars. I shooed them off, and then Willard came out and started to pick them up. He watches.”
“Watches what?” Dax asked.
“The parking lot,” the manager said. “As I said, he works from his apartment, so he knows what happens around here. His window overlooks the parking lot. He’s almost as good as a security system. More than once he’s given me information about what’s going on. The drug dealers stopped using the lot as a place to pass along their wares because the cops always seemed to catch them in the act.” He used his head to indicate Willard. “Thanks to him.”
Driftwood turned to stare incredulously at the man he’d completely misjudged. “What does he do for a living?” he asked the manager while looking at Willard.
“He writes those captions that show up on them videos on the Internet.”
Willard held out one hand flat and used his other to pantomime writing on a piece of paper.
“Get him something to write on,” Driftwood ordered, still holding Willard’s gaze.
Quint pulled a small pad of paper out of one of his many pockets, along with a pen, and handed them to Willard. Quinn’s neighbor immediately began to write.
Driftwood read his note when he finished.
I’m also a ghostwriter. I write everything from romance novels to blog posts for people who don’t have the time or inclination to write them on their own. I am not the bad guy here. I saw them though.
Driftwood looked up from the paper. “Who?”
Willard quickly began writing again. There were three of them. A woman and two men. I’ve seen the men around before. In the parking lot. Leaving the fliers.
“How’d you get her shoes?” Driftwood asked Willard.
He scribbled on his pad of paper. They were outside her door. I’m guessing they came off in the scuffle at her door, and they either didn’t notice or didn’t care about them when they left with her.
Just then, Driftwood’s phone rang. His head was swimming.
Willard wasn’t the bad guy.
If it wasn’t him, who’d taken Quinn? And why?
He saw it was Beth calling. “Did you find her?” he asked as he answered.
“Yeah. Sort of. I’m sending the pertinent parts of the videos to your phone.”
“Send it to Quint and Dax too. They’re here with me.”
“Already done,” Beth told him quickly.
Driftwood opened the text he’d just received and clicked play. The lobby of the apartment complex came into view. The video was black and white and grainy, but within seconds, he saw the back of a woman’s head come into frame. She was wearing high heels, jeans, and a dark blouse. Her hair came to the middle of her back, but he couldn’t see her face. She was followed by two men, both wearing dark clothes, and one was pulling a large suitcase behind him. They waited for the elevator and disappeared when the doors shut.
“I can’t see their faces,” Driftwood told Beth.
“Continue watching,” she said.
There was no sound to the video, and he knew Quint and Dax were watching it on their phones at the same time. The screen went black for a moment, then the lobby came into view once more. The same two men exited the elevator with the same suitcase being towed behind them.
But it was the woman who caught his attention.
“Is that…?” he gasped.
“Yeah,” Beth said in a pissed-off tone. “It is. And if I had to guess, I’d say Quinn was inside that suitcase.”
The video changed and now showed the parking lot. They all watched as the two men headed for a white panel van. They both leaned down and, working together, threw the large suitcase into the back of the van, shut the door, climbed in, and drove off.
The woman who’d been with them climbed into a familiar-looking tan four-door Mercedes and followed behind the van.
“Call Taco,” Driftwood growled. “Tell him we need every scrap of information about his ex-girlfriend that he can give us.”
“Already on it,” Beth reassured him. “That bitch won’t get away with this!”
“That’s Jennifer Hale?” Dax asked.
“The one and only.”
“What does she want with Quinn?” he asked.
“I have no idea,” Driftwood said. “But she’s not going to get away with this.”
Willard shoved a piece of paper at Driftwood. It had a series of numbers and letters on it.
“License plate number?” he asked Quinn’s neighbor.
Willard nodded and began to quickly write on the pad of paper once more.
I listened as they left Quinn’s apartment. The woman asked if the compound was prepared.
“The compound?” Driftwood asked. “Are you sure?”
Willard nodded, then wrote some more. She then said some sort of Bible verse. Something having to do with the devil prowling and a lion looking for someone to devour.
“Any ideas?” Driftwood asked his friends. They shook their heads.
“Peter 5:8. ‘Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.’”
All four men looked at the manager.
“You sure?” Dax asked.
“Of course. I’m a Christian man. Before my wife passed, we went to church every Sunday and even led a Bible study group.”
“Did you overhear anything else?” Quint asked Willard. “Anything about where this compound is or why they were taking Quinn?”
He shook his head.
“You hear all that, Beth?” Dax asked.
“Yeah. It’s not much. A compound and a quote about the devil. But that license plate is pure gold. I’m on it and will be in touch.”
Driftwood clicked off his phone. As much as he wanted to storm out of the apartment and track down Quinn, one, he didn’t know where she was. And two, he had an apology he needed to make. “I’m sorry,” he told Willard. “When we saw you staring, we assumed you didn’t have the best intentions.”
Willard bent over his pad of paper. I know. I should’ve tried harder to explain. To tell you about the men in the parking lot. But just like your woman doesn’t like being stared at because of her birthmark, I don’t like when people cringe away from me and think I’m a serial killer. It’s why I keep to myself.
Now Driftwood felt like shit. “When we find Quinn, we’d love to have you over for dinner sometime. Maybe we can’t make up for the way we treated you or what we thought, but we’d like to try.”
Willard shrugged, then pointed down the hall.
“Right. We’re going. I’m going to find her,” Driftwood vowed.
Willard nodded and pressed his lips together.
“Come on,” Dax said. “The CSIs should be here soon, but I’m not sure they’ll find anything that will be of any use to us. We need to talk to Taco.”
Just then, something clicked in Driftwood’s head. “Wait,” he said, and turned his phone back on. He clicked on the video Beth had sent and zoomed in as it played. He watched the group get into the elevator and waited impatiently for the footage to continue. When the elevator opened and the men walked out and through the lobby, he concentrated on the man with the light hair and the beard.
“That’s the guy from the bar!” he exclaimed.
“What guy at what bar?” Dax asked.
“The Sloppy Cow. Quinn and I were there with the Station 7 gang a couple months ago, and this guy was there. We almost ran into him as we entered and he was a jackass.”
“You sure?”
