Dylan pulled out the drawers on the nightstands and announced they were both empty, as well. The only item in the room that wasn’t, it turned out, was the dresser. There, Austin had neatly folded a collection of tee shirts and jeans. Olin opened another drawer and found even his underwear was folded.
Something about this didn’t feel right. This was more than just the obsessive neatness Austin was known for. But at first Connor couldn’t put his finger on what it was. Then he remembered: Austin had said he used to be a software developer. Connor knew a lot of software developers wore jeans to work, but even those that did had at least one nice suit in the closet for interviews.
“I don’t get it,” Olin said, when he had finished going through the dresser. “There’s nothing here. Why would you go to the trouble of locking your bedroom door if you had nothing to hide?”
Dylan looked thoughtfully at the dresser. “Can you guys move it back? I want to see if there’s anything behind it.”
Connor and Olin each went to one side of the dresser. It was heavy—Connor could tell that much just by looking at it. “On the count of three.” Working together, they moved the dresser away from the wall a few inches.
Dylan peeked into the crack between the furniture and the wall. “Nothing.” Then she got down on all fours, looked underneath both it and the bed. This time, she didn’t say anything, but it was obvious there was nothing there, either.
“Maybe you’re wrong,” Olin said to Connor.
Dylan seemed like she wasn’t ready to give up yet, though. She pulled the clothes out of the dresser, examined the interior of each drawer closely, then pulled the drawers themselves out and turned them over.
“What are you doing?” Olin said.
“Have you ever seen a movie in your life?”
Once Dylan finished with the dresser, she did the same thing with the drawers in the nightstands. “Bingo!” She put the second of the two nightstand drawers on the ground and leaned in close.
Connor couldn’t tell what she had found until she turned around holding a key with a strip of masking tape stuck to it.
“I believe this is what you gentlemen are looking for.”
Connor took the key from her. He pulled off the strip of masking tape and let it fall to the floor.
Olin crowded in close to get a better look. “What do you think it goes to?”
“I don’t know.”
“Looks like a padlock to me,” Dylan said.
Then Connor remembered something. “Actually, maybe I do know.”
CHAPTER 51
“Austin’s rehabbing a house not far from where I live. There’s a shed at the end of the driveway. Bigger than you’re thinking of, probably. It’s got a pair of double doors on it that are secured by a padlock. That might be what this goes to.”
“You think that’s where he’s been keeping our parents?” Olin said.
Connor hoped not, because he had never heard a peep from that shed. Not even when he had walked right up to it looking for a hammer. If his parents were in there—his or Olin’s—they were probably dead. But Connor didn’t want to tell Olin that, so he said, “I don’t know.”
“How are we going to get there?” Dylan said.
That was also a question Connor could answer. Austin drove a pickup so he could haul stuff to and from the work site. Connor had seen it parked on the street when they’d arrived earlier. “We’ll take his truck,” Connor said, nodding his head in the general direction of the living room.
“What if he wakes up?” Olin said.
“And finds that we took his truck?” Connor held up the key. “I think he’s going to be more upset that we left with this.”
“Fair enough.”
As far as Connor could see, there was only one drawback to his plan. But there was no way Dylan was hotwiring a pickup with a credit card, so this time it really would mean going into Austin’s pocket for his keys.
“You want me to do it?” Dylan said, once the three of them had returned to the living room.
Connor shook his head. “No.” Dylan shouldn’t even be here. The last thing he wanted was for a fourteen-year-old girl to be fishing around in the front pocket of a stranger’s pants, or for Austin to wake up and grab her arm while she was doing it. At least Connor might have enough strength to pull away. “Just be ready in case anything goes wrong.”
He and Olin rolled Austin onto his back.
Austin stopped snoring, mumbled something incomprehensible. Connor jumped to his feet, ready to start kicking if Austin woke up. But then he smacked his lips and started to snore again.
Connor quietly sighed with relief.
“You can do this,” Olin said nervously. He was now standing a good three feet back from the body and didn’t look like he planned on getting any closer.
Connor went about getting the keys in slow, methodical steps, the whole time listening to Austin’s breathing pattern and keeping his eyes open for any movement. He got down on his knees. Paused. Leaned over. Paused. Slid his hand into Austin’s pocket. Paused. There was more than just a set of keys in there—he could tell much by touch—so he wrapped his hand around everything and pulled all of it out.
Connor immediately got back to his feet and stepped away from the body. Checked for movement one last time. To say he felt relieved would have been an overstatement—there was still a lot to be stressed about—but he felt something akin to that. He had made it.
He opened his hand to find crumpled receipts, a Swiss Army knife, and Austin’s keys. He let the receipts fall to the floor, then pocketed the knife, because why not? There were four keys on the keyring. Three house keys, one that looked like it went to his bedroom door, and a car key. One of the house keys had to be for the apartment. The other two were probably for the house he was remodeling.
Connor and his friends headed for the door, Olin stopping only long enough to grab the baseball bat on his way out.
Once they reached the street, Connor pointed at a white RAM pickup. “That’s it.”
All three piled in without hesitation. Dylan took the middle seat.
Connor navigated his way to the interstate. Traffic was slow going in places, still blocked up completely in others, but he made every turn thoughtfully, staying off the busiest roads, and once he was on I-95, he was confident he could get to the house without further issue.
The house was dark, which was no surprise. Austin preferred not to leave any lights on when he wasn’t there. But with the nearest streetlamp out, the lot was even darker than it should have been.
Maybe that was for the best. It was looking more and more likely Austin was the kidnapper, but they still didn’t know that for sure. If the evidence didn’t pan out the way Connor expected it would, he didn’t want to be the person who had first drugged his boss and was then spotted by a neighbor breaking into the house the man was rehabbing.
They made their way past the rented dumpster to the shed at the end of the driveway. Connor had always thought of it as a shed because he wasn’t sure what else to call it. It was bigger than any shed he had ever seen, but with the double doors, it certainly didn’t look like a garage. If anything, it might be best described as a barn, if a barn had any place in the suburbs.
Connor pulled out the key Dylan had found in Austin’s bedroom. “Stand back so I can get some light,” he told his friends as he tried to work the key into the padlock.
The key fit, turned. The lock clicked open.
It was the moment of truth.
He tossed the padlock on the ground, grabbed the handles. There was still no sound from inside. God, he hoped his parents weren’t in there. “You ready?” he said to Olin, who was holding the baseball bat and seemed just as worried as Connor was about what they might find.
Olin nodded. “Do it.”
Connor pulled the doors open. As dark as it was, he couldn’t see much. But he could see the van. Blue paint. Rusty. Old. It was the same van Connor had seen pull up to his house some we
eks back. If there had been any doubt left, it was gone now.
“Austin is the kidnapper.”
Neither Dylan nor Olin responded. Perhaps they were both in shock, or perhaps, since it was a simple statement of fact, there was nothing to say.
Connor pulled out his phone, turned on the flashlight to examine the rest of the space. The three friends stayed close, moving into the shed as one. The cement floor was dusty, the walls bare. As far as they could see, there was nothing here but the van.
Connor was glad he hadn’t found his parents’ bodies. But it also meant they were still missing, and Austin was the only one who knew where to find them.
CHAPTER 52
Austin did not dream, and when he awoke, he had no idea how much time had passed. Everything was fuzzy at first. Why was he on the floor? What had happened? Slowly, his memory returned. Connor had denied drugging his coffee, but Austin had no doubt that was exactly what he had done.
He called Connor’s name to see if the boy was still in the apartment. Connor didn’t answer.
He groaned as he sat up. A wave of dizziness washed over him. He could tell the drug was not out of his system. Far from it. Because of that, he was careful getting to his feet. He worried his balance would again betray him. But he was not giving in to the drug again. He had to know what Connor and his friends had been up to while he was unconscious.
A look around the apartment answered that question right away. The place was a mess. Books were scattered across the floor in front of the bookcase. Everything was overturned or out of place.
Once he was certain he could walk, he went straight to the bedroom. The door was open. Shit. They had gotten inside. Still, the key to the padlock was well hidden, he told himself. They likely hadn’t found it.
But just a glance at the bedside tables dispelled that hope. The drawers were pulled out completely and lay overturned on the floor. Even from where he was, he could see the key was missing.
It didn’t take much guesswork to figure out where Connor would have gone. Austin had to go after him. He hoped he could get to the house before it was too late. If Connor found the van, he would no doubt draw the wrong conclusion. Austin wasn’t a bad person. He was a person who had had a bad thing done to him.
He hurried across the apartment, grabbed his phone off the coffee table. He looked at the clock on the screen and determined he had only been unconscious for forty-five minutes. Good thing he hadn’t finished the whole cup of coffee. If he had, he would probably be out for the night. Then again, maybe it was all the coffee he had drunk that evening that had kept the drug from being more effective. Not that it mattered.
He headed for the front door, reaching into his pocket for his keys as he went, and found nothing. Shit.
He had a spare car key in a junk drawer in the kitchen, but that wouldn’t matter if Connor had also taken his truck. He changed course, went to the window instead. Sometimes, he had to park a block or two away. Today, he had gotten lucky and found a spot right outside his building. He would be able to see his truck from the window if it was there.
It wasn’t.
So be it. He still had one more option—the old Mustang with the stolen plate he used when running errands that he didn’t want to be associated with.
Connor tried the driver’s side door and found it unlocked. He climbed into the van.
“What are you doing?” Olin asked.
“I want to have a look around. Maybe I can find something.”
“Count me in,” Dylan announced, and scurried around the vehicle to the passenger door. It was locked. She gestured for Connor to open it.
“Just stay there,” he said.
“Pleeeeeease.”
Ugh. “Fine.” He pushed the door open. “But don’t touch anything.”
Olin stared at the two of them incredulously. “Get out of there—both of you,” he said. “We need to let the police handle this.”
Connor wasn’t listening. He was busy searching for evidence. Or, more specifically, information about where Austin had taken his parents. He checked the pocket in the driver’s door, flipped down the visor, opened the console between the seats. Austin’s preference for minimalism was on display everywhere he looked. There wasn’t even a scrap of paper to be found.
Then he heard Dylan say, “Look.”
The glovebox was open in front of her and a car key dangled from a ring she held between her fingers.
“I told you not to touch anything,” Connor said.
Then the significance of the discovery hit him. This was not the key Connor had taken out of Austin’s pocket earlier. Connor still had that one—now in his own pocket. Which meant this had to be the key for the van.
At first, he was surprised Dylan had found it where she had. But then it made sense. Austin wouldn’t want to keep the key on him. If anyone asked, explaining it might prove difficult. You have two vehicles? Where’s the second one? And he probably figured it was safest in the glovebox, since nobody knew the van was here and a person would need either the key to the padlock or bolt cutters to get past the double doors hiding it.
But the key wasn’t the only thing in the glovebox. There was another black-on-black mass, barely distinguishable from the shadows surrounding it. Connor aimed the light on the back of his phone directly into the glovebox so he could get a better look. It turned out there wasn’t one item, but two.
He pulled them out, knowing he probably shouldn’t be touching them, but unable to resist the urge. The gloves and the Taser. If the van wasn’t enough to convince the police Austin had abducted his parents, this sure would be.
But even so, it didn’t do anything to help him answer the central question: Where were his parents? If he went to Olivia with this information now and if the police arrested Austin, would he tell them? Connor doubted it. Austin would likely claim he was innocent, despite the evidence. Since he was the man who had abducted Connor’s parents, he was also the man who had burned two bodies in a parking garage. He was going to jail for the rest of his life if he admitted what he had done, so why not take his chances with a jury?
But that wasn’t the biggest problem with telling Olivia about what he had found. If he called her to report the evidence, she would ask them to stay where they were until she could get to the house. She would want statements from all of them, would want to know exactly what had happened that had led to their discovery of the van. Connor doubted he would get into much trouble for drugging Austin, but it would cost them time. And once the police arrived, they would take the keys, impound the van, send a CSI team to investigate this house and Austin’s apartment. Connor would lose access to everything. Eventually the machinery of the NYPD would spit out his parents’ location, but would it do that while they were still alive? Connor worried it might not.
And right now, they were still alive. They had to be.
Connor was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that, even though he had a clear view of the road, he didn’t notice when a Mustang pulled up in front of the house and a man got out.
The man—Austin—charged straight toward the van. “Connor!”
Connor looked up just in time to see Olin spin around, raising the baseball bat to his shoulder like he was anticipating a pitch.
Austin put up his hands, but kept coming. Slowly now. At least until he reached the dumpster, where he stopped to pull out a broken two-by-four. The piece of wood was about three feet long and had nails sticking out of it on one end where it had previously been joined to an intersecting board.
Connor suspected it had been part of the wall they had demolished a couple of days earlier. “Stay here,” he said to Dylan as he slid the gloves back into the glovebox and climbed out of the van.
She ignored him and hopped out of her seat. “Three’s better than two.”
Her defiance annoyed him now even more than it had when she’d insisted on getting in the van, because now she was putting herself in danger. But at least she was standing on the other
side of the vehicle, farther from Austin than Connor and Olin were. As long as she stayed there, she should be all right. “Where are our parents?”
“It’s not what you think.”
Connor held up the Taser so Austin could see it, then pressed the button, hoping the weapon was charged. Electricity flashed between the Taser’s prongs. “I’m asking the questions here. Tell us where our parents are.”
Austin backed up a step. His eyes darted from Connor to Olin.
In a move that surprised Connor, Olin screamed as if he were a warrior and charged at Austin, bat up. All this time, Connor had assumed Olin’s repeated requests to advise the police of what they had found and his reluctance to, as Connor had put it, “stretch” the boundaries of the law were manifestations of cowardice. It seemed now that was not the case. It was a matter of ethics, a respect for the institutions and norms of society that drove his decision making. Because right now, when standing only feet from the man he knew had taken his parents, Olin had no trouble unleashing the testosterone-fueled energy that no doubt drove him when he was playing soccer and football.
He swung at Austin. Austin ducked and charged forward. He slammed his shoulder into Olin’s stomach, knocking Olin off his feet, and ran.
Connor cursed and broke into a sprint. Olin leapt up and went after him without having to be asked.
Austin was moving faster than Connor would have ever thought possible. He darted across the front yard and disappeared behind the far side of the house.
Connor never heard the window break. But when he and Olin rounded the corner along the backside of the house, he saw the shattered glass and the two-by-flour lying on the ground.
“He must have gone inside,” Olin said.
That didn’t feel right to Connor, but he couldn’t say why. And he didn’t have time to think about it. Everything right now was about split-second decisions. So when Olin crawled through the window, careful not to cut himself on the jagged glass, Connor crawled after him.
A Reagan Keeter Box Set: Three page-turning thrillers that will leave you wondering who you can trust Page 19
