Connor liked the way that sounded. Next year, he was going to have to spend all summer on the computer. Probably working long days to prove himself. Why not use these three months to do something completely different? He didn’t want to burn out like Austin had. Maybe a little variety now—something that would take him completely out of his element—would help him avoid it.
He pulled up to the house on Powder Lane and parked along the street. It was an old Victorian. Two stories. A wraparound porch. Probably a hundred years old, Connor thought, and it had all of the wear and tear that would come with a house of that age.
It was an ambitious project for any house flipper, and especially for one who had never flipped a house before.
Austin had already hired a plumber and an electrician to get the major systems working. And for the house itself, he had paid cash. So, aside from Connor, all it was costing him now was time, which he had plenty of, and materials, which he could afford.
The property didn’t have a garage, but it did have a shed at the end of the driveway that was big enough to be one. Austin planned to convert it.
Connor entered the front door. The house was quiet, which was not what he expected. “Austin?”
“Yeah. In here.”
Connor followed the sound of his voice to the living room. The bulk of the wall that separated that room from the kitchen had been punched through. Most of the drywall Austin had knocked down was spread across the kitchen tile—once white, now gray, and another thing they would eventually have to tear out. Dust was everywhere.
Austin was standing with his hands on his hips and looking at a part of the wall he had left standing. From where he was, Connor could see two-by-fours inside it that stretched from floor to ceiling. “I think this is a support beam. Probably better to leave it.”
He wiped his forearm across his brow, crossed the wooden floor in the living room to a cooler he had set in one corner. He pulled out a bottle of Dos Equis, used his Swiss Army knife to open it, then used the cooler as a chair.
After he took a long drink, emptying half the bottle, he looked at Connor. “You’re late.”
“I was just . . .”
Then he smiled, waved his hand dismissively. “I’m kidding. I’m just glad you decided to come. It’s been hard going without you. How are you holding up?”
Connor shrugged.
“They’ll figure it out. Don’t worry. Who are you staying with?”
“No one now. My Uncle Henry came up for a few weeks, but he had to go home. He asked me to go with him, but I think I need to be here. You know, just in case.”
“Where’s home?”
“Florida.”
“That’s a long ways away.”
“That’s why I couldn’t go,” Connor said, but Austin was still talking.
“It’s not a good idea to be by yourself right now. Don’t you have a friend you can stay with?”
Connor shook his head. “No, not here.”
“Well, look, you can stay with me if you want to. I’ve got an apartment in the city. Two bedrooms, even, so you’ll have your own space. I don’t like the idea of you being all alone.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Austin stood up. “Don’t ever get old. Everything hurts,” he said as he stretched his elbows in toward his spine. “While you’re thinking, how about you help me clean this mess up?”
Connor put on a pair of work gloves. He started with the largest pieces of drywall, carrying them out to the dumpster Austin had rented. It was one of those big ones used on construction sites and it took up most of the driveway.
“Any word from the police so far?” Austin asked as he helped Connor toss the drywall over the lip of the dumpster.
“Not yet.” The question reminded Connor of his conversation with Isaiah, who had asked pretty much the same thing. He wondered, now that he had had a little sleep, if he was making a mistake. He needed a second opinion. “Have you ever heard of that show Uncovered?”
“That’s like 48 Hours, right?”
“Something like that.”
“What about it?”
“I had a guy visit me yesterday. A producer for the show. He said he wants to use my story.”
“So, like, interview you? Film a recreation in your house? That sort of thing?”
Connor tossed the last of the drywall into the dumpster, then patted his gloves together to shake loose the dust. “I would assume so.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“Do you really want to watch them recreate the abduction of your parents? I can’t imagine that would be good for you right now.”
That was exactly what Connor had thought when the idea had first been presented. And as far as he was concerned, hearing his first instinct repeated back to him confirmed he had been right.
CHAPTER 9
Letting go of Uncovered did not mean Connor was letting go of everything, though. He’d had an idea when he’d been lying in bed last night, and it, unlike the TV show, seemed better and better the more he thought about it. He wasn’t going to let the abduction of his parents end up getting labeled an unsolved case.
When Austin called it a day, he again encouraged Connor to stay with him, said they could even go up to Austin’s cabin over the weekend and do a little fishing. Something peaceful. It would be good for him, Austin insisted.
Connor again said he would think about it, but instead went home, powered up his laptop, and hacked his way into William Marks Hospital. It didn’t take him long to find the records tied to his mother’s name. The patient she had recently lost was one Carlos Hernandez. His records included an address, mentioned a wife named Adriana and a daughter named Rosa. Armed with that information, Connor figured he knew everything he needed to.
He found a small, ramshackle house at the address in Carlos’s records. It had been squeezed onto a particularly small plot of land, in a part of town Connor had never visited. The white wood siding had grayed and cracked in places, succumbed to rot in others. Most of the window screens were missing or torn. The curtains appeared to be bedsheets. The grass—weeds, mostly—was overgrown.
But it also didn’t seem much worse than the houses around it.
He made his way up to the front porch and knocked. Waited. Knocked again. Rang the bell. Then, after he looked around to make sure there was nobody staring at him, he squeezed through the bushes in front of the closest pair of windows. He cupped his hands around his eyes, leaned forward so that he was touching the glass. He didn’t have much hope of seeing anything with the bedsheet in his way. But maybe there was a tear, and maybe it would be enough to give him a glimpse into Carlos’s world.
And what will that tell you?
Nothing, he knew. Still, he looked, and perhaps a second after he connected with the glass, a Rottweiler pushed aside the curtain, landed with his paws on the glass, and started barking.
Connor leaped back, got tangled in the bushes, and fell. Once he was on his feet again, the dog was still there, still barking. He didn’t want to draw more attention to himself than he already had, so he returned to his car and tried to decide what to do next.
The neighbors had told Olivia the family was out of town. Connor doubted they knew any more than that. But there had to be somebody taking care of that dog. And that person—they probably would know something.
Connor decided to wait. Give it a couple of hours, at least. See if anyone came.
But, parked directly across the street from the house, he couldn’t stay where he was.
He drove around the block, parked at the corner. From here, he could still see the cement path that led to the Hernandezes’ front door, but not the house itself. It was enough.
The sun started to set. Connor wasn’t sure it would be a good idea to hang around this neighborhood after dark. He was about to call it quits, maybe come back in the morning, when he saw a child appear on the path in front of the Hernandezes’ hous
e. She hauled a bag of trash that was almost as big as she was to the bin at the end of the driveway and struggled to get it inside. Then she returned the way she had come.
Connor hopped out of the car, ran toward the house. He was sure he hadn’t seen anyone enter, so where had this girl come from?
The front door came into view just as the child stepped through it.
Once she was out of sight, the house looked as still and quiet as it had before.
Had somebody been there the whole time? If so, why hadn’t they answered the door?
He returned to the house, knocked again and, like last time, no one came. He knocked louder, rang the doorbell repeatedly. The dog started to bark. Good. He intended to make a nuisance of himself.
Finally, it worked.
He heard the lock turn. The door opened as far as the security chain would allow. “What do you want?” a woman said in a thick Mexican accent. She looked worried, tired, anxious. Connor could relate.
“I need to ask you about Carlos.”
“I have nothing to say.”
She began to close the door, and Connor instinctively pushed on it from the other side to stop her. “Wait. It’s not about him exactly. It’s about his doctor. Dr. Callahan?”
She stopped trying to close the door, and Connor stopped trying to hold it open. She looked at him in a way Connor couldn’t quite describe. “The surgeon?”
“Yes.”
“You’re too young to be police.”
“I’m not.”
“What do you want?”
“I need to talk to you. Could you let me in?”
The woman looked at him a couple of seconds longer, then closed the door, unlatched the chain, and reopened it. “Come.”
Connor stepped inside.
As soon as he had, the door was closed and bolted shut again.
The living room he found himself in felt dark, even with the overhead light on. That was more likely a trick of the mind than fact—a result of having sheets (mismatching sheets, Connor now noticed) nailed over the windows. An overturned crate served as a coffee table. A small TV sat on the floor. The sofa was old, supported by a brick where one of its feet should have been. But the house was also tidy. Connor could tell the floor had been recently swept and all other surfaces had been dusted.
The Rottweiler barked ferociously from another room. Connor tensed up.
“He’s locked up,” the woman said, perhaps noticing the subtle change in Connor’s stance.
“Is your name Adriana?”
The woman nodded.
The little girl who had taken the trash to the street peeked out through the kitchen doorway.
“And that’s Rosa?”
At the sound of her name, the little girl disappeared. Adriana nodded again.
“What do you want?”
“The police have been by here to talk to you?”
“Every day. They come every day. I don’t talk to them.”
Connor thought about what Adriana had said before she opened the door. You’re not police. “Why not?”
Adriana glanced at the kitchen, and Connor suddenly realized he already knew the answer. “She’s not legal, is she?” It was possible neither of them was.
“You said this is about doctor. Tell me what you want,” Adriana said.
“She’s my mother.”
“So?”
“I know you probably don’t like her. I understand. Believe me, I’d probably blame her too, for what happened to Carlos, if I were you.”
“I don’t blame her for what happened to Carlos.”
“What?” Connor said, surprised. “But—” He wasn’t sure what he was going to say next, and before he could figure it out a timer went off in the kitchen.
Adriana went to take care of it. Connor followed.
She turned off the timer on the stove and pulled a plate of cookies out of the oven. Oatmeal, Connor guessed, from the look of them.
Rosa appeared from the only other doorway that led into the kitchen. She spoke to her mother in Spanish and in that sort of pleading tone children got when they wanted something.
“English, only,” Adriana said as she used a spatula to transfer the cookies from baking sheet to plate.
Rosa’s eyes cut to Connor and then back. “Can I have a cookie? Pleeeeeeeeease?”
“You are still hungry, mi cielito?”
Rosa nodded.
“Okay, you can have one cookie.”
Rosa snatched it off the plate and ran back the way she had come.
“They’re hot!” Adriana called after her. “Don’t eat it too quickly.” She sighed, returned her attention to Connor. “Speak. This doctor. Your mother. What about her? Why are you here?”
“She’s missing.”
“The police. This is why they come by? They think I have something to do with her missing?”
“They just want to talk to you,” Connor said. Of course the truth was they thought she might have something to do with it, but saying that to a woman who was already hostile toward him seemed like a bad idea. “They’re trying to find out where she is.”
Adriana threw the spatula into the sink. “They want to talk to me because they think I am responsible.”
“Please, Mrs. Hernandez, do you know anything that could help them find her?”
There was a breakfast table in the corner with three chairs, just enough for the family before Carlos had died. The window adjacent to it was also covered with a sheet. Adriana sat down in one of the chairs. She sighed. “You know why Carlos was in hospital?”
“No.” It was probably in the records, but Connor had only read enough to get the name and address.
A pained expression crossed over Adriana’s face, then disappeared. “We needed money. Carlos, he said he could get it. Said he had a friend, needed him to do some work. He wouldn’t tell me what, but I knew. He had talked about it before. I told him, no, don’t go. We don’t need money that badly. We find another way. But he goes. He does it anyway. And now . . . no Carlos. No money.”
Connor felt his cellphone vibrate. He knew it was his and not his father’s because of which pocket it was in. He slid the phone out just enough to see who the caller was. Olivia. He could phone her back when he was done doing her job.
“What was it? This work he was doing?”
Adriana sniffled, did her best to hold back her tears. “It doesn’t matter. But see, your mom, this not her fault. This is . . .” Her voice wavered and she stopped talking. She straightened up, tightened her fists, then continued, once again in control of her voice. “This is Carlos’s fault. Your mom, she came to see me after Carlos died. You know that? She came and stood right over there in my living room and apologized. She said she knows what it’s like to lose someone and I told her no, this not her fault. So see? I couldn’t have had anything to do with it. This is Carlos’s fault.” She poked the table with each of the last two words, as if merely repeating the statement wasn’t enough.
Connor believed her. Adriana had no idea what had happened to his parents. But there was something she had said, something he’d almost missed, that didn’t seem right. “You said she came here? That she told you she knows what it’s like to lose someone?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure that’s what she said?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Do you know what she meant?”
Adriana shook her head, then wiped away a tear with her thumb.
Connor wasn’t sure what to make of that. Both of his mother’s parents were dead, but that didn’t seem like the kind of thing you would say when you were talking about a parent, especially since both had died of natural causes. “All right. I’m sorry for bothering you.” He headed to the door.
“Hey,” Adriana called after him. “You tell the police not to come back here anymore, you hear me?”
Connor turned around, looked her in the eye. “I’ll tell them.” Then he returned to his car. The sun had nearly set,
and a pair of men standing on a porch across the street watched him the whole way.
Connor immediately locked the doors and put the car into drive. He didn’t bother to listen to Olivia’s voicemail until he was on the interstate.
She had said only, “Call me as soon as you get this. It’s urgent.”
CHAPTER 10
Traffic on the interstate was light, so Connor didn’t mind taking his eyes off the road long enough to grab the USB cable curled up in the cup holder and connect it to his phone. Then he clicked the icon beside Olivia’s message to call her back.
She answered on the first ring. “Where are you?”
“What? Why?” Connor said.
“Are you at home?”
“No, I—”
“How soon can you get there?”
He glanced at the clock on his dashboard and did a quick calculation. “Fifteen minutes.”
“Okay, I’ll see you then.”
“What’s going on?”
“Better we talk in person,” Olivia said, and hung up.
Shit, Connor thought. Something had happened. He pressed his foot down on the gas, going as fast as he dared and weaving between cars. Fifteen minutes was how long it would have taken him on a normal night, but he could get home faster.
What does Olivia want? Have the police found something? The suspense was killing him.
When he pulled up to the house, he saw a black sedan parked out front. Olivia stepped out.
“Tell me what’s happening. Did you find something?”
She waited until Connor was close enough to speak without raising her voice. “Let’s go inside.”
Oh, God. This is going to be bad. Really bad.
He was right.
“Can we sit down?” Olivia asked. She was carrying a manila envelope.
Connor felt his legs go weak as he moved to the sofa.
Oliva took a seat beside him. She leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees and holding the envelope with both hands. “We got a call.”
A Reagan Keeter Box Set: Three page-turning thrillers that will leave you wondering who you can trust Page 4