Connor could tell Olin’s whole body was tensing up. He was gripping the steering wheel so tightly his fingers had turned white.
Then a small group of men—three, it looked like from here—turned their attention to a car at the end of the block. They began pounding on it, rocking it. Connor cracked his window so he could hear what was happening. They were telling the driver to open the door, get out. The man with the baseball bat went over to see what was going on. After a minute, he nodded, handed his laptop to one of the other men, and held the bat up threateningly. Presumably, the driver still refused to get out of the car, since seconds later the man with the bat swung it at the driver’s side window. The group of men got the door open, dragged the driver out, kicked him as he rolled over, and went to town on the vehicle.
Connor had no idea what had set them off, and it scared him. Was the attack random? Just part of the chaos from the blackout? A byproduct of the fear people were feeling? “We can’t stay here.”
“I can’t leave the car. My dad will kill me if anything happens to it.” Olin was still gripping the steering wheel as tightly as he could.
“Your dad’s not coming back,” Connor said. “We have to get the hell out of here now.”
Finally, Olin loosened his grip on the wheel. “What do you mean?”
“I didn’t mean anything. I’m sorry. But we’ve got to go.”
“You meant something.”
“Olin, please. If they come this way . . .”
“What happened to Olin’s parents?” Dylan asked.
Connor saw the men move to another car. Through the cracked window, he heard them demand this driver get out, as well. This was random. “Olin! Come on!”
Other drivers—some with families and friends—began abandoning their vehicles. Perhaps that was what Olin needed to see, because he finally said “Okay” and opened his door. Dylan and Connor quickly followed suit.
“Which way?” Dylan said.
“Right now, let’s just get as far as we can from whatever’s going on here,” Connor said, and began moving away from the man with the baseball bat. It seemed everyone who had abandoned their vehicles had the same idea. A sizable crowd of frightened drivers and passengers was now hurrying away from the mob, some carrying crying children.
Olin and Dylan followed Connor down the street, trying not to lose each other in the gathering dark and the crush of people. They turned left at the first intersection, and the crowd thinned some.
“How far are we from your friend’s?” Dylan asked Connor.
“Two miles. Maybe less.”
“In this direction?”
“Yes.”
Olin looked over his shoulder. Connor guessed he wanted to make sure the man with the baseball bat and his friends weren’t behind them. They, of course, weren’t the only people on the street vandalizing stores, but they did seem to be the only people randomly targeting strangers.
“Are you sure?” he said.
“I’m sure,” Connor responded. But that wasn’t true. He had used GPS to get him to Austin’s apartment before and didn’t spend enough time in the city to be sure. He was, however, mostly sure.
CHAPTER 43
The judge had handed down a ruling in Olivia’s favor earlier that day. Erin would be living with her full time from now on. Olivia should have been happy. And she was. But she couldn’t stop thinking about the Callahan case. She had stopped by Roland’s office that morning, and the conversation had not gone as expected.
Roland worked in a modern monstrosity in a wealthy part of Manhattan. The firm was called Park & Manor Architecture and Construction. Which meant Frank worked in the same industry. If she needed to dig deeper, it wouldn’t be hard to figure out how they knew each other.
At first, everything had seemed normal. The firm was on the fifteenth floor. A security guard checked her ID, called up to announce the visit, and told her Roland would be down to see her. She shrugged, walked back to the tall windows that faced the street and watched people pass by until she heard a man’s voice say, “Detective Forbes?”
She turned around. The man heading toward her was dressed for the office (really, what else had she expected?) and carrying a donut in each hand. When he got close, he smiled, and, holding one of the donuts out in front of him, said, “They bring them into the office every day. I can’t help myself. You want one?”
That was probably the first sign that was something was off. When she came into a building like this, people rarely took the elevator down to see her. Even when they did, they would act put out when they arrived.
“I’m fine,” she said.
Roland looked down at the donuts, disappointed. She could tell he was trying to decide whether it would be rude to eat one anyway. Then, he swiftly threw both in a nearby trashcan and said, “Good choice. I don’t need it either. I’ve already had my fill. What can I do for you?”
“I need to ask you some questions about Frank Callahan.”
His smile faltered. He glanced around, perhaps making sure no one he knew was within earshot. “Do I need a lawyer?”
Sign number two. Something was definitely off. Maybe he would need a lawyer at some point. But right now, she wanted to keep this as cordial as she could. You catch more flies with honey and all that crap. Olivia smiled back. “Of course not.”
“Because whatever those kids told you, it was bullshit, you hear me?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve got evidence that says it isn’t all bullshit.” That was true. Sort of. Connor and Olin hadn’t told her much more than the fact that the two men knew each other. But being a little cagey probably wouldn’t hurt her chances of finding out more.
Roland’s flabby cheeks had turned a bright red and he was starting to sweat.
“I have a lot of debt, okay? And what I did isn’t that bad, is it? I mean, why are you here talking to me instead of Frank? He’s the one you should be talking to.”
“I’m going to,” Olivia lied, pushing her glasses back up her nose. She had gathered from Roland’s last comment that he didn’t know Frank was missing. But he was hiding something, and she wanted to know what. “First I want to hear what you have to say.”
“I better get a lawyer.”
“No, I promise. I’m not here about you. I just want to hear in your own words what happened.”
Roland sighed, reached his hand into the trashcan and pulled out one of the donuts. He took a bite, chewing it slowly. “Frank was drunk,” he said as he worked the donut around in his mouth before swallowing it. “We were at The Cork. You know it?”
Olivia didn’t, but she nodded. She didn’t want to slow the momentum of his story.
“Yeah, well, I saw him there a lot after work. It’s a popular bar for some of the guys in our industry. Couldn’t tell you why. Place is a shithole. But that’s where everyone goes. So, anyway, one night, after everyone left, and it was just Frank and me still at the bar, he says he has something he has to get off his chest. I can’t tell you why on earth he thought it was a good idea to tell me. Probably just the alcohol talking.”
Roland took another bite from the donut. This time, at least he waited until he finished chewing before he spoke again. “I mean, what was I supposed to do with that information? I didn’t have any proof it was true.”
“You blackmailed him?”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
Olivia suspected the DA would.
Keep it cordial, she reminded herself. There was more here. “No, you’re right. Like you said, you didn’t have any proof. If you had brought it to the police, what would we have done with it?”
“Exactly.”
“What did he tell you?”
Roland’s smile, which had disappeared for most of their conversation, returned and grew wider. Then he leaned in, spoke at a whisper. Olivia could tell he was excited to share the story.
It was disturbing. So disturbing, actually, she was still thinking about it when she took her daughter to TGI F
riday’s that evening for dinner.
Olivia had thought a night out might make breaking the news to Erin a little easier. As much as her father disappointed her—cancelling weekend visits, forgetting her birthday, showing up late—she was always excited to see him.
After a lot of questions, Erin seemed to reluctantly accept the situation. She would likely pout for the next week or so, but there was no screaming, no tears. Erin rarely acted out.
It had gone as well as it could have, Olivia decided on their way out.
It wasn’t until they were almost home, with dusk settling across the city, that the traffic lights went out and every intersection turned into a four-way stop.
The power was out in her home, as well.
Olivia didn’t hear the blast and assumed this was a run-of-the-mill outage. She lit candles, hoped it would get better soon. There was no need to call Con Ed. They would already be aware of the problem.
And it wasn’t all bad. Times like these, when she and her daughter were both free of distractions, were great for bonding. Tonight, that seemed like a particularly good idea. She made a fire in the fireplace and got some wire coat hangers from the closet.
“Let’s pretend we’re camping,” she said to Erin. “How about we make s’mores?”
Erin liked that. Olivia was glad her daughter would end the day on a high note. Funny how things that otherwise might seem inconvenient, like a power outage, could sometimes be exactly what you needed.
CHAPTER 44
Connor led Olin and Dylan left at the next block. They needed to start moving in the direction they were originally going, and this turn meant they were now heading down a street parallel to the one where they had left Olin’s car.
Here, more people seemed content to stay in their vehicles and wait. There was a mini-market and a hole-in-the-wall pizza joint, both with their windows smashed, but no major retailers to draw the sort of vandalism that was happening a block over.
“So your site—that’s just for fun?” Connor asked Dylan, circling back around to the conversation they’d been having in the car.
She was walking with her hands in her pockets, looking down at the sidewalk. Or maybe the red shoes she had picked out for tonight. Maybe thinking about Tom. “Yeah, you know.”
“I don’t, actually.”
“I’m going to be a writer someday. It’s just storytelling.”
“Why did you call it TruthSeekers, then?”
She shrugged. “I liked how it sounded. Kind of like that old show—what was it called? X-Files, right? I mean, nobody thinks that’s a documentary or anything, so why would they take my site any more seriously?”
“Some people do.”
“Yeah, right.”
Connor told her about the article that had linked back to her website.
She finally looked up. “No shit?”
“No shit.”
Dylan looked back down, thought about that for a while. “I guess that’s a compliment.” Then, to Olin, she said, “What happened to your parents?”
“Somebody . . . They were kidnapped.”
Connor might have said something else if he had managed to speak first. Dylan was young. She didn’t need to hear about the abduction. Then again, after what she had seen tonight, she could probably handle anything.
“Really?”
He nodded.
“Wow. That sucks.” She turned to Connor. “But what does that have to do with me or Matt? Why did you come looking for me? Unless . . . unless someone came and took your parents, too.”
Connor didn’t answer.
“Holy shit! Do you know what they want? Has there been a ransom demand or something?”
“I wish,” Olin said.
“You mean someone came and kidnapped both your parents.” She looked from Olin to Connor. “And they didn’t call demanding a ransom?”
“No.”
“Huh.” She frowned. “Well, this doesn’t sound random. You two know each other, so your parents must also. At least that’s something for the police to go on.”
Connor didn’t feel like prolonging this conversation, so he didn’t bother to tell her that while, yes, their parents knew each other, he and Olin had just met.
Olin, however, wasn’t ready to let it go just yet. Maybe he even saw this as an opportunity to circle back to his own question. “What did you mean when you said my parents weren’t coming back?” he asked Connor.
“We don’t know that they are.” Then, for emphasis, he added, “We don’t know yours are. We don’t know mine are. We don’t know anything.”
“That’s not what you said, though. You said they weren’t, like you knew something.”
Movement ahead of them drew Connor’s attention away from Olin. “Crap.” The man with the baseball bat and his friends were standing at the end of the street, staring straight at them. They must have circled around the block in the opposite direction. Perhaps drawn by something they saw or an idea of what they might find here. Whatever it was, Connor was sure they hadn’t come searching for the three of them.
But now the vandals were here, looking at them in a way Connor didn’t like.
“What you got for us?” Baseball Bat called. “What you got for us to let you pass?”
Connor glanced around, hoping against hope he would see someone else on the street, someone else Baseball Bat could have been talking to. But everyone else was too far away, moving in the wrong direction, or still in their cars.
If Connor thought Baseball Bat would simply accept their wallets and let them continue on their way, he would have handed his over immediately. But he knew Baseball Bat would take everything of value, including Connor’s cellphone, his father’s cellphone, and Olin’s cellphone. Even though the kidnapper hadn’t called yet, he might. Once the power was back up, who knew? And even if he didn’t, what if Roland had a change of heart, wanted to talk? Or what if Olivia found something out and needed to reach him?
He wasn’t giving up the phones.
The mini-market—cleverly called Minnie’s Mini—was directly to Connor’s left. The windows were smashed and the door stood slightly ajar. He had an idea. “Follow me,” he told Olin and Dylan, then sprinted toward the shop. They did as instructed.
The place was ransacked. Shelving had been toppled, racks emptied. To Connor’s surprise, even most of the frozen food had been taken. “Find a place to hide!”
He threw open the back door, then ducked behind an overturned shelving unit near the wall. An attached sign read “First Aid and Cold Medicine.” Olin crouched down beside him.
“Where’s Dylan?” Connor whispered.
“I don’t know.”
Connor peeked over the shelving and saw Dylan hiding behind a rack of magazines closer to the front. The magazines were one of the few things that hadn’t been stolen. Those and the canes in a nearby plastic bin.
“What’s the plan?” Olin whispered.
“If we’re lucky, they’ll see the back door open and think we went out that way.”
“If we’re lucky?”
“You have a better idea?”
Olin shifted his weight onto his knees. “What did you mean when you said my parents weren’t coming back?”
“Does this look like the time?”
“Just tell me.”
“Fine. There was a fire, okay? Two bodies were found. Olivia told me it was my parents, but I don’t think so. Which means it was probably yours. Now shut up.” Connor regretted saying all that as soon as it had come out. He had already considered the possibility that the ring didn’t mean anything, that it was his parents, or that it was another couple entirely. They were the reasons he hadn’t told Olin about the fire before. (Okay, the main reason he hadn’t told Olin about the fire before was that he wanted his help. But the possibility that Olin’s parents weren’t the ones killed in the fire—that was part of it.) Either way, he couldn’t take it back, and this wasn’t the time to elaborate. All he could do now was exactl
y what he had told Olin to do—shut up.
At least, from the way they were positioned, he couldn’t see Olin’s face.
Connor listened for footsteps and eventually heard them.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
The words were delivered in a singsong voice that Connor recognized as belonging to Baseball Bat.
The sound of footsteps moved closer. “We just want our toll.”
Connor, who had been crouching down until now on just the balls of his feet, put one hand on the floor to take some of the weight off his knees. He wasn’t sure how long he could stay like this, but he was afraid if he moved, they would hear him.
“What’s this?”
Connor sighed with relief. Baseball Bat must have finally realized the back door was open. It wouldn’t be long now.
Then he heard Dylan scream.
CHAPTER 45
Connor immediately popped up from behind the shelving unit. Olin did not.
Baseball Bat had placed the laptop he had stolen on the counter beside the register alongside the bat and was holding Dylan by the hair. He spun her around, pulled her to his chest. She fought until he popped open a switchblade and held the knife to her throat.
“Well, well, well. There you are,” Baseball Bat said to Connor. His friends were standing behind him, unarmed but equally menacing.
By exposing himself, Connor had resisted his instinct to stay out of sight. It had taken every bit of will he had, but he wasn’t going to let something terrible happen to Dylan. Not after what had happened to his parents.
“Let her go.” The commanding tone he had attempted to muster failed him. The words came out more like a question.
Baseball Bat smiled with genuine amusement. Said nothing. He didn’t have to. As things stood, he was in control. If Connor wanted to change that, he would need a weapon of his own, and backup. He looked around, thinking fast. A few packages of gauze were scattered on the floor by his feet. Those wouldn’t work. Then he remembered the canes. They weren’t ideal, but they were the best he was going to get.
A Reagan Keeter Box Set: Three page-turning thrillers that will leave you wondering who you can trust Page 16