Chapter Ten

We took the stairs two at a time, the brass doorknob still jiggling. Marcus found a baseball bat in his closet, and I grabbed a fireplace poker from the living room. Whoever was on the other side didn’t have a key and they weren’t invited.

“Maybe we should go out the back,” Marcus suggested, holding the wooden bat like he was about to hit a home run.

“They could have someone waiting at the back door,” I said.

Even if we made it out that way, it wasn’t much of an escape. We were in the city. He had a quaint urban patio in the rear with flowerbeds partitioned by tall brick walls on all sides that kept the space private from the adjoining townhomes. A wall would be hard to scale, and once we did, we’d land in another enclosed back patio. Then so on and so on.

We needed to go out the front.

“If they have a gun, we’re dead,” Marcus stated, clearly picturing hulking Department D agents rattling the handle. “We could go down to the basement and hide.”

“They obviously know we’re here, otherwise they wouldn’t be breaking in. If we hide, they’ll look for us. Does the basement have windows?” I asked. He shook his head.

My mind spun through scenarios. We didn’t have our phone chargers with us; they were at the hotel we didn’t stay at last night, so our cell phones were dead. We’d checked the landline before we ran down, but there was no dial tone. Maybe it was because no one paid the bill, or maybe it was because the person on the other side of the door had cut the line. Either way, we couldn’t call the police. Even if we did, we had ducked under caution tape to get in last night. Marcus may have lived here at one point, but I was betting we broke the law when we entered. Ending up in jail for trespassing was not in my plans. “Our best bet is to hit them, immobilize them as soon as they open that door. Then we run. Or try to get the gun, if they have one.”

Not that either of us knew how to shoot one.

The door rattled more forcibly and my heart pounded so hard it felt like my ribs might give way. I lifted the black wrought iron fireplace poker, and Marcus bopped on his bare toes, bat held high over his shoulder as he exhaled in audible puffs.

Then we heard the click. This was it. Whoever was on the other side was about to come in.

Marcus gestured for me to stand behind him, so that the crazy superspy would attack him first. Did he really think I would do that? I wasn’t some princess in a tower. My place was right beside him, holding my own weapon. We would take this on together.

The door pushed open and a dark hand crept through. Marcus swung his bat down with the force of a lumberjack chopping firewood. The scream that followed told me that he’d broken something. On a woman.

“Damn it!” she yelled, her hand recoiling back outside. “What the—”

I knew that voice.

“Detective Dawkins?” I asked with wide eyes.

Marcus looked at me, then pushed open the door. There stood the detective we’d spoken with yesterday, clutching her now broken hand to her chest and wincing in agonizing pain.

Part of me felt bad. Clearly, the woman had broken a few fingers if not a bone in her palm.

“How could we have possibly known?” I reiterated for the millionth time as I sat in a velvet chair beside Marcus. Dawkins sat across from us on the Reys’ elegant white scalloped-back sofa holding a frozen bag of mixed vegetables wrapped in a dishtowel. It was our version of first aid (that and two ibuprofen). While Marcus assisted her, I removed the not-long-enough T-shirt I was going to wear to potentially fight off assassins and put on a pair of his mom’s designer yoga pants, one of his dad’s button-down shirts with the sleeves rolled up, and my Converse sneakers. At least I’d be more appropriately dressed for the next attackers.

Dawkins insisted we hear her out, swollen hand and all.

“If you’d been through what we’ve been through, you’d swing first and ask questions later, too,” I said.

Dawkins nodded, looking more angry at herself than us. She kept uttering “stupid” under her breath, which I didn’t think was directed toward Marcus or me. “I tried to call,” she said as she cradled her mangled hand, “but your phone went straight to voicemail.”

“It’s dead. No charger.” I held up the dark screen.

Dawkins turned her attention to Marcus, swiping at the strands of graying hair falling from her messy bun. She was wearing the same wrinkled clothes she had on yesterday, and I could almost see the indentation of a cup holder on her cheek; she was definitely sleeping in her car.

“What are you two doing here?” she asked, shaking her head like a principal who caught us skinny-dipping in the school pool. “While I understand the impulse, you have to know that people are watching your house. They’re waiting for your parents. They’re wanted fugitives.”

Marcus and I shared a guilty look as we remembered why we were here, in his bedroom, last night. Logic had no part of it.

He cleared his throat, as if also pushing away the memory. “If people are watching the place, why haven’t they come for us?”

“You’re asking me? I’ve been wondering that myself. You’re both persons of interest in one of the most high profile cases in the country. If law enforcement really hasn’t come for you yet, then I’m guessing your CIA ties are a lot stronger than you realize,” Dawkins said.

I’d never thought about that. The U.S. government was building a case against an entire chemical corporation, centered around our enemy-of-the-state parents. We had information about that case, but law enforcement was leaving us alone. At least since Venice. Why?

Because the feds want something more than Dresden Chemical.

They want our parents.

And we’re helping them, whether we’re trying to or not.

We were being used to draw our parents into custody, which was what we wanted, right?

“Patrol cars roll past at noon,” Dawkins went on, looking at her watch. “You’ve got two hours before a beat cop does arrest you for breaking and entering, tampering with a crime scene, destroying evidence…”

“We didn’t destroy anything,” I corrected.

“It doesn’t matter. The place was sealed, and you unsealed it. Crime committed, no espionage needed. They could lock you away for that alone.” She removed the frozen veggie bag from her hand and tried to move her fingers. From the awful grimace on her face, and the rather gross purple swelling around her joints, it wasn’t a good idea. She put the ice back.

“Well, you’re a cop. Tell your coworkers I was helping you.” I was surprised I even needed to say this. After what happened with my sister and after how little help the Boston PD offered during her investigation, particularly this detective, they owed me a lot. “I met with Wyatt at your request.”

Detective Dawkins chewed her cheek, looking away and squirming in a manner that didn’t seem to be entirely related to the pain in her hand. For a cop, she had a horrible poker face.

“What aren’t you telling us?” I leaned forward, elbows resting on my knees.

She rubbed her neck, as if she hated to say her next words. “I’ve been suspended from the force.”

“What?” My eyes bugged. “Since when? Yesterday? Because we just talked—”

“No,” she cut me off, shaking her head. “I was suspended a while ago, when I was taken off your sister’s case.”

I looked at Marcus who seemed equally taken back. “That was months ago,” he said.

Dawkins nodded like she didn’t need to be reminded.

“But you said you were working Regina’s case.” My tone was incredulous.

“I am, just not officially.” She peered down at her broken hand, not wanting to meet our eyes.

“Do the Villanuevas know? Is there an actual cop looking for Regina?” I felt offended that my friend’s disappearance only warranted the attention of an off-duty, unsanctioned former detective.

“Yes, they know. They’re okay with it. Frankly, they’re happy for anyone who wants to help, as I’m sure you understand.” She gave me a look that sent me back to Keira’s disappearance. I’d accepted money from Randolph Urban then, I was literally working with the enemy, so of course I understood why Regina’s parents would take assistance from any interested ex-cop off the street. “And yes, there are officers from missing persons involved in the case, but as I’m sure you realize, given the note that Regina left and her being only weeks away from turning eighteen, her case is being considered a runaway. There’s not much the department is going to do.”

I gritted my teeth. If your missing person wasn’t an adorable toddler in pigtails, it was hard to keep law enforcement’s attention—at least, in my experience. Of course, my experience also included this former detective.

“Why did you get suspended?” I asked.

“Because of you,” she replied bluntly.

Oh, don’t blame me for your workplace drama. I sat back in my chair.

I was done being everyone’s punching bag and the reason for what was wrong in the world. I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t do anything wrong. But before I could voice my opinion, Dawkins stretched forward, the frozen veggies crunching as she stared directly into my eyes.

“I believed you back then,” she said. “From day one.” Her words were so unexpected they knocked the wind from my body.

Detective Dawkins had acted like Charlotte and I were a nuisance, like we weren’t a credible source of information. She kept us out of the loop.

“I see you’re confused. Let me explain.” She took a large breath. “When you said your sister was taken and you brought forward evidence that she was in Europe—I believed you. I brought every lead to the higher-ups, and I kept getting shot down, kept being told that there were no hard facts. So that was what I told you. I followed the chain of command. I did my job, but I knew they were wrong, especially when I showed them the picture of your sister in the trunk of a car in Rome.”

“What did they say about that?” I asked, baffled at how any reasonable person, especially a cop, could ignore such concrete evidence.

“They said it was photoshopped, and I should ignore it. When I couldn’t, when I wouldn’t, I got suspended for insubordination.” She set her jaw.

No, Department D got you suspended. Maybe they paid off someone or infiltrated the police department entirely. Somehow, they made this happen.

“Are you fighting it?” Marcus asked.

“I’m trying. But the Dresden Corporation has been headquartered in Boston for decades. And if we’re to believe you and your sister, they’ve been running a covert criminal espionage ring the entire time. Yet Randolph Urban has never been brought in for questioning. Ever. Not for one case in all that time.”

“Because the police are in on it,” Marcus said, stating the obvious.

Dawkins nodded. “Someone pretty high up is getting paid. Maybe lots of someones. That’s why they wouldn’t look harder for your sister, why they wouldn’t take your leads seriously, why they didn’t wonder about a businessman sending a teenage girl around the world by herself, and why they weren’t suspicious of your parents’ car crash to begin with.”

“You think they know about all of that?” I asked, not wanting to believe that many forces were against us. Even I didn’t want to be that cynical.

“Of course they know.” Her head tilted. “That’s why I need to find a way to expose this corruption. There are good people on that force, and they have no idea what they’re involved in. It’s not right.”

“So you want your job back?” Marcus eyed her curiously as he considered her motives.

“Obviously,” she snipped, like it was a ridiculous question. “Don’t you want to know what your parents did? Whether they were really engineers? Doesn’t your friend Julian Stone want to be some big-shot reporter? Don’t you want to find your parents?”

“We all have our reasons for being here,” I said. Having personal motivation wasn’t a negative. If anything, it only propelled our mission, made us more invested, more determined. It made it impossible for any of us to bow out. “Right now, our goal is to find our parents and Regina.”

“Well, what did Wyatt say?” she asked.

“That Regina left willingly, that he was there when she wrote that Post-it note, and that he’s pretty positive she left with Sophia.”

“That’s what I suspected.”

“If Sophia Urban has anything to do with this…”

“Her grandfather isn’t far behind,” Dawkins finished for me. “She’s definitely helping him, which opens her up to more charges—aiding and abetting a wanted fugitive—not to mention the allegations Mr. Stone has leveled against her because of that Arabic manual. Sophia’s in deep, and clearly the CIA is not helping her out like they are you.”

“You think she’s desperate enough to kidnap an innocent girl?” I asked.

“No, I think Wyatt’s right. I think Regina left willingly. She just doesn’t know what she’s gotten herself involved in.”

“Well, she’s gonna find out.” I stared at the coffered ceiling in exasperation. Hopefully, not after it’s too late.

“We’re going to find her.” Dawkins said. “I have a theory.”