I texted him immediately, and his phone buzzed. It was sitting on the dresser, charging. Which meant one of two things. Either he hadn’t gone far—because he wouldn’t go far without his phone—or he’d been abducted, too.
I called Harry at the front desk. “Have you seen Kevin?”
“What, I’m supposed to keep track of all my customers?”
“No, but I thought maybe you’d—”
“Relax. He’s across the street. Outside the Burger King. Smoking. He’s been there for about twenty-five minutes. Got something to eat first.”
My pulse slowed. “You know what he ordered?”
“Of course not. You think I pry into other people’s lives?”
“Thanks, Harry.”
“You owe me, Mess. No need to worry either. I’m keeping track.”
I locked the room and hustled across the parking lot. Waited for a gap in the heavy traffic along Route 50. Made it to the median, then waited another minute for the westbound side to clear. I dashed across and found Kevin on the side of the restaurant in the exact position he was the last time I’d caught him smoking. One foot up, back slouched against the wall. This time, though, he didn’t throw away the butt and pretend he hadn’t been smoking.
“Hey.” It took quite a bit of restraint not to yell at him.
He blew out a mouthful of smoke. “Hey.”
I waved the smoke away with my hand. “I thought I asked you to stay put.”
Now, he tossed aside his cigarette. “Sorry. I didn’t think this counted. I’m not allowed to smoke in the room, and I can still see our room, right?”
“Yes. And people can see you, too. Don’t forget, someone took your mother, and they may want to find you, too.”
“They don’t want me.”
“How can you be so sure?”
A faint smile crossed his lips, and he seemed like he was challenging me. To what, I wasn’t sure.
“You know something, don’t you?”
The vague smile didn’t leave. “Like what?”
Like your mother wasn’t really abducted. “I don’t know. But maybe you should tell me and let me decide if it’s important or not.”
Kevin shrugged.
I’d had enough shrugs and evasiveness and teenage attitude. I grabbed him by the shoulders. “Look, this isn’t some kind of game. People are getting hurt. People are getting killed. Is that what you want? To end up like Billy Lane, beaten to a pulp and left by the side of the road for the raccoons to eat? You say your mother has been taken. Your stepfather is missing. If you have any information that might shed some light on what’s going on here, you better spill!”
Kevin tensed up under my grasp. His mouth opened, and he stared at me with glassy eyes. He’d been through stuff that would wither an adult, yet he was still only fifteen. Childhood wasn’t supposed to be like that. And here I was, grabbing him and yelling at him and piling on.
I let go.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…” I took a deep breath and stepped back, sure that dozens of passersby had congregated and were watching me on the verge of roughing up a kid. When I mustered enough courage to glance around, though, it was just me and Kevin on the edge of a fast-food restaurant parking lot. Of course, Harry was probably spying on us from across the street.
Shell-shocked, Kevin hadn’t moved. I wondered how much I brought back memories of him—or his mother—being manhandled by Payton. I was seriously terrible at this child-rearing thing. How bad would I have acted if I actually didn’t care about Kevin’s welfare? That was a scary thought, and my feelings of sympathy for Kevin grew exponentially.
“Kevin?”
His body remained frozen, but his eyes fixed on mine.
“Look, I’m sorry for getting physical and for yelling at you. I got carried away. I think I’m just frustrated with how things are going. I’d hoped you and your mom would be on your way to someplace better by now. Instead, she’s gone, and some bad people are involved in your lives.”
He seemed to absorb my words, then nodded.
I regulated my breathing. In, out. In, out. The anger and frustration still boiled within, and I needed to get a handle on it, to allow me to think straight and to prevent me from flying off the handle again and lashing out at Kevin. I didn’t want to transform into my father, or worse, his. “Will you accept my apology?”
A tiny nod.
“Okay. Good. Thanks.” A part of my knot untied, but I knew I had a long way to go before I was at peace with what I’d done—and more so, for what I was about to do. I nodded at the Sleep Tight across the street. “Why don’t we go back and figure out what our next steps should be?” I started to walk away, but I didn’t turn my back, not sure if Kevin was going to follow.
He didn’t.
I turned back. “Kevin, look. I’m sorry. I hope you can forgive me, if not now, then eventually. But we really should put our heads together and come up with a plan. I think I’m about ready to call my friend with the police.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because…just don’t.”
I was getting the feeling again that Kevin knew something—something damn important. “That’s not a good enough reason, I’m afraid.”
Kevin chewed on his lip. “I do have some information that might be useful.”
“You know where your mother is? Did she text you?”
“No, she didn’t text me.”
“So what’s this information?”
He stared at the traffic going by for a moment. “I might know where my stepfather is.”
“Where?”
“I’ll have to take you there. I don’t know the address.”
“Can you give me a ballpark estimate? Around here? Baltimore? South Beach?”
Not even a hint of a smile from Kevin. “Not too far from here. I think I can direct you.”
“Do you think he’s responsible for taking your mom?”
Kevin didn’t answer, just gave me the ubiquitous shrug. But this time, I caught a hint of a smile, which I took for a “yes.”
This sounded like a wild goose chase, this felt like a wild goose chase, and this sure smelled like a wild goose chase, but we really didn’t have much to lose. I hoped. “Let’s go.”
We picked Vell up before we began our quest to find Payton. I figured we could use another set of eyes and ears. And fists, if it came to that. I called Griff, too, but he didn’t answer his phone. Probably at the junkyard bench-pressing old cars.
I’d already told Vell Kevin’s story about Nicole being abducted, of course, along with my immense skepticism. I was pretty sure he agreed with me that Kevin was, most likely, yanking our chains for some reason, but I was hoping to get a more definitive opinion from him after he spent some more time with Kevin. Unfortunately, I had no idea exactly why Kevin would want to deceive us. Nor did Vell.
Only thing to do was to play it out and see what happened.
Kevin couldn’t give us an address, and he had trouble remembering some of the street names, so we pulled a lot of U-turns and did a lot of backtracking. I forgot that, until you actually drove places, navigating wasn’t so easy. And for a kid like Kevin, who always had his head in his phone, all of the streets must have looked similar.
“You think we’re in the right neighborhood now?” Vell asked from the backseat.
“I think so,” Kevin said. “I recognize that RV.”
We drove past a Gulfstream, which dwarfed a tiny house on the corner, and Kevin directed me to make the next left. Then, a right. Then the second left. We were on the other side of the George Mason University campus, where many of the modest houses overflowed with college kids. I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination, but the area smelled vaguely like stale beer.
“There.” Keven pointed to a brick house, even smaller than the rest. At some point—more than ten years ago, if I had to guess—it had been painted white, but the paint was now chipping. “That’s the place.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yeah. I remember that fire hydrant.” He pointed to a red hydrant in front of the house that inexplicably extended about three feet in the air.
“Okay.” I eased up on the gas, and we slowly rolled past it.
“How come we’re not stopping?”
“Just taking a look. See what’s going on.”
Nothing was going on. There was a single car in the driveway, but nobody was visible. The curtains were drawn, and a stand-alone shed at the back of the driveway was shuttered tight. No menacing pit bulls on chains lurked in the front yard.
At the end of the block, I pulled over and swiveled to face Vell. “What do you think?”
“Seems pretty quiet. If Payton is here, he doesn’t seem to have his posse around. Just the one car.”
“Yeah.” We could still see the house from where I parked. Nothing about it screamed danger. Yet…
“Tell me again why you think your stepfather is here?” I asked. Kevin told me earlier, before we’d picked Vell up, but I wanted to make sure his story hadn’t changed.
“Like I said, he stopped here once to get something after picking me up from soccer practice. Said a good buddy of his lived here and that he traveled a lot. Said this friend would give him the shirt off his back. Or something like that. I got the idea he’d stayed here before.”
“Did you see this friend?”
“No. He wasn’t even home. My stepdad got the key from under a planter by the front door. I sorta got the idea this was some kind of clubhouse or something. That he would come here when he wanted to get away from my mom for some reason.”
“Okay. Good to know.”
“What are we waiting for?” Kevin asked. “My mom could be in there.”
I could understand his impatience. He just wanted to see his mother again. Unharmed. So did I.
“If those men who took her are here, we want to make sure they’re not going to hurt her if we barge in. Or us, either.”
Kevin nodded. “There’s three of us. And they don’t know we’re coming.”
“You’ve been watching too many movies,” Vell said. “Real life doesn’t work like that. These guys could have guns.”
“They didn’t have guns last night,” Kevin said.
“I thought you didn’t really see them.”
“I didn’t. Not really. But I’m pretty sure they didn’t have guns.”
“How could you tell, though, if you didn’t see them?” Vell asked, hammering home my point.
Kevin shrugged. “They would have said something, or my mom would have. You know, to warn me. She knew I was out on the patio. I could hear them. I just couldn’t see them.”
“And you’re sure your stepfather wasn’t with them?”
Kevin blinked rapidly. “Pretty sure. I mean, I didn’t hear him or anything.”
Vell looked at me, and I recognized the expression on his face. I’d seen it before as we dealt with people trying to put one over on us. “Okay, then. Let’s go see if we can find your mom, shall we?”
Kevin reached for the door handle, but I put a hand on his shoulder. “I think you should stay here, just until Vell and I check it out first.”
“What?” Kevin wriggled under my hand, but I held firm.
“We’re just going to make sure it’s safe. You can watch from right here.”
He opened his mouth to argue but closed it after realizing I wasn’t going to budge. He slumped back in his seat.
“Okay. Here’s the plan. Vell and I will go to the door. See if anybody’s home. If your mom is indeed there, and it seems safe, one of us will wave you in. Got it?”
Kevin nodded, a scowl on his face. I’m sure he had visions of kicking down the door and racing in, kicking the crap out of some bad guy—or his stepfather—as he saved his mother.
I had a vision of him getting socked in the mouth by some gorilla. Luckily, I was the adult.
“This won’t take long. If we’re not back within ten minutes, call the cops.” I unbuckled my seat belt. “Come on, Vell.” I pointed to Kevin. “You stay put, okay?”
A curt nod.
“I mean it, Kevin.”
No nod, just a glare.
Vell and I got out, and I glanced over my shoulder as we headed for the house. Kevin had moved into the back seat to get a better view. He stared at us crossing the street.
“I’m with you. Kid’s story seems a bit far-fetched. What are the odds we’re going to find Nicole here?” Vell asked. “Or even Payton, for that matter?”
“Infinitesimal.”
“You always were the optimistic sort.”
We kept a steady pace as we approached. Not too fast, not too slow, not wanting to arouse suspicion in case someone happened to be watching. Every few strides, Vell had to shorten his step to keep from getting ahead of me. Nothing seemed amiss in the neighborhood; most of the college kids were probably either at class or sleeping.
“If Payton is here, do you think he’s going to be happy to see us?” Vell asked.
“No.”
“Now’s a time I wished we believed in guns.” Both Vell and I had seen too many of our friends suffer from gun violence, but his point was well-taken. I didn’t think Payton would shoot us, although there were many other painful deterrents he could employ.
A sidewalk path went directly up to the door. We paused for a second, glancing around to see if we were alone, then headed up the path. A lone planter full of red flowers stood next to the door.
Vell got there first. “Knock or bell?”
“Go big or go home.”
Vell poked the doorbell button. We stepped back, preparing for the worst—Payton and his posse, out for blood—but expecting something more like a befuddled resident wondering who the heck we were.
Nobody came, so Vell poked the button again. After another minute, I elbowed Vell aside and started banging the door knocker. Faint echoes bounced around the neighborhood.
“Payton is never home when we come calling,” Vell said.
I touched the planter with my toe. “Should we see if the key’s here?”
“We don’t even know if this is the right place. Kevin isn’t what I’d call a reliable witness.”
“Exactly. If the key is here, that would be more proof this is the place Kevin remembers.”
“Touché,” Vell said.
I bent and tipped the planter to one side.
A key.
“Well, I guess this is the place.” I retrieved the key and set the planter down.
“A lot of people keep keys under their planters,” Vell said.
“Maybe. But since we’re here…”
“Sure. What’s a little breaking and entering between friends, right?” Vell scanned the street, up and down, checking for nosy looky-loos. “All clear.”
I was about to put the key in the lock when we heard the whirr of a power saw coming from around the corner. Vell and I tiptoed to the edge of the porch, and I peeked around the edge. The sound seemed to be coming from the stand-alone structure.
It was deeper than I’d guessed at first glance, and with the rolltop door facing out onto the driveway—closed at the moment—it could serve as a garage.
Although the house had been built from solid brick, the garage looked like it had been slapped together in about two hours, with leftover cinder blocks and mismatched lengths of vinyl siding lashed tight with duct tape. Or maybe not so tight.
On the side, there was a single door with windowpanes that had been blacked out with paint.
Vell and I stepped off the porch and onto the driveway. As we crept closer, the whirring noise stopped and started. The thought of Payton with a power tool didn’t thrill me.
I motioned for Vell to stay by the rolltop door while I approached the side door, considering my options. I could knock. I could barge in. I could knock and run to get Payton away from the saw.
But if it wasn’t Payton, I didn’t want to freak out some poor schlub, especially if he was working with power tools. I didn’t want to get sued if I frightened him and he accidentally cut off a few of his fingers.
I stepped up to the door and tried the doorknob. Unlocked. Maybe if I peeked in quietly, he wouldn’t hear me, and I could confirm whether or not it was Payton.
I turned the knob and opened the door, just a crack. A man had his back to me, and he was hunched over some kind of woodworking project stretched across a couple of sawhorses. In his hands, he held a circular saw. The odor of pot hung in the air.
All I could think of was Don’t Get High and Saw.
The guy shifted position, and I caught sight of his face.
Payton.