Chapter Eleven

She crinkled the small piece of paper in her hand. She should have told Graham about the address she’d found in Pete’s bedroom, but there was no way he would have let her go with him. Hell, he’d probably be convinced she knew what he’d find at the address, and she’d kept it from him just long enough to make sure Pete got away. The man was infuriating. His eyes had been cold as steel when he’d looked at her today, as if every word out of her mouth was a lie.

She was tired of it. After mulling it over all day, she had no doubt she was right. She needed to do something to clear her name, and if she could find Becca while she did it, even better. Graham had other leads to track down anyway, including working on a warrant for Pete’s apartment. If she found anything worth mentioning, she’d call him. Besides, he hadn’t given her much of a chance to tell him. He’d practically run away from her after dropping her off at her apartment earlier. He couldn’t get away from her fast enough.

Except when he was kissing her in her apartment and smelling her hair in the rain. Her pulse kicked into high gear. He had some nerve accusing her of helping kidnap her goddaughter for sex-trafficking one minute and then knocking her off her feet with a simple touch the next. She hated the way her body responded to him. What she hated even more was how badly she wished they could have seen where that kiss led.

Stop it. Get Graham out of your head. He thinks the worst of you, and you need to prove him wrong and find Becca. Finding Becca is the only thing that matters.

She put the address into her GPS and then wadded up the piece of paper before she threw it on the floor on the passenger’s side of her car. Her hands tightened around the steering wheel and she concentrated on the instructions as she drove through the city. The rain poured down in sheets from the dark sky and the traffic backed up on the slippery highway. Glares from the streetlights bounced off the slick roads, making it difficult to see.

Her phone trilled on the seat beside her and Lydia’s name popped up on the touchscreen on the dashboard. She pressed the button on the steering wheel to turn on her Bluetooth.

“Hey, Lydia, what’s up?”

“I’m just checking in. Did they catch the woman who broke in? How was your flight?”

Despite the unease boiling in her stomach, she couldn’t help but chuckle. “Slow down a little.”

Lydia released a loud breath. “Sorry. I’ve been worried sick about you. I don’t know why you insisted on going to work today. No one would have blamed you for taking the day off. Hell, if I were you I’d take the whole month off.”

“I need to keep my mind occupied. Sitting around and stewing over what’s happened won’t help anything.”

“What about the fact someone tried to kill you? You shouldn’t have stayed in the apartment last night. I couldn’t sleep from worrying about what could happen to you.”

Mickey’s heart lurched. “I should have called you earlier. I’m sorry. My mind’s been all over the place today. I took Agent Grassi to Pete’s apartment before I went to work, and now I’m trying to find something. If you want to go back to the apartment, I had the locks changed this morning, but it’s still a little creepy being in there.” She’d spared just enough time going back to their apartment to check the locks herself before taking off again.

“I think I’ll stay with my parents until that woman is caught.”

Red brake lights flashed in front of her. Her heart slammed into her chest. “Shit!”

She swerved to the side of the road. Water sprayed under her tires until she hydroplaned on a river of water on the shoulder. Her hands clutched the steering wheel and her pulse thundered through her ears. Lydia’s voice broke through the hum of panic rampaging through her skull. “What happened?”

Mickey’s knuckles threatened to break through her skin as her grip tightened and her elbows locked. She turned the wheel left, and then right, trying to even out the car as it slid toward the side of the highway. As soon as the tires bounced back down on the road, she pulled over on the side of the highway, hit the brakes, and gasped for breath. Turning her hazards on, she fell back in her seat.

“Stupid car in front of me almost got me killed. I’m fine, but damn. I need to get off the highway.”

“Where are you going?”

“I found an address written down in Pete’s bedroom. I want to see where it is.” Checking her mirrors for traffic, Mickey eased back onto the road. GPS showed she needed to get off at the next exit toward Old Town. Thank God. She hated driving so fast in the rain.

A beat passed before Lydia said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You should leave this to the police.”

Turning off the highway, she blew out a sigh of relief. Her grip on the steering wheel relaxed, but her muscles remained tense. “I can’t. They’ve been trying to find Pete and Becca for over thirty-six hours, and time’s running out. Let them run down the leads they have. I need to do this. For Becca and Suzi. Suzi…she blames me.” Emotion clogged her throat.

“You didn’t know Pete was going to take Becca, or anyone else. You can’t blame yourself. And Suzi’s upset right now. She’s scared to death and needs to lash out.” The sympathy in Lydia’s voice threatened to tear down the thin wall she’d built to keep her emotions at bay.

Mickey’s eyes burned with unshed tears, but she refused to let them fall. “I let him in, Lydia. I was blind to who he is. How could I not have seen it?”

She shook her head, marveling at her own stupidity. Nausea rose from the pit of her stomach, just like it did every time she imagined all of the time she’d spent with Pete. All of the nights she’d spent with him, the plans they’d made for the future. It’d all been a lie, a trap to get his hands on the most important person in her life. Bile burned her esophagus as it rose up her throat, and she swallowed it down. She couldn’t dwell on this now. She had to focus on the directions the GPS spewed.

“I’m not going to argue about this over the phone. Why don’t you meet me for a drink?” The rain pounding on the hood of her car and the whoosh of the windshield wipers almost drowned out Lydia’s plea.

“I have to do this. I can’t sit around and let everyone else try to find Becca. Especially when Agent Asshole thinks I had something to do with it. You’re not going to talk me out of it, but if you want to stay on the phone while I figure out where the hell I’m going, then fine.”

Nothing but heavy breathing came through the speakers. Every shred of her focus stayed on the voice from her GPS telling her where to turn. The city lights whirled by her and traffic blared its angry horns. She shut it out of her mind as she weaved through the city streets.

“I just passed St. Michael’s church.” She glanced around, but not many pedestrians littered the tree-lined sidewalks in the storm.

“You’re in Old Town?”

“Yeah. I turned off Eugenie Street onto Cleveland Avenue.” White numbers on mailboxes announced the house numbers. She found the one she wanted and slid her car next to the curb across the street. “The address I have is for an old house. It looks old enough to have been here before the Chicago fire burned this part of the city to the ground. There’s an SUV parked in the driveway. Should I knock on the door?”

“Are you crazy?” Lydia’s screech pierced her eardrums. “If the house is connected to Pete, nothing good is going on inside. Call Agent Grassi!”

She bit into the side of her cheek as she considered her options. “I don’t know. I’m here now. I could go up and see what’s going on before I waste his time. I could get Becca out if she’s in there.”

“With what? Your charm? You’re a flight attendant, not a cop.”

Ignoring Lydia, she dimmed her headlights and surveyed the area around her. Her gaze locked on the old Victorian house. The door opened and a blond woman stepped out of the house and walked toward the SUV. Mickey slid down low in her seat. “Oh my God, it’s her. Connie Difico is at the house. Pete has to be in there.”

“Who’s Connie Difico?”

“The woman who broke into our apartment.” Her pulse beat wildly in her ears, blocking out whatever Lydia was saying. She rubbed her sweat-slicked palms on her thighs, leaving tiny marks of perspiration on her dark blue skirt.

Connie threw a suitcase into the SUV and walked up the stairs to the porch. She opened the door and stepped back inside. Mickey scanned the front of the house as she weighed her options. Hostas and ferns lined the sidewalk and filled in the space in front of the dark gray porch. The yard was small, but well maintained.

The front door swung open again, but this time a hulking man with broad shoulders and a face hidden by a black hoodie stepped out with Connie. His massive frame dwarfed her, but the determination in her stride showed who was in charge. Connie climbed into the passenger side of the SUV, the man jumped into the driver’s seat, and they peeled out of the driveway without a moment’s hesitation.

“She left with a man. She put a suitcase in the car. I wonder if they’re gone for good, or if they’ll come back soon.” Mickey searched for a sign of someone else in the house, but there was none. No lights shone through the windows, no shadows danced across the yard.

“It’s time to stop acting like an idiot and get out of there.”

She sighed and closed her eyes, trying to figure out the best move to make. She could call Graham and tell him she’d found Connie, but a sliver of resistance nagged at her gut. He still believed she wasn’t being honest with him. She’d come to this house with hopes to find Becca, and to find something to convince him she was a victim in this whole thing. Not an accomplice. Besides, she had no idea how much time she had before Connie and the man came back. If she waited for Graham to come to check things out, she could miss her chance to find Becca.

“I need to get a closer look at the house.”

“No, you don’t. You need to call the authorities. These people are dangerous, and you’re only going to get yourself killed if you get out of your car and try to save the day.”

A shiver of fear raced up her spine. She couldn’t argue with her friend. Lydia was right. It would be dangerous and stupid to go up to a house where a woman that had tried to kill her lived. But she didn’t care. Wherever Becca was, she was more afraid and more alone than Mickey had ever been. She had to act…now.

“Sorry, but I have to go. I’ll call you later.”

“Mick—”

Mickey ended the call. Add guilt to the kaleidoscope of emotions twirling through her mind. Unclasping her seatbelt and stepping out of the car, she pushed Lydia’s frantic voice from her brain and crossed the street to the house.

The soft melody of crickets sang into the night and her heels slapped against the brick pathway to the front porch. The rain no longer came down in sheets, but the drizzle left over from the storm spat down on her and coated her. Goosebumps prickled over her skin as she approached the looming old Victorian. Green, a shade darker than the painted siding, outlined the windows and the scalloped peaks of the roof. The trim appeared to grow darker as it slid down the side of the house, until it bled into the dark gray of the porch, almost as if tears were falling into a dark abyss.

A prickle of fear puckered on her neck and she glanced around. Not a person in sight. Lights shone from the windows of the neighboring houses, but no shadows flitted across the closed shades.

Mickey stepped onto the front porch and the semi-rotted wood sagged beneath her weight. Her gaze darted around and indecision froze her feet to the ground. Did she walk in and pray no one had been left to watch the house? Should she ring the bell, and then pretend as if she was lost if someone answered?

Ring the bell.

Gathering her courage, she pressed the yellow-stained bell on the side of the door. Nervous energy zipped through her and she wiggled her toes in an effort to get it the hell out of her. She strained her ears for any indication someone was coming to the door. Nothing but the call of the crickets filled her ears.

Two small windows separated by a metal bar nestled in the middle of the door. Mickey stood on her tiptoes and peered into the dark house.

Nothing.

She needed to get a better look inside. Her trembling fingers circled the knob, but it didn’t budge when she tried to turn it.

Dammit.

Mickey hurried down the porch stairs and searched for other windows to look into. The foliage was thick around the front of the porch, and wet vines brushed against her ankles as she rushed around the side of the house. At least she hoped they were vines. She didn’t focus on it as she searched for a way to see inside the house. Blinds or curtains or God knows what covered all of the windows at her level. Her heels sunk into the soft, moist grass and tendrils of wet hair slipped from the bun at the nape of her neck. She let the limp strands linger on her cheek and concentrated on the overgrown shrubs hiding the side of the house.

Shifting a wayward branch, a beam of moonlight bounced off glass on the bottom of the house. A window. She shimmied through the branches and the jagged twigs scraped against her leg. She rested a palm on the peeling paint of the siding to steady herself, and then dropped to her knees to look into the window. She wiped the caked-on dirt off the glass with the hem of her skirt and leaned in close. Thick block glass clouded her view, but she narrowed her gaze to center the objects in her line of vision.

And her blood turned cold.

Dirty cots lined one wall of the dingy basement. She couldn’t make out the rough outline of the objects littered around the room, but one piece called to her and there was no denying what it was or who it belonged to. A bright pink backpack with a glittery, black embroidered B on the front pocket.

Becca was here.

Hope surged inside Mickey and adrenaline coursed through her veins. She burst through the wedge of shrubs. The sharp edges scraped across her flesh, but she surged on. She had to get inside. She broke free of the gnarled weeds and ran toward the front of the house. One heel sunk into a patch of mud and she struggled to pull her foot from the glue-like goo.

She pulled, grunting as she stumbled forward and out of her shoe. She shot her arms in front of her as she fell, but her palms slid on the slick blades of grass and her face smashed against the ground. Pain punctured her nose, but she jumped to her feet, pulled off her other shoe, and ran up the steps to the porch. Splinters scraped against her bare feet and she pushed on the door handle. The ancient wood of the doorframe buckled, and she summoned all the strength she had for one more push.

The door swung open and Mickey stumbled forward but managed to keep her balance. She charged into the house and the stench of rotting food and garbage slammed into her nostrils. She coughed and fought the overwhelming urge to gag. Darkness enveloped her. One tiny shaft of moonlight flitted through the slit of the open door. But that’s all she needed.

Blinking to adjust to the dark, she followed the shaft of moonlight down the hallway and into the kitchen. The outline of days’ worth of dishes sat in the sink. Pizza boxes and empty take-out containers took over the counter. A door stood open and Mickey glanced down the wooden stairs that led to the basement. She sucked in a deep breath and cringed as the stale, rotten air entered her lungs. She could do this. She had to do this. Becca could be down there. She flicked the light on for the stairwell and the coolness of the top step seeped into her foot. She descended the stairs and pulled in a deep breath.

Dear God, please let Becca be down here and no one else… Otherwise she’d likely just served herself up on a silver platter to the enemy.