Cage took stock of the man who’d opened the door. They’d banged on it to get his attention . . . maybe a little too harshly.
“We're friends of Sarah's,” Joule said immediately when the man opened the door and offered only a cautious, “Hello?”
He was probably in his late twenties or early thirties, his expression giving away nothing. That was what told Cage immediately that he did know Sarah . . . and that there was something about his relationship to her that he didn't want them to know.
“Have you seen her recently?” Joule asked, barging straight ahead.
Cage watched again as the man simply withheld all comments. In fact, aside from the “hello” when he'd opened the door, he'd said nothing else.
Without stepping up beside his sister—though he had only an inch on her in height—Cage spoke from where he was. He tried an introduction for the second time today.
“My name is Cage Mazur. This is my sister Joule. We've known Sarah for several years. No one has seen her for several days.”
Still, the man's expression didn't change at all.
It should have. If they were asking about a stranger, he would have been saying he didn’t know her. He would have said he was sorry their friend was missing, that he would keep an eye out. Not this non-reaction.
Instead, his dark eyes watched them, taking in as much as Cage’s were. His nearly-black hair hung in waves to just below his chin, the white tank top and jeans were clean, but nothing special. His bare feet said he was in for the day.
Cage noted all of it.
If this person wasn't going to respond to the basic niceties, then he would play a higher level card. “She's missing. No one has seen her since Tuesday night.”
That got a reaction.
His facial hair twitched, revealing the slightest reaction on the face underneath. His dark eyes flashed. What Cage had said wasn't even true. Tuesday night was a bit of a stretch. It was more like late Sunday afternoon.
Cage was playing on a bet. Wondering if Tuesday evening or night meant anything to this man. “How often do you see her?”
While he was still slow to answer, this time the man stepped out, his bare feet landing on the cement sidewalk as he pulled the door closed behind him. “She’s missing, your friend?”
The slight hint of an accent told Cage that the man wasn't a native to the area, but Cage couldn't distinguish where he was from. Another country. Somewhere farther away than Texas.
Joule nodded in answer. “Her roommates filed the report two days ago.” Then she was opening her mouth to say more.
Cage reached out with the back of his hand tapping at her where the man hopefully couldn’t see the signal. Joule quickly snapped her teeth together and Cage watched as the dark eyes had flitted up and to his right.
The man knew where she lived. Sarah wasn't just somebody who walked by the row of apartments periodically. She came down here and knocked on his door. He knew which unit was hers.
Though his expressions were still slight, Cage got the impression that he was troubled at the idea that Sarah was missing. But he still wasn't giving them any information.
Cage decided to back off. Even from where he stood behind her, he could practically see the gears turning in Joule's head, too. He hoped the man standing in front of them couldn’t.
They would need to form a real plan, not just one based on the basic twin signals they’d developed.
In the past, they’d managed—sometimes just barely—to keep themselves alive. Could they do the same for Sarah?
“Can I leave my number with you?” Cage asked. “In case you see her, you can let us know that she's okay.”
The man nodded and held out his hand. Certainly, he didn't want Cage to grab a pen and write the number on his palm. So, he searched his pockets for a scrap of paper, but it was Joule who produced a receipt. That backpack was tiny, but she managed to Mary Poppins it.
Cage quickly jotted down both their names and their numbers and handed the faded paper over.
“If I hear anything . . .” the man said. As he motioned with the receipt in one hand the other reached behind him, expertly grabbing for the knob he couldn't see. Then he was gone, the door closed in their faces.
Again, with a subtle tap of his hand, Cage motioned for his sister to get out of the way before they began talking. It would be best not to have this conversation on the man’s doorstep where he might overhear.
Joule led the way, even as she looked back at him over her shoulder, her eyes wide as if to say that was a bizarre conversation.
They let themselves back into the roommates’ apartment upstairs and closed the door before either of them spoke.
“He clearly knows her,” Joule started.
“And he's concerned that she's missing but he doesn't want to give us any information.” Cage sighed. “I want to say it's the first good lead that we have. But he’s all we’ve got.”
“Maybe it's enough to get some information on him.” Joule was looking around the living room as if she might find a desktop computer set up. Cage didn’t think so.
“I'm going to run back down to the car and grab our laptops.” He motioned toward the door. “Can you message the roommates and ask if it's okay if we hang out here today? I'd like to keep an eye on the neighbor. See if we can figure out which car is his if he goes anywhere.”
Not that the front window to the apartment was going to be big enough to watch the parking lot. He couldn’t see the man’s front door at all from here. But Cage was going to try.
Trying to look nonchalant, he went to the car and opened the door, constantly aware of his surroundings. The door to apartment 104 didn’t budge, the curtains didn’t flutter. He returned with bag in hand, but no further information. He was glad that he didn't look like he was carrying a couple of laptops—just in case whatever-his-name-was was watching out his own window. The twins used an old duffle bag to carry equipment, to make is seem less like something someone would want to steal.
Joule quickly pulled her computer out and set him up with the Wi Fi password even as she claimed space at the small dining table. He, however, put a cutting board over the sink and set his laptop on that. He hoped he could see all the cars in the parking lot from there.
An hour later, Joule had found out quite a bit about the apartment complex and had even done a reverse address search, getting the name of the resident in 104. But searching the name brought up a much older man.
She sighed and spun her laptop around to show him.
“That’s definitely not our guy.” Cage agreed.
No one had come or gone from the parking lot. So, unless the man had left on foot behind the building—which Cage had searched from overhead map footage and seen there wasn’t anywhere he could plausibly go that direction—he hadn't left yet.
Turning to his sister, Cage hit her up to trade places so he could sit for a while. He still wanted someone watching the parking lot. Just as he started to move out of the way, a car careened around the corner, and would have squealed into the center of the lot had it not been for the packed gravel. Dust spun up from the tires and the car looked too shiny and high-end to belong here.
Mesmerized, Cage watched as an older couple got out, frantic expressions lining their faces. They dashed under the walkway and Cage lost sight of them for a moment, but then he heard their footsteps ringing on the stairs.
It was all the warning the twins got before the pounding came at the front door.