“Yeah, probably.”
He punched in the last number and put the truck in drive. The navigation voice echoed in the speakers, telling him where to turn.
Raegan was quiet for several minutes as they left the Pearl District and headed over the Broadway Bridge. On the east side of the river, she shifted in her seat, and out of the corner of his eye, Alec noticed her tight shoulders and clenched jaw.
That didn’t seem like confusion. It screamed stress—or anger.
“So,” she said in the silence. “Last night after we said good night, I had a little bit of a surprise.”
He glanced sideways at her, unsure how to read her. “What kind of surprise?”
“A note on my windshield kind of surprise.”
He wasn’t sure why she was telling him about some silly flyer. He merged onto I-5 South.
“It was handwritten. Only contained two lines.” She exhaled. “I’m not even sure I should tell you what it said.”
He switched lanes and shot her a look. “What do you mean you don’t know if you should tell me? Why are you bringing it up then?”
“Because Jack Bickam might call you about it. I gave it to him this morning.”
A tingle ran down Alec’s spine. “Bickam? Why? What did the note say?”
She pursed her lips and didn’t answer.
That tingle intensified. Glancing sideways at her, he said, “What did the note say, Raegan?”
She sucked her lips between her teeth and stared ahead at the freeway. Stress and worry radiated from her, putting Alec on instant alert. “Raegan? Tell me what the hell the note sa—”
“I’ll tell you if you don’t freak out, okay?”
That did not put Alec at any kind of ease. He was just about to explain that to her when a heavy sigh slipped from her lips.
She glanced his way. “It said, ‘You always thought she was alive. Stop what you’re doing or this time she’s dead.’”
For a moment, everything stopped. The cars on the freeway whizzing by disappeared. The radio went silent. Even his pulse seemed to halt as the words circled in his head. Then reality slammed into him, shooting his pulse straight through the roof and his adrenaline into overdrive.
He cut the truck across the lanes, onto the shoulder, and slammed on the brakes.
Raegan lurched forward, but the seat belt pulled her back. She braced a hand against the window at her side and gasped. “Oh my God. Alec. What are y—”
“Where is it? Where’s the note?”
“I told you. With the FBI.”
“You didn’t keep a copy of it? I know you kept a copy. Show me.”
“Maybe we should talk about this later when you’re not so—”
“Raegan, show me the damn note.”
Her lips snapped closed. She stared at him for several seconds. Then with a disapproving shake of her head, she leaned forward and reached for her purse, but the seat belt stopped her. Alec hit the button on her belt, freeing her so she could grab her purse from the floorboards. The sound of his pulse returned, morphing to a roar in his ears as she fumbled inside her bag.
Or this time she’s dead.
Or she’s dead . . .
Did that mean she could be alive?
Raegan pulled out a full piece of paper folded in half. “This is just a photocopy. I took the original straight to Jack Bickam. He said they’d run it for fingerprints.” Hesitantly, she held the paper out to him. “I wanted to show it to you first, but I thought the smartest thing to do would be to give it to the FBI. But, Alec”—her voice lifted with both excitement and hope as he unfolded the note—“this could be proof Emma is still alive.”
Alec stared at the photocopied handwriting. And in a rush, his blood cooled and the tiny thread of hope he’d let himself believe in dropped free like scissors slicing through yarn. “It’s not proof.”
“What do you mean? It could be. It says ‘or she’s dead.’ This could be someone trying to tell us Emma is still alive.”
“It’s not proof of anything.”
He shoved the paper toward her and shifted back into drive, glancing in the rearview mirror for a break in the traffic so he could pull back out onto the freeway. A renewed rage simmered beneath his control. A rage centered on one person.
“Why?” Raegan said softly beside him when they were a mile down the road. “Why can’t you believe, even now?”
Alec’s jaw clenched so hard, pain ricocheted across his cheekbones. He took the exit onto I-84 East. “Because I’d know that chicken scratch handwriting anywhere. It’s John Gilbert’s handwriting. He’s messing with you. And me.”
Goddamn son of a bitch. Gilbert was still in jail, but he had plenty of lowlife friends he could have pegged to follow Alec.
“Your father?” Raegan looked down at the photocopy in her lap with shock and disbelief. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” Alec swerved around a school bus going entirely too slow. “And he’s not my father. He’s just the asshole who fucked the woman who abandoned me. He’s taunting you, Raegan. Taunting you because he knows we were together last night. Goddamn fucking prick.” His hand tightened around the steering wheel as he thought of all the ways he wanted to kick the fucker’s ass.
Raegan’s shoulders slumped, and knowing he’d just killed her faith—again—dimmed a little of the rage brewing inside.
“I’m sorry he did that.” He slowed the truck when he realized he was going eighty in a fifty-five. Moving carefully into the right lane, he glanced at her again, forcibly softening his voice. “He’s in jail on a probation violation right now, though, so you have nothing to worry about.”
Yet.
A new sense of worry rippled down Alec’s spine as he refocused on the road. His father was set to be released at the end of the week. John Gilbert had mentioned finding Raegan when Alec had gone to see him at the jail. At the time, Alec had considered it an empty threat, but if his goons had seen her with Alec and one had left her that note, it meant she might not be safe alone once Gilbert was free.
“Then I don’t understand how his handwritten note got on my car.”
“Gilbert’s a loser, and he has plenty of loser friends who visit him in that shithole. I’m sure he conned one of them into leaving that note on your windshield.”
“But how would he know I would be at that coffee shop on that night?”
“He wouldn’t.” Alec turned off the freeway and headed east on Glisan toward the Hazelwood neighborhood, keeping his eyes on the road so she couldn’t see just how much this news rattled him. “He knows I go there. Ever since he got out of prison three and a half years ago, he’s kept tabs on me. I guarantee that note was meant for me and that whoever delivered it saw us together and decided to give it to you instead.”
At least that was what he hoped, because the alternative—that they really were targeting Raegan—left a pit in the bottom of his stomach.
Raegan was silent while he made a turn, staring down at the note in her hands.
Alec tried to settle his frayed nerves as he followed the GPS directions until he pulled to a stop in front of a one-level dump on a dilapidated street. The lawns on the street were all brown, covered with junk, trash cans, and even car parts. The gray house to Alec’s right was the worst of the bunch, with chipped and peeling paint, missing shutters, and one window covered with duct tape to close up a hole in the glass.
“God, this place looks happy,” Alec said as he shifted into park and killed the ignition.
Raegan looked up at him with sad eyes. “Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe this note wasn’t written by John Gilbert. Maybe—”
“I’m not wrong.” He knew where she was going. Hated that he was dousing her hope all over again. But he couldn’t let her wish for something that was never going to happen. Not when he knew his fucking father was back to his old ways, tormenting him—them—in any way possible. “This isn’t the evidence you’ve been looking for. You have to let it go and forget about i
t.”
Her gaze dropped back down to the paper, and even though he couldn’t see her eyes, he read the heartbreak in her expression. More than anything he wanted to take her into his arms and comfort her, but he couldn’t. Couldn’t, because it was his fault she was suffering right now. His past had caught up with him and was ruining not only his life but hers once more as well.
Guilt swamped him. A familiar guilt that threatened to drag him under. Before it could, he pushed his door open and climbed out of the truck. “Come on. Let’s get this over with so we can get the heck out of here. This place reminds me way too much of a childhood I’d rather forget.”
She nodded. Folded the paper and slipped it back into her purse. But when he rounded the hood and watched her climb out, that guilt sank in deeper.
Because something had died in her eyes. A light he hadn’t even realized was there until right this moment. A light that had dimmed because of his father. His good-for-nothing, selfish prick of a father.
As they headed up the front walk toward the dilapidated house, he swore to himself then and there that if John Gilbert so much as touched her, he’d kill the fucker once and for all.
Raegan couldn’t stop thinking about John Gilbert as she stood on the broken front stoop of the worn-down house and waited while Alec knocked.
She’d never met Alec’s biological father. When they’d first started dating and gotten married, John Gilbert had still been in prison for providing drugs to a minor and using Alec as a mule to move his supply. Raegan knew Alec’s testimony as a teen had sent Gilbert to prison, and she knew from talking to both Alec and Michael McClane that Gilbert blamed Alec for his incarceration. But after Emma had disappeared, she’d never been convinced John Gilbert was involved. Alec believed without a doubt that his father had taken her to get back at him, but there’d never been any proof. And this note in her purse that Alec claimed was from Gilbert now didn’t prove his involvement either.
She needed to believe Emma was still alive. Couldn’t let herself think of the alternative. Because if she did . . .
Something hard and sharp stabbed straight into her chest, and she swallowed the silent scream that pushed at her throat as she blinked back the sting of tears threatening behind her eyes. Believing anything else would lead her straight into the darkness, and she couldn’t go there and stay sane.
Emma was still alive. Somewhere. Waiting for her. If this note was nothing more than John Gilbert trying to harass his son, it didn’t change that belief for her.
The door pulled open, and a thin woman dressed in a tank top and leggings with dark hair pulled back in a tail eyed them speculatively. “Yes?”
Raegan pushed aside her emotions, shifting into reporter mode as she held up her station ID. “Mrs. Willig? I’m Raegan Devereaux from KTVP. We spoke earlier on the phone?”
Barbara Willig looked like she was in her midthirties, but Raegan suspected she was quite a bit younger, aged by stress and circumstances. She narrowed dark-brown eyes on Raegan. “You don’ look like that blonde newsgirl on the TV.”
“I’m not. That’s Allie Ziegler. But I do fill in for her at the anchor table from time to time. This is my colleague, Alec McClane. Can we come in for a few minutes and talk with you about your son?”
Barbara Willig’s brow wrinkled, and for a moment, Raegan feared the woman might change her mind. Then Alec flashed that thousand-watt smile at Raegan’s side and shivered in what Raegan knew was a very calculated way.
“Dang, it’s getting cold out here.” He glanced at Raegan then back at Barbara Willig. “I think Chloe Hampton was wrong with last night’s weather forecast. Feels like it’s about to snow again to me. What do you think, Mrs. Willig?”
The woman’s gaze shifted to Alec, and her expression relaxed. “It just might. And the name’s Ms. Willig. Not missus. Not after I kicked that louse out once and for all. But you can both call me Barbie.” She pulled the door open wider. “Come on in.”
She turned, leaving the door open, and sauntered down the long hallway toward the back of the house with a sway in her step Raegan bet ten bucks hadn’t been there a few minutes before.
Lifting his brows in a you can thank me later move, Alec waited for Raegan to step in front of him, then closed the door at his back. She had to hand it to him. He had a way with women. He’d charmed their way into this house when Barbie Willig was ready to toss Raegan out simply based on her looks. For a moment, she wondered if that’s what she’d witnessed last night—Alec charming that waitress so she’d give them an isolated table in the back of the coffee shop away from the bar—rather than the blatant flirting she thought she’d seen.
The dark hallway opened to a living room filled with scuffed furniture, a flickering TV, and toys strewn over the coffee table and floor. Three small children in underwear and T-shirts lay on the floor on their stomachs, eyes wide and glued to the screen.
Barbara stepped in front of them and flipped the TV off. All three sat up, whining and complaining. She shushed them and pointed toward a doorway on the far side of the room. “Go play in the other room. I got someone to talk to. You can watch TV when I’m done.”
The children grumbled under their breaths but shuffled out of the room. Barbara shook her head and motioned toward the couch. “Have a seat.”
Raegan sat next to Alec on the couch, pulling a small notebook from her purse. “Thanks for meeting with us, Ms. Willig. I know you talked to the police and several reporters last year when your son went missing, but we’re doing a follow-up piece and wanted to ask you a few questions.”
Barbara sank into a recliner on Alec’s side, looking cautiously between them. “Are you trying to catch the guy who took my son?”
“We’re looking into similar cases, seeing if there’s a connection,” he answered. “Sometimes stories like this spark viewers’ attention. We can’t guarantee we’re going to find anything, but keeping your son’s name in the press can’t hurt, right?”
She nodded, but a frustrated look pulled at her brows. “No one much seemed to care about my Billy disappearing. Oh, there were reporters hanging around when it first happened, but then after a few days . . . nothin’. You’re the first people who’ve come to follow up since just after it happened.”
Raegan wasn’t sure why that would be, but before she could ask, shuffling sounded at her back, and she turned to see a young girl with curly dark hair walk out of the kitchen, her gaze locked on a smartphone in her hand.
“Ginny, what are you doing?” Barbie pushed out of her chair and swiped the phone from the girl’s hands. “I told you your time was up.”
The girl didn’t answer. Just dropped her hands and stared up at the woman.
Barbara waved a hand toward the hallway the other children had disappeared through. “Go do your homework.”
The girl’s expression dropped, and she turned away, heading for the hall with a huff.
Barbara sighed as she sat back in her recliner and set the girl’s phone on the table beside her. “That girl thinks I’m the Wicked Witch of the West, when all I’m trying to do is make her smarter than me.”
“Are all of these your children?” Raegan asked.
She shook her head. “Just Ginny. The other three are kids I take care of durin’ the day. Not as good money as, say, being a reporter, but I get to work from home.”
“Yes, that is a nice perk,” Raegan said.
Barbie reached for the soda can at her side and tipped it back for a sip. “Sometimes I think homeschooling that kid was a bad idea. She doesn’t appreciate it none.” She glanced at Alec and Raegan with a scowl. “You’ll have to excuse her bad manners. She’s mad at me right now ’cause I wouldn’t let her run up to the elementary school to play with some of the older kids in the neighborhood.”
“Do you not like those older kids?” Raegan asked.
“Oh, those kids are fine. It’s the school I don’ want Ginny near. That’s where my Billy was taken.”
Raegan sensed
the woman didn’t let her daughter out of her sight very often, and for that reason she felt for the girl. But could she blame Barbara Willig? If she’d had other children, Raegan probably would have been the same way after Emma’s disappearance.
“Your son went missing at the elementary school?” Alec asked.
Barbara nodded. “Last year. I wasn’t doin’ day care then. I was . . .” She frowned. “Well, I was a dancer. It was good money, but my old man—Bob—he didn’t want me doin’ it anymore. He used to get wicked jealous. So I quit, and I’d just gotten a job as a cashier down at the Save and Go. When I was dancing I used to work nights, and I’d take care of the kids during the day, but the new job had me working days, so Bob had to take care of them on the weekend when he was home. It was a Saturday. Bob was working on his truck in the driveway. I guess Billy wouldn’t stop bugging him about going to the playground. Billy, he was a sweet little boy, but so full of energy.” She shook her head. “He could run circles around you and leave you wondering what the hell happened. Used to run up to my legs and say, ‘Go walk. Go walk!’ and wouldn’t let up ’til I took him outside.”
A far-off look filled Barbara’s dull brown eyes, and for a moment, Raegan pictured her as she must have looked before Billy’s abduction—young, full of life, with a light in her eyes that wasn’t there now. Raegan knew how stress could age a person. She guessed Barbara Willig had aged ten years in only a few short months.
Barbara shook the look away and scowled. “Good ol’ Bob didn’t want to take the time to run Billy up to the school, so he told Ginny to do it. She took Billy up to the playground and let him climb all over the jungle gym. There was a bunch of kids there that day, and Billy was runnin’ all over the place. At some point . . .” She paused, and that faraway look came rushing back. “She lost track of him. And then . . . poof. He was gone.”
Raegan’s gaze strayed to Alec, and she wondered what he was thinking, what he was remembering. His eyes were fixed on Barbara Willig, but not a single muscle in his features moved. His face was as stone-cold unreadable as she’d ever seen it.
“What happened then?” Raegan asked softly.