Shooting to my feet, I hurried back out and into my room, fumbling for the scissors. Frantic, hiccupped sounds jetted from my mouth as I cut it open and found another note.
This was a series of six numbers.
And I remembered the key.
The key in the drawer with the letter.
A trail that Joseph had left me because he’d known.
Oh God, he’d known he was leaving this world.
Memories flashed.
Joseph and I on the top floor as we made plans to clear a few things out. He’d brought attention to the old safe up there, winked at me when he’d said, “This baby holds all my secrets.”
I’d thought he was joking.
Teasing me.
Breaths heaved in and out of my aching lungs, and my heart stampeded, so out of control as I rushed to the drawer and grabbed the key and fumbled upstairs to the third floor.
Darkness spread out over the rambling, open space. Antique furniture was everywhere, some covered in sheets and drapes, other pieces covered in dust.
I scrambled for the old safe where it was hidden inside an armoire, hardly able to get my hands to cooperate as I shoved the ancient key into the lock, my spirit screaming as the old door creaked open.
Inside was a small, newer safe. The kind that had digital numbers to enter the code.
My entire body rattled as I pulled it out and tried to squint at the numbers on the sheet.
Then I froze when I heard the creak from behind me.
I wasn’t quite sure what it was. What made the fine hairs at my nape stand at attention.
The ugly presence that billowed through the space.
Fear banged through me, so intense it whipped against my skin like physical blows.
A warning.
Intuition.
Terrified, I turned my head to look over my shoulder.
Felix stood at the top of the stairs.
“Felix?” I asked, almost like a question. “Hey . . . hi . . . I’m so glad you’re here.”
But I wasn’t glad he was there. Wasn’t relieved to see him. Because I couldn’t escape the feeling that something was off.
His normal fun-going casualness wiped away in his slow approach.
He was wearing his uniform . . . but somehow . . . somehow looking at him right then, it fit all wrong.
His eyes looked . . . different.
Harder and meaner.
As if a mask had been ripped from his face to reveal what was really hidden underneath.
My blood ran cold.
“Looks like you knew where it was all along. I was beginning to think you really were ignorant.”
He cracked a twisted grin when he looked between me and the safe sitting on the floor in front of me.
Awareness hit me, sending a bolt of terror ripping through my consciousness, and my eyes started to dart all over the place, trying to find a way out.
A way to get to my daughter and get us free.
A way to scream loud enough that Jace might hear.
I did.
Oh, I screamed.
It didn’t matter.
There was no one there to hear it. No one there to save me. So, I did the only thing I could do.
I pushed to my feet and I ran.
He caught me from behind, and a big hand clamped over my mouth.
The stench of wickedness filled my nostrils when Felix leaned over and breathed against the side of my face, his words a threat at my ear. “Joseph owes me, Faith. Looks like you’re the only one left to pay.”
Forty-Four
Jace
Heart beating out of control, I clutched the dashboard like I might be chained to it as I watched Mack and his team bust into the warehouse from where Mack’s car was parked across the lot.
Wearing SWAT gear, their weapons intimidating as they filed in through the door once they were given the clear.
My blood was in a frenzy, and I had to physically force myself not to jump out.
I was trying to remain respectful.
Because Mack was a damn good cop. He knew what he was doing.
But fuck.
It was brutal sitting there, wanting to be the one who stopped this monster, and having to sit there like a pathetic kid who didn’t know how to wipe his own ass.
Flashes of light lit up the windows as flashlights drove out the darkness, my body so hitched on what was happening inside I thought I could feel every pound of their boots, the way they moved in and out of rooms, climbing to the top floor.
Every second that passed, my pulse raced harder, my chest squeezing as I angled closer and closer to the windshield, trying to get a better view.
There was nothing I could do when I saw Mack reemerge through the door where they’d entered.
I flew out and ran across the pavement.
His expression was frustrated.
Grave and confused.
“What happened?” I shouted.
He scrubbed a palm over his face. “Nothing fucking happened. That’s the problem. There isn’t a trace of anything in there. No files. No computers. No contraband. It’s wiped clean. Like not a soul has been in there in months.”
“What? How? I thought Felix and Doug found something?”
“Thought so, too.”
A bluster of helplessness moved through me, all mixed up with the torment that had been written on Faith’s face when I’d told her. The combination of the two nearly dropped me to my knees.
Mack squeezed my shoulder. “We are going to find them.”
Unsettled, I shook my head. “None of this sits right with me. You guys found the address a few hours ago, how did they have time to up and disappear like they’d never been here in the first place?”
He squeezed my shoulder again. “They could have caught wind of the raid and got the hell out of there. It wouldn’t be the first time it has happened.”
I wanted to take him at his word. But there was something about it that didn’t sit well.
Hell, nothing had been sitting well since the second all of this shit had gone down.
But I couldn’t stop the commotion inside me. This throbbing mayhem that warned nothing was right.
“Listen, I’m going to go back to the office. Read through the report again. See if there’s anything that we missed. I’ll drop you at your car, then you need to go and get some sleep.”
I huffed out a sound. That was funny because I had nowhere to go.
“Seriously, man, I know you are going crazy right now, and believe me, I want to nail these fuckers as badly as you do. But sometimes it takes time.”
Problem was, I was worried we were running out of time. The loss swirling around me, so dark and bleak. What had gone down in that intersection two days ago was proof of that.
“Fine,” I told him.
Reluctantly, I climbed back into Mack’s car, part of me wanting to go into that building and do a little hunting for myself. Sure we had to be missing something.
What I really wanted to do was to go back to Faith’s place.
But I wasn’t welcome any longer.
I called Felix instead, needing to check in. The reassurance that everything was all right.
It went straight to voice mail.
“Shit,” I muttered under my breath.
“What?” Mack asked as he took the last turn into the station.
“Felix isn’t answering.”
Mack’s brow lifted. “That’s because he’s working. Doing his job rather than gabbing with you on the phone.”
He tried to make it come out light, but I wasn’t feeling so light.
Everything felt heavy, unable to escape that feeling that had my guts twisted and tied.
I knew its source.
The fact Faith would never forgive me. My mind haunted by the horror and hate that moved through her expression when I’d admitted what I’d known and, like a fool, had never disclosed.
Had never helped when I’d had the chance. Laughed in Joseph’s face instead, my last words to him nothing but spite.
I hit the road, not even knowing where the fuck I was going to go but knowing I couldn’t go too far until this was solved.
Then I would go.
Leave and never return.
I forced myself into the rental car, my sight bleary as I hit the road. I headed in the direction of Ian’s condo back in Charleston, figuring I’d crash there.
Streetlamps blazed and glimmered from above, and I blinked hard, trying to erase Bailey’s little face that started to take hold of my mind.