I was open, exposed, the lone individual on the street, and I searched for a side street, a place to hide. I was suddenly afraid to stop a stranger, should I encounter one, my paranoia not knowing whom to trust. Escape. I needed to put distance between my prison and myself. Any moment the door could burst open behind me. Any moment I could be back in that room. From somewhere to my left, I heard an engine roar, the chirp of tires as a sharp corner was turned at too fast of a speed. I ran up the steps of a closed tire store and hid behind a large UPS drop box. The car slowed, a white truck driving past without stopping, my ears telling me what my eyes could not—they had not seen me, or they didn’t care about a barefoot girl tucked in an filthy doorway.
I waited until the engine sound faded, then stood, stepping back onto the sidewalk and running as fast as I could, the beat of my feet not catching up with the pounding of my heart.
♦♦♦
The criminal underbelly came to life in a citywide search for Julia Campbell. Her photo was circulated, her plate number scribbled down on the back of receipts and stuffed into dirty pockets, mingling with stale cigarettes and loose change. The price on her head was high, especially for a non-felony action. Find a beautiful brunette and deliver her to De Luca. Piece of cake for the lucky man who stumbled upon her. The fact that she was a future Magiano had no effect. Money was money, and a hundred grand was a universal motivator.
The man came to on a dirty floor, his shoulders shaken roughly, a familiar face in his line of sight. “Wake the fuck up!” He blinked, the urgency in the man’s voice letting him know that something was wrong. But what? Something had happened. Something... fuck. He pushed the man off, reaching out—pushing off the floor, trying to stand, trying to stop the spin of the room—but failed. He fell to his knees, held his head, and tried to think.
“Where is she?” the man’s hoarse voice broke through his fog.
“I don’t know,” he gritted out. “Find her.”
The man above him straightened, moving quickly to the doorway and out of sight. The man blinked, his senses returning, the fog lifting. He rose slowly and walked forward, gained stability on his legs as he moved out of the room and into the hall. Pulling his cell from his pocket, he took the time to re-zip his pants, buckle his belt, his mind working through what this would mean, the consequences that would occur if she was not found. He glanced in doorways as he walked, unsure of where to go, upstairs or downstairs, every dark room a place where she could be hiding. Then the call was answered and he stopped, his mind and feet coming to a resolute silence. “We have a problem.”
He explained the situation, and then waited, making a decision and jogging up the stairwell steps.
The man on the other end spoke. “I’m sending a team. Stay in the building, make sure it is locked, and search every inch of it. Pull the security tapes and find out what happened. Get your head on straight and fucking tell me something other than that she’s gone. Call me when you know more.”
The call was ended, a dead silence meeting his ears. He stood in the hallway, perspiring despite the cool air. He shouldn’t have touched her. Should have sat in that room, gun in hand, and watched. He took a few slow steps, moving toward the electrical room, where the security tapes should grant some explanation of recent events. How long he was out, where she had gone. He should be more aware, but his feet felt heavy, sluggish, like lead was in his shoes. The girl could be anywhere. He could be killed next, his steps never making the complete path to the electrical room. He wondered distractedly if this was what the steps of the damned felt like. Because he was certainly the one the blame would come to rest on. And in this organization, as the case with others, blame always came with consequences.
Chapter 65
The inability to do anything was paralyzing, wrapping a fist around Brad’s heart and squeezing the life out of it. He had bribed, threatened, and begged every contact he knew, questioned Julia’s roommates, friends, and neighbors, searching for anything, any observation or piece of information that might bring her back to him. Late afternoon he had finally spoken to the chief, had gotten them to place a trace on the last signal her phone had sent out. The location had come back on the north side of town, in a residential area that had no connections to anything. They searched and found the phone crushed and tossed on the side of the road, no prints on it. Brad had lost it at the news, punching the closest wall repeatedly until his hand was a mess of blood. He should have overpowered her request, put the damn tracker on her SUV. He had bought the BMW for her; it wouldn’t have been that ridiculous to insist that it be traceable. But she had refused, her face strong, eyes fiery, a stubbornness to her posture that he found irresistible. So he had yielded, letting her have her way, a decision that might cost her life.