Lost in Silence (The Lost Series Book 1)(9)

“A bag?” he asks lifting an eyebrow.

“Yes, a small duffle,” I verify. “She doesn’t look like a woman who’s been kidnapped to me.”

“Have you seen a kidnapped woman before?”

“No, I haven’t,” I know he’s only covering his bases but I still find his questioning annoying. Cops are taught to be suspicious of everyone until the evidence proves otherwise. It was a necessary vice.

“How long ago did she leave?”

“I’d say twenty or thirty minutes after he left,” I answer calmly. I could sense that he is a no nonsense cop and he has his head about him. He knows Erik is lying and he is buying time trying to figure out how to play his cards. He needs more to go off of. “I heard the door to her room open and close, saw her walk down the stairs with her bag.”

“Did she stop at the office to check out?”

“Not that I saw, she was in a hurry though. She kept looking over her shoulder,” I wasn’t exactly lying. I had seen her leave in a hurry on a daily basis. I had seen her looking over her shoulder. I had seen her carrying her bag with her. Just not today.

“Have you spoken with her?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Mr. Rivers what bring you to our fine city?”

“I’m here on business.”

“Business?” he lifts an eyebrow. He doesn’t believe me. “What is it you do for a living Mr. Rivers?”

“Detective, am I under investigation here?” I ask reaching into my pocket to pull out a card. I hand it to him. He looks down at it, his eyes widen in surprise. He looks up at me and finally he turns toward the officers standing at his back.

“Have the manager bring the key up. We need to get into the room,” the officers walk away. Detective Edwards turns toward me.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“I get the sense that you are a good cop Detective, so I’ll give you a bone,” I move further from my door and pull Edwards away, lowering my voice as we walk. “Erik, her so called husband, is lying. He’s not looking for a kidnapped wife because she hasn’t been kidnapped. She’s running, from him. The woman is a fraction of the photo you showed me. My guess, abuse and a lot of it.”

“Did she leave Rivers?” he nods toward my room. He’s asking if I lied about seeing her leave. I wasn’t on his radar anymore, in fact he knows I’m one of the good guys. The card I handed to him said as much. My clearance through his boss’ boss. I made it a point to get local support on these types of cases.

He’s genuinely concerned but I can’t say anything. She hid in my closet instead of asking for help from law enforcement. She had to have seen the cruisers in the parking lot below. I can’t say anything more to him, not until I get to the bottom of all this myself. Edwards might be a good cop but I didn’t know him well enough to trust him.

“I don’t know exactly what you’ll find in her room but I do know she isn’t in there,” he nods.

An officer approaches with Roland in tow. The old man isn’t too happy to have the police crawling all over his parking lot. His dislike is obvious, cops are bad for business.

“Detective, the name on the registration is Jane Doe,” the uniform stops at the door and waits for Edwards’ instructions.

“Roland says she checked in alone, pays daily for her stay, never has visitors and keeps to herself.”

I move back towards my door and stopping just at the opening.

“Bring the husband up here,” Edwards barks. The uniform nods and heads back down. “Roland, were you the one who called earlier about a disturbance?”

The old man nods with a glint in his eyes.

“Was Mr. Scott the reason?”

Roland nods again, “He came into the office spouting off about how his woman locked him out of their room.”

“Did he ask you for a key?”

“He did,” his gaze flicks my direction weary of where the detective was headed with this line of questioning. “I was just about to unlock the door when Hudson stepped out of his room.”

“Do you usually open other people’s rooms for strangers?”

“Uh, well, no,” Roland sputtered his face turning red. “He wasn’t exactly kind about his request.”

“Did he threaten you?”

“Well, no.”

“His name isn’t on the registry,” Detective Edwards steps toward Roland. “The woman he is looking for, her name isn’t on the registry either.”

I felt sorry for Roland. Detective Edwards is about to hand him his ass.

“I-I’m not sure what you’re getting at-”