The Lady Has a Past (Burning Cove #5) - Amanda Quick Page 0,62
move. She turned around in time to see him aim his flashlight at what appeared to be the only new element of the cabin—the lock on the front door.
He took out his lockpick and went to work. A moment later she followed him into the cabin. There was only one room. The floorboards were bare and scarred. There was no paint left on the walls. The curtains on the single window hung in shreds. A broken wooden chair and a filthy mattress were the only items of furniture.
“It was probably built by a prospector,” Simon said. “No electricity. No running water. No bathroom.”
“Not the sort of place that would draw attention from passersby,” Lyra said.
Simon walked slowly through the space, examining every inch of it in the beam of his light. “Invisible from the nearest road. You’d have to know it was here to find it. All in all, a strategic location for a gang of kidnappers.”
He sounded cool and emotionless, as if he were a disinterested observer, but Lyra could feel the energy in the atmosphere. She knew he was using his other senses to explore the scene of the crime.
“Yes, but why aren’t they using it to hold the captives?” she said. “According to Draper this was just a pickup and drop-off point.”
“Obviously they didn’t want Draper to know where the women are held while they make the ransom arrangements. He wasn’t a real member of the gang.”
“Just the driver,” Lyra said. She watched Simon crouch beside the stained mattress. “Find something?”
“Raina was here, all right. The mattress has a lot of old energy infused in it, but the freshest layer feels like the same heat I picked up on the bed in room two twenty-one. I don’t think she was unconscious, at least not the whole time she was here.”
“If Raina awakened, she would have tried to escape or fight.”
Simon moved his hand on the mattress. “There’s something else going on. She’s struggling, but it’s not in panic. There’s anger and desperation, but she’s more coolheaded this time.”
“What does that tell us?”
“She had a goal. An objective.”
“Obviously she didn’t escape. What else would she have been desperate to do?”
Simon lifted the edge of the mattress and aimed his flashlight at the floorboards underneath. “Leave a message for whoever came looking for her.”
Lyra saw the object in the circle of light. She took a sharp breath.
“That’s Raina’s notebook,” she said. “She managed to hide it under the mattress.”
Simon picked up the notebook and got to his feet. “Let’s get out of here. We need to call Luther Pell and tell him what we learned tonight.”
“Right,” Lyra said. “He deserves to know we’ve made real progress. The poor man must be half out of his mind with worry.”
“Speaking of which, got any idea how I should handle him when I call him? I want to tell him that we’re making progress, but I don’t want him sending in the FBI or some of his mob pals. Got a feeling that would get Raina killed. Whoever is behind this can’t afford to leave her alive.”
Neither of them added the qualifier—if she was still alive. We both need to think positive, Lyra thought. She focused on the question.
“Pell needs to feel like he’s taking action,” she said. “He needs a job. Give him one.”
“Good idea. I think I know exactly how he can make himself useful.”
Lyra led the way out to the car and got into the passenger’s seat. Simon climbed behind the wheel. He handed her the notebook and then turned the key in the ignition. He drove cautiously down the old rutted road, headlights switched off.
Lyra waited until they reached the narrow strip of pavement that would take them back to Labyrinth Springs. When Simon turned on the headlights she switched on her flashlight and flipped open the notebook.
Her first reaction was acute despair. “We’ve got a problem. I forgot that she keeps her notes in her secretarial code. If she did leave a clue we’ll have to find a professional who can transcribe it for us.”
“She might not have had time to write down any useful information,” Simon said. He changed gears and drove faster. “She may have simply left that notebook behind because she hoped that it would eventually be found and recognized.”
Lyra flipped through the pages, frantically trying to make sense of the cryptic circles and swirls. When she got to the last entry she gave a small yelp.