Come and Find Me A Novel of Suspense - By Hallie Ephron Page 0,32

noticed the green cardboard pine tree silhouette swinging from the rearview mirror. Car freshener.

Gruder got in the driver’s side. The car beeped when he inserted the key. He slid her a sideways look. “Seat belt.”

She’d forgotten about seat belts. Daniel had always loved that New Hampshire held out, the last state with no seat-belt law—“live free or die” was their motto. She buckled up.

The car started to pull away from the curb. “So, have you always been like this?”

Diana couldn’t hold back a bleat of hysterical laughter. “Like what? Afraid of my own shadow?”

Gruber shrugged. “My sister-in-law gets panic attacks. That’s what it is, isn’t it?”

Diana nodded. “And no, I haven’t always been like this.”

Diana had grown up pushing past boundaries, not cowering behind them. She’d crossed streets before her mother gave her permission. Ridden her bike to places much farther away than her mother would ever have allowed her to go. She’d been eager to learn to drive, and even before she got her license she’d snuck the car and driven to Cape Cod to hear Sandra Day O’Connor speak at Barnstable High School’s graduation.

She’d been so together, or so she’d thought, and determined to become a political activist. Then her mother got sick and she’d come apart. Daniel had glued her back.

As the cruiser rode through the center of town, Diana tried to anchor her attention on what she saw, streets both familiar and not. The movie theater was shuttered. The corner coffee shop had a new name. The storefront that years earlier had been a children’s bookstore was still empty. They continued along residential streets, past a blur of houses and small apartment buildings.

Gruder turned, following a sign to the town’s boat basin at the mouth of the Neponset River. At the end of the road was the entrance to Wharf View, the massive two-tower complex where Ashley lived. Gruder turned in.

“What kind of car does your sister drive?” Gruder asked.

She told him.

“That should be easy to spot. You look right, I’ll look left.”

He started driving slowly through the outdoor parking, up one aisle and down the next. Most of the spaces were empty. It was easy to see that Ashley’s car wasn’t there.

“Her neighbor said there’s underground parking too,” Diana told him.

Gruder found the entrance and drove down the access ramp, taking them from sunlight into shadow. Diana tried not to flinch as beams passed overhead so close it looked as if they’d whack the cruiser’s roof. She pasted her attention on the occasional parked vehicle that seemed to slide past.

No gold Mini Coopers.

They emerged aboveground. Diana realized she’d been holding her breath. She let herself exhale as Gruder pulled the cruiser into the otherwise empty visitors’ parking opposite the front entrance to the complex. They both got out.

A fierce wind sliced off the river. Diana shivered and pushed through it, carrying Ashley’s laptop up the brick path toward the building entrance. Video cameras were mounted over the glass double doors. She counted up eight stories to the floor where Ashley lived. A figure stood looking out of one of the windows.

Diana broke into a trot, and Gruder caught up with her and strode past, holding open one of the doors. She stepped through, into the familiar lobby. Philodendron cascaded down a backlit wall of glass brick. A blast of warm air greeted her and she felt immediately calmer.

She started toward the elevators and paused at a bank of mailboxes. They were brass, each with a little window in it. She found 88N and peered into the dark interior. Gruder unhooked a flashlight from his belt and shined the light through the slits in the metal door, confirming Diana’s first impression. Empty. Most of the mailboxes surrounding Ashley’s looked like they had mail. Ashley had to have come back and picked up her mail, Diana assured herself.

“Elevator’s here,” Gruder called to her. He was holding the elevator door open for her.

Diana took a quick look through the mail scattered across a long, narrow hall table beneath the mailboxes. Nothing there was for Ashley Highsmith.

Feeling relieved, she started toward the elevator. But when she got there, she hesitated. The compartment was so small.

“You want to take the stairs?” Gruder asked. “We can do that. It’s seven flights up.”

Would climbing the stairs be any easier? Diana pushed herself forward and stepped into the elevator. Gruder followed. She took a step nearer to him as the doors slid shut with a sigh. If he minded her hanging on to