nothing.
The outside of the shack was abuzz. Men were talking, heading for the door. I dove for the piece of paper that moments earlier had slipped from Eddie’s hand. Men ran through the doorway. Guns were aimed in my direction. After all, who was I and what was I doing here? Before the paper was ripped from my hands, I opened it, desperate to see what it said. But what I saw was my worst fear. The page was blank.
CHAPTER 40
I sat at the station waiting for Cade. It was morning, and it had been a long night. After the chief explained who I was and how I ended up there, I’d received an escort, in the back seat of a police SUV of all places. It was my first taste of what it felt like to be a common criminal, and hopefully my last. I was taken to an interrogation room and detained for several hours for questioning. The feds hadn’t found my presence amusing, not even a little bit, and they still didn’t know the half of it. In the end, I’d saved Cade’s life, but they didn’t care. They never did.
I was ordered to stay away from the case “or else.” If they only knew how involved in it I really was, I wondered what they would have said then. I was told I couldn’t leave town, not yet. They seemed to think they might not be done with me. But I was done with them.
Eddie Fletcher wasn’t dead. He was in critical but stable condition. When I fired my gun, I’d tried to wound him enough to give Cade the upper hand, but to keep him alive just in case the paper turned out to be exactly what it was: useless. The fact he was still alive gave us all something to hope for—not that it stopped me from running the moment I shot him over and over in my mind. If only my bullet could have wounded him instead of almost killing him. If only he could have told us where to find the children. If only the paper hadn’t been blank.
If only.
I was released, pending possible contact if they needed anything else. Cade and I stopped by the hospital to see his father who was again referring to him as “Joey.” I left the room almost as soon as we entered. Father and son needed time together. I wasn’t sure how much more they’d have left.
Eddie’s room was under twenty-four-hour surveillance, and with the feds involved, I wouldn’t be able to get to him. Not that I hadn’t considered trying. I went to the lobby, and waited until the nurse forced Cade from the room. “Detective McCoy needs his rest,” she’d said. He’d persisted, saying his dad didn’t want him to go. But no amount of pleading was enough to appease her. It was a speech she’d probably heard a hundred times before, one she was immune to.
Cade glanced around the waiting room, trying to spot me in a sea of unhappy people. His eyes looked different from the first time we’d met. They no longer had the same spark. They were a pale grey now, not the lustrous blue I’d remembered.
“Do you think he’ll talk?” Cade said.
“Eddie?”
Cade nodded. I shook my head.
“He doesn’t have a reason to. Even if they try and make him a deal, it won’t be the kind he’ll take. At this point, I don’t think he cares. He’s critical. He’d rather die than face more prison time. He doesn’t give a damn about the children. I could probably walk in his room and choke what little life he has left out of him—he still won’t tell me where they are.”
It was a sad reality, and I didn’t want to face it. I wanted to believe I could still find Olivia and Savannah. We knew who he was, and the feds were tearing apart every inch of his life for even the smallest clue, but would it lead them to the girls? I wasn’t optimistic.
Cade pulled off the road next to where my car was parked, and I got out. Both of us were too deflated to say much of anything. I promised to call once I’d returned to the hotel. He nodded and drove away. I was just about to open the door to my car when something moved inside. Great, I thought. Even with the windows up, at least one animal had managed to find a way inside