Right Through Me (The Obsidian Files #1)(76)



At this hour of the night, the road was his, which was a good thing at this speed. He had the reflexes of a race car driver, and the high speed mellowed him out a little.

Until he spotted his Porsche parked outside her building. In a f*cking tow zone, no less.

The front door of her shitty tenement building was still unlocked. Weirdos skulked in the foyer, but they scuttled into the shadows when they saw him. He must look like something straight out of the crypt right now.

He leaped up the six flights, four steps at a time. Most of the wall lamps in the corridor were burned out, and the remaining one flickered fitfully, choked by a drift of dead bugs.

Freddie was stretched in front of his door again, snoring. Noah loped past him, alarm bells buzzing in his mind. The shadows on her door were the wrong depth. The door was tilted at a different angle with respect to the other doors in the corridor.

There was no way that a young woman alone in a run-down tenement would leave her door hanging open at night. For any reason on earth.

Panic threatened to drop-kick him off the AVP deep end. Stay cool. Breathe. You need your whole brain functioning for this. Wrongness thrummed as he approached the door, like the throb of an infrasound weapon. He wished he’d brought a gun, but he’d been too busy wallowing in agony to think of it.

Her door squeaked against the warped floor as he opened it. No one there.

Without light to activate it, the visual magic of the room was gone, and he saw it as it truly was. Cramped and shabby, without Caro’s transforming influence.

The duffel was there, and a battered hard-case wheelie, pawed through, contents flung upon the floor. A hot plate, a toothbrush, a snarl of cotton underwear, bags of instant oatmeal. A spoon. The keys to his Porsche lay on the floor. A single sneaker. The one she had been wearing.

He grabbed his Porsche keys, staring at that grayish, shabby kick, once white, very worn. From what he’d seen, in this place that had no drawers or closets, it was the only pair of shoes she had, and it had no mate. So Caro had gone out on a cold, rainy night, leaving everything she owned, with her door hanging open. Wearing one shoe.

The carved wolf he’d given her lay on the floor in two pieces. The tail and one of the hind legs had snapped off. He picked the pieces up and shoved them into his pocket.

For the sake of certainty, he peeled up the floor mat, and checked where she’d stowed the envelope he had given her. Still there. The entire wad of cash, intact.

He pulled up the program on his phone to monitor her tile, hoping desperately that she still had her coat on. A map appeared. An icon moved north on the Interstate, going too fast to be a bus, and she hadn’t had time to catch one. She’d still be moving through Seattle toward the station, if a bus were her plan. Not heading north into wintry mountains with no bags. And only one shoe.

He exploded out the door, then on impulse, skidded to a halt next to Freddie. He nudged the guy, none too gently. “Freddie! Wake up!”

“Huh?” Startled, Freddie peered up. He shrank back, eyes wide with alarm when he saw Noah. “What? I didn’t do nothing, man!”

Noah grabbed the guy’s sweatshirt under his chin and hauled him a foot or so off the ground. He leaned into the man’s rank body odor. “Who took Caro, Freddie?”

Freddie’s eyes rolled frantically. “Caro? Who’s Caro?”

“The chick in six-oh-eight. You slime her every time she walks by. Someone came and took her away. Did you see them?”

Freddie blinked, disoriented. “What? Are you talking about, like, her dealers?”

“Dealers? What dealers?” He shook the guy the way a terrier shook a rat.

“Uh . . . some guys,” Freddie sounded bewildered. “I saw her leave with them.”

“Left how? What condition was she in? Was she injured?”

Freddie plucked at Noah’s knuckles. “Dude, that hurts! Let go! She, uh, looked stoned out of her f*ckin’ mind. They were dragging her. Musta been some really good shit. I asked if I could score a hit when they came by.” He rubbed his ribs. “Scumbag kicked me.”

“What did they look like?” Noah demanded.

“I don’t know!” Freddy whined. “Just a couple of guys. And one of ’em kicked me! Prolly cracked my ribs. I never saw either of them before.”

“White, black, Asian, Latino? Wearing what? Age? Weight? Anything!”

Freddie looked panicked. “One guy was bald,” he offered. “The shorter one. He had a goatee. The other one was big. And white. Yeah. Both of ’em were white.”

“What made you think they were her dealers? Their clothes?”

“Don’t remember their clothes,” Freddy said. “I thought that because of you.”

“Me?” Noah was bewildered. “What does that have to do with me?”

“Come on. Bitch needs to cop a buzz. She turns a trick, and calls her dealer. It’s so easy for bitches, especially ones like her. All they have to do is spread their legs.”

Noah smacked the guy before he could stop himself. Freddie burst out crying, cringing away from him.

He dropped Freddie on the floor, and ran.



*



Buried alive, under tons of earth. Head splitting. Can’t breathe. Mouth full of dirt. Her chest bucked and heaved. Couldn’t . . . get . . . any . . . air . . .

Shannon McKenna's Books