Gone (Deadly Secrets #2)(31)

She pursed her lips and didn’t answer.

That tingle intensified. Glancing sideways at her, he said, “What did the note say, Raegan?”

She sucked her lips between her teeth and stared ahead at the freeway. Stress and worry radiated from her, putting Alec on instant alert. “Raegan? Tell me what the hell the note sa—”

“I’ll tell you if you don’t freak out, okay?”

That did not put Alec at any kind of ease. He was just about to explain that to her when a heavy sigh slipped from her lips.

She glanced his way. “It said, ‘You always thought she was alive. Stop what you’re doing or this time she’s dead.’”

For a moment, everything stopped. The cars on the freeway whizzing by disappeared. The radio went silent. Even his pulse seemed to halt as the words circled in his head. Then reality slammed into him, shooting his pulse straight through the roof and his adrenaline into overdrive.

He cut the truck across the lanes, onto the shoulder, and slammed on the brakes.

Raegan lurched forward, but the seat belt pulled her back. She braced a hand against the window at her side and gasped. “Oh my God. Alec. What are y—”

“Where is it? Where’s the note?”

“I told you. With the FBI.”

“You didn’t keep a copy of it? I know you kept a copy. Show me.”

“Maybe we should talk about this later when you’re not so—”

“Raegan, show me the damn note.”

Her lips snapped closed. She stared at him for several seconds. Then with a disapproving shake of her head, she leaned forward and reached for her purse, but the seat belt stopped her. Alec hit the button on her belt, freeing her so she could grab her purse from the floorboards. The sound of his pulse returned, morphing to a roar in his ears as she fumbled inside her bag.

Or this time she’s dead.

Or she’s dead . . .

Did that mean she could be alive?

Raegan pulled out a full piece of paper folded in half. “This is just a photocopy. I took the original straight to Jack Bickam. He said they’d run it for fingerprints.” Hesitantly, she held the paper out to him. “I wanted to show it to you first, but I thought the smartest thing to do would be to give it to the FBI. But, Alec”—her voice lifted with both excitement and hope as he unfolded the note—“this could be proof Emma is still alive.”

Alec stared at the photocopied handwriting. And in a rush, his blood cooled and the tiny thread of hope he’d let himself believe in dropped free like scissors slicing through yarn. “It’s not proof.”

“What do you mean? It could be. It says ‘or she’s dead.’ This could be someone trying to tell us Emma is still alive.”

“It’s not proof of anything.”

He shoved the paper toward her and shifted back into drive, glancing in the rearview mirror for a break in the traffic so he could pull back out onto the freeway. A renewed rage simmered beneath his control. A rage centered on one person.

“Why?” Raegan said softly beside him when they were a mile down the road. “Why can’t you believe, even now?”

Alec’s jaw clenched so hard, pain ricocheted across his cheekbones. He took the exit onto I-84 East. “Because I’d know that chicken scratch handwriting anywhere. It’s John Gilbert’s handwriting. He’s messing with you. And me.”

Goddamn son of a bitch. Gilbert was still in jail, but he had plenty of lowlife friends he could have pegged to follow Alec.

“Your father?” Raegan looked down at the photocopy in her lap with shock and disbelief. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.” Alec swerved around a school bus going entirely too slow. “And he’s not my father. He’s just the asshole who fucked the woman who abandoned me. He’s taunting you, Raegan. Taunting you because he knows we were together last night. Goddamn fucking prick.” His hand tightened around the steering wheel as he thought of all the ways he wanted to kick the fucker’s ass.

Raegan’s shoulders slumped, and knowing he’d just killed her faith—again—dimmed a little of the rage brewing inside.

“I’m sorry he did that.” He slowed the truck when he realized he was going eighty in a fifty-five. Moving carefully into the right lane, he glanced at her again, forcibly softening his voice. “He’s in jail on a probation violation right now, though, so you have nothing to worry about.”

Yet.

A new sense of worry rippled down Alec’s spine as he refocused on the road. His father was set to be released at the end of the week. John Gilbert had mentioned finding Raegan when Alec had gone to see him at the jail. At the time, Alec had considered it an empty threat, but if his goons had seen her with Alec and one had left her that note, it meant she might not be safe alone once Gilbert was free.

“Then I don’t understand how his handwritten note got on my car.”

“Gilbert’s a loser, and he has plenty of loser friends who visit him in that shithole. I’m sure he conned one of them into leaving that note on your windshield.”

“But how would he know I would be at that coffee shop on that night?”

“He wouldn’t.” Alec turned off the freeway and headed east on Glisan toward the Hazelwood neighborhood, keeping his eyes on the road so she couldn’t see just how much this news rattled him. “He knows I go there. Ever since he got out of prison three and a half years ago, he’s kept tabs on me. I guarantee that note was meant for me and that whoever delivered it saw us together and decided to give it to you instead.”