Gone (Deadly Secrets #2)(32)
At least that was what he hoped, because the alternative—that they really were targeting Raegan—left a pit in the bottom of his stomach.
Raegan was silent while he made a turn, staring down at the note in her hands.
Alec tried to settle his frayed nerves as he followed the GPS directions until he pulled to a stop in front of a one-level dump on a dilapidated street. The lawns on the street were all brown, covered with junk, trash cans, and even car parts. The gray house to Alec’s right was the worst of the bunch, with chipped and peeling paint, missing shutters, and one window covered with duct tape to close up a hole in the glass.
“God, this place looks happy,” Alec said as he shifted into park and killed the ignition.
Raegan looked up at him with sad eyes. “Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe this note wasn’t written by John Gilbert. Maybe—”
“I’m not wrong.” He knew where she was going. Hated that he was dousing her hope all over again. But he couldn’t let her wish for something that was never going to happen. Not when he knew his fucking father was back to his old ways, tormenting him—them—in any way possible. “This isn’t the evidence you’ve been looking for. You have to let it go and forget about it.”
Her gaze dropped back down to the paper, and even though he couldn’t see her eyes, he read the heartbreak in her expression. More than anything he wanted to take her into his arms and comfort her, but he couldn’t. Couldn’t, because it was his fault she was suffering right now. His past had caught up with him and was ruining not only his life but hers once more as well.
Guilt swamped him. A familiar guilt that threatened to drag him under. Before it could, he pushed his door open and climbed out of the truck. “Come on. Let’s get this over with so we can get the heck out of here. This place reminds me way too much of a childhood I’d rather forget.”
She nodded. Folded the paper and slipped it back into her purse. But when he rounded the hood and watched her climb out, that guilt sank in deeper.
Because something had died in her eyes. A light he hadn’t even realized was there until right this moment. A light that had dimmed because of his father. His good-for-nothing, selfish prick of a father.
As they headed up the front walk toward the dilapidated house, he swore to himself then and there that if John Gilbert so much as touched her, he’d kill the fucker once and for all.
Raegan couldn’t stop thinking about John Gilbert as she stood on the broken front stoop of the worn-down house and waited while Alec knocked.
She’d never met Alec’s biological father. When they’d first started dating and gotten married, John Gilbert had still been in prison for providing drugs to a minor and using Alec as a mule to move his supply. Raegan knew Alec’s testimony as a teen had sent Gilbert to prison, and she knew from talking to both Alec and Michael McClane that Gilbert blamed Alec for his incarceration. But after Emma had disappeared, she’d never been convinced John Gilbert was involved. Alec believed without a doubt that his father had taken her to get back at him, but there’d never been any proof. And this note in her purse that Alec claimed was from Gilbert now didn’t prove his involvement either.
She needed to believe Emma was still alive. Couldn’t let herself think of the alternative. Because if she did . . .
Something hard and sharp stabbed straight into her chest, and she swallowed the silent scream that pushed at her throat as she blinked back the sting of tears threatening behind her eyes. Believing anything else would lead her straight into the darkness, and she couldn’t go there and stay sane.
Emma was still alive. Somewhere. Waiting for her. If this note was nothing more than John Gilbert trying to harass his son, it didn’t change that belief for her.
The door pulled open, and a thin woman dressed in a tank top and leggings with dark hair pulled back in a tail eyed them speculatively. “Yes?”
Raegan pushed aside her emotions, shifting into reporter mode as she held up her station ID. “Mrs. Willig? I’m Raegan Devereaux from KTVP. We spoke earlier on the phone?”
Barbara Willig looked like she was in her midthirties, but Raegan suspected she was quite a bit younger, aged by stress and circumstances. She narrowed dark-brown eyes on Raegan. “You don’ look like that blonde newsgirl on the TV.”
“I’m not. That’s Allie Ziegler. But I do fill in for her at the anchor table from time to time. This is my colleague, Alec McClane. Can we come in for a few minutes and talk with you about your son?”
Barbara Willig’s brow wrinkled, and for a moment, Raegan feared the woman might change her mind. Then Alec flashed that thousand-watt smile at Raegan’s side and shivered in what Raegan knew was a very calculated way.
“Dang, it’s getting cold out here.” He glanced at Raegan then back at Barbara Willig. “I think Chloe Hampton was wrong with last night’s weather forecast. Feels like it’s about to snow again to me. What do you think, Mrs. Willig?”
The woman’s gaze shifted to Alec, and her expression relaxed. “It just might. And the name’s Ms. Willig. Not missus. Not after I kicked that louse out once and for all. But you can both call me Barbie.” She pulled the door open wider. “Come on in.”
She turned, leaving the door open, and sauntered down the long hallway toward the back of the house with a sway in her step Raegan bet ten bucks hadn’t been there a few minutes before.