Gone (Deadly Secrets #2)(90)

Keys . . .

She whipped back to the desk, jerked the top drawer open, and grasped the key she’d found earlier. Pulse thundering, she rushed back to the shelf, slipped the key into the hole, and turned.

A click sounded in the silent room, but Raegan’s pulse pounding as loud as a marching band was all she could hear. The false backing popped open. She shoved it aside and stared at a stack of files in the hidden safe.

Her fingers shook as she yanked them out and scanned the file tabs. No names, just numbers. She flipped open the top file. “William” was printed at the top of the first page.

She set the folder on a shelf, reached for another. Multiple first names. No last names. “Jacob.” “Linda.” “Sally.” She stopped when she came across the name “David.” She shuffled through folders until she found the name “Mary.”

Billy Willig, David Ramirez, and Mary Coleman. The three missing children whose parents she and Alec had interviewed this past week.

Breathing faster, she flipped through files frantically until she located the one she’d been hoping for.

“Emma.”

Her lungs constricted. She tore open the folder and stared down at the background information typed neatly on the white sheet.

Her name. Alec’s. Their addresses. Names of each of their parents and siblings. Under Raegan’s father’s name, the words “Wealthy but not a threat. Estranged from daughter” were typed neatly as if it were part of her description.

Raegan’s heart thundered as she flipped page after page outlining Gilbert’s connection to Alec and Alec’s stint in rehab, what the McClanes each did for a living, and how their association with Alec might cause trouble. The last page was headed by the word “Relocation.”

She jerked the page out, dropped the file on top of the others, and frantically scanned the words. Emma’s name wasn’t listed anywhere on the page, but another name was.

“Emily Waldorf.”

There was also an address. An Oregon address in a wealthy area outside the city of Sherwood.

Sherwood . . . Conner Murray had been killed when his car had gone over an embankment on a windy road near Sherwood.

Voices echoed beyond the doors in the library, jolting Raegan’s attention from the page. The door on the far side of the room rattled.

“Mrs. Kasdan?”

Fear spread like ice through Raegan’s veins. Shoving the paper into her coat pocket, she looked around for an escape. There was no door. Only windows. All probably connected to a central alarm.

The doors shook harder, and the voices outside doubled and grew louder.

Raegan’s gaze shot back to the windows. She had only one way out, and she was taking it.



Alec pounded his fist on the door of Miriam Kasdan’s mansion for the third time, frustration curling like fire in his gut because they were being ignored.

“Raegan’s car’s not here, man,” Hunt said beside him, glancing over the immaculate lawn. “Maybe she stopped somewhere before her appointment. Or maybe she’s already been here and left.”

The already-been-here-and-left part was what worried Alec. “She’d answer her phone if that were the case.” Turning, he skipped over the steps and headed down the drive.

“Where are you going?”

“Around back. To see if someone left a door open.”

“That’s breaking and entering.”

“Only if someone catches me.”

Hunt muttered curses as he hustled to catch up. They followed a paved road around the side of the house. A long carpet of green lawn spread out from the house down the hillside. To the right, a raised verandah was framed by a concrete balustrade, and to the left, three cars were parked behind a large detached six-vehicle garage—a shiny silver Rolls-Royce convertible, a sleek black Jaguar, and a twenty-year-old blue van with a dented front end.

“Shit,” Alec muttered quietly, eyeing the van. “Didn’t you say cops found blue paint on Murray’s vehicle at the accident scene?”

“Yeah, I did.” The side door on the garage opened, and Hunt pressed a hand against Alec’s arm, shoving him back into the rhododendron bushes. “Someone’s coming.”

Two burly-looking men exited the garage. One held a cell phone to his ear. It was hard to hear over the distance, but Alec was sure the guy said, “Yeah. We’re on it. I’ll call when it’s done.”

They watched as the two men climbed into the van. The engine revved. Seconds later they swept past Alec and Hunt in the bushes and turned down the long, curved lane toward the road.

Alec glanced toward his friend. “When it’s done?”

Unease drifted over Hunt’s usually congenial features. He pulled the .45 he carried at the small of his back from its holster. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

Alec didn’t like it either. Worry curled through his chest as they moved around the back of the house and up onto the raised patio. Broken glass lay shattered across the decorative concrete.

Alec’s heart jumped into his throat, and he rushed to the broken window and peered inside what looked to be an office. The gap in the window was large enough for a person to climb through. Tucking his hand into the sleeve of his coat, he broke a large piece of glass aside to make the gap bigger, then climbed through the opening and stared at the dozens of file folders and paperbacks scattered across the floor.