Fair Warning (Jack McEvoy #3)(80)

I watched her go and then disappear down the stairs. I walked down to the exit door, wondering if an alarm would sound. I hesitated for a moment, then pushed the bar and the door swung open. No alarm sounded.

Stepping out onto an exterior landing, I saw that the stairway led down to the building’s small rear parking lot. There was a mop in a bucket on the landing and a can half full of cigarette butts. Someone in the building smoked but not in their unit. I stepped farther out to look over the railing to see what was on the bottom landing. There were some empty plant pots and garden tools.

The door closed behind me. I whipped around. On the outside of the door there was a steel handle. I grabbed it and tried to turn it. I was locked out.

“Shit.”

I knocked on the door but knew it was too soon to expect Rachel to be back at unit 8. I went down the stairs to the parking lot and looked around for Emily’s car. It was a silver Jaguar SUV but I didn’t see one. I then followed the access drive to the front. As I walked down the drive I looked up at the second-floor windows of the building to see if there were any lights on in the windows of the apartment I judged was Emily’s. They were all dark.

When I got to the front of the building there was no sign of Rachel. I pulled my phone and called her but was distracted by motion in the street. I saw a car moving behind the parked cars lining Piedmont. I got only a quick glimpse of it as it passed an opening for the next driveway down.

“Jack? Where are you?”

Rachel had answered.

“I’m out front and I just saw a car drive away. It was silent.”

“A Tesla?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Okay, I’m not waiting for this guy.”

“What guy?”

“The landlord.”

I heard a loud bang and a splintering of wood followed by a muffled bang. I knew she had just kicked in the door of unit 8. I moved to the front door of the building but could see it was closed.

“Rachel? Rachel, I can’t get in. I’m going around—”

“I can buzz you in,” she said. “Go to the front door.”

I ran up the steps to the front door. The lock was buzzing when I got there and I was in.

I went up the interior stairs to the second floor and then down to apartment 8. Rachel was standing in the apartment’s entranceway.

“Is she … ?”

“She’s not here.”

I noticed that a piece of the door’s wood trim was lying on the floor of the threshold. But as I fully entered the apartment, that was the only sign of disarray. I had never been there before but I saw a place that was neat and orderly. There was no sign of any sort of struggle having occurred in the living areas. A short hallway to the right led to the open door of a bathroom and a second door to the left that I assumed was the bedroom.

I walked that way, feeling odd about invading Emily’s privacy.

“It’s empty,” Rachel said.

I checked anyway, standing on the threshold of the bedroom and leaning in. I hit a switch on the interior wall and two lamps on either side of a queen bed went on. Like the rest of the apartment, the room was neat; the bed was made and the coverlet was smoothed and had not even been sat on.

I next checked the bathroom and slapped back a plastic shower curtain to reveal an empty bathtub.

“Jack, I told you, she’s not here,” Rachel said. “Come out here and tell me about the car.”

I stepped back into the living room.

“It drove up Piedmont,” I said. “If I hadn’t seen it, I would’ve missed it. It was a dark color and silent.”

“Was it the Tesla you saw at the coroner’s?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I didn’t get a good look.”

“Okay, think now. Could you tell if it had just pulled away from the curb or was passing by?”

I took a moment and ran it through my mind again. The car was already moving down the street when it had drawn my attention.

“I couldn’t tell,” I said. “I didn’t see it until it was already moving down the street.”

“Okay, I’ve never been in a Tesla,” Rachel said. “Do they have a trunk?”

“I think the newer ones do.”

I realized she was asking whether Emily could be in the trunk of the car I saw driving away.

“Shit—we need to go after it,” I said.

“It’s long gone, Jack,” Rachel said. “We need to—”

“What the fuck is this?”

We both turned to the front door of the apartment.

Emily stood there.

She was in the clothes I had seen her wearing at the office earlier. She carried her backpack with the FairWarning logo on it.

“You’re okay,” I blurted out.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” she said. “You broke down my door?”

“We thought the Shrike had … had been here,” I said.

“What?” Emily said.

“Why haven’t you answered your phone?” Rachel asked.

“Because it’s dead,” Emily said. “I was on it all day.”

“Where were you?” I asked. “I called the office.”

“The Greyhound,” she said.