First Girl Gone(66)

Hopping down to the snow, Charlie dusted her hands.

“Shockingly, I think dear Wayne was being truthful with us. Robbie’s room looks abandoned.”

“Well, crap,” Zoe said.

As they trudged back to Zoe’s cruiser, the radio on her belt blipped out a mishmash of cop jargon that Charlie didn’t understand.

Zoe picked up the handset.

“Ten-four, on my way,” she said, then turned to Charlie. “I gotta head back to the station. I’ll drop you at your place?”

Charlie nodded and kicked at a loose stone. It went skittering over the blacktop.

Zoe must have sensed the frustration she was feeling, because she reached out and clapped Charlie on the back.

“Robbie may not be here, but we’ll find him. He’s gotta be panicking at this point. He wrecked his car. His boss got busted. He’ll screw up somewhere, and we’ll get him.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Charlie said, but the words sounded hollow in her ears.





Chapter Fifty-Two





Charlie schlepped up to her apartment, trying to shake off the funk that had settled over her. Zoe had continued trying to cheer her up on the ride, reminding her that there was an APB out on Robbie Turner. But Charlie couldn’t stop thinking about how she’d almost had him—he’d been literally within arm’s reach the night she’d chased him through the woods. So damn close.

She unlocked the door to the apartment and dropped her bag inside. There was a note from Will on the bed.

C-



Call me when you want to stir up more trouble.



-W





It brought a brief smile to her face before she went back to brooding about losing Robbie Turner. She dropped onto the edge of the bed and hunched forward, propping her elbows on her knees.

He got kicked out of his apartment. Where would a twenty-two-year-old in trouble go?

Charlie’s head snapped up, and she hustled into the kitchenette, where her laptop sat open on the counter. She typed in “Robert Turner Salem Island” and hit the enter key. The second result was a local address for Robert and Felicia Turner. Young Robbie’s parents lived on the island.



Robbie’s parents lived in a single-story ranch house bordered by a row of skeletal lilac bushes. A pontoon boat covered with a tarp squatted next to the garage. Charlie peeked into the garage as she passed. It was empty, but that didn’t necessarily mean no one was home.

The driveway and sidewalk had been freshly shoveled, and crystals of rock salt crackled under her feet as she approached the front door. She knocked against a steel screen door, the metal cold against her knuckles.

Through a small pane of decorative glass on the door, she spied an L-shaped beige sectional taking up most of the floor space. Flat-screen TV mounted on the wall. A china cabinet in the corner filled with some kind of small figurine collection. Angels or fairies, she thought.

Charlie listened while she waited, hoping to hear a muffled voice or the faint sound of a TV in another room. She heard nothing and sensed no movement.

She knocked again to be sure, but after a full minute, she was forced to concede that no one was home.

Treading back to her car, she considered whether she should sit on the house for a while, figuring that either Robbie or his parents would have to turn up at some point. The prospect of watching an empty house for hours on end didn’t exactly sound appealing, but she couldn’t think of what else to do.

She opened her car door and climbed in, glancing back at the house in hopes of seeing some sign that someone was inside: the flutter of a curtain, a light turning on. But there was nothing. Charlie sighed.

The moment she pulled her door shut, she sensed movement. A flash of something metallic near her right eye.

Cold steel pressed against her neck, just above her larynx. Holding absolutely still, Charlie’s gaze snapped to the rearview mirror, where a pair of wild brown eyes stared back at her. Above them, a scraggle of dark hair.

Robbie Turner crouched in her backseat, holding a knife to her throat.





Chapter Fifty-Three





Robbie jerked forward, his torso pressing into the back of her seat, something twitchy and animal in his movements.

Charlie gaped. Frozen. Breath heaving into her open mouth.

Her eyes whirled in her skull, trying to watch both him and the knife against her throat, somehow not able to look directly at either.

“Don’t move,” he said, his voice low and menacing.

Charlie swallowed, wincing when the blade dug a little harder into the skin. She had to think. Had to be smart.

It was a struggle to speak, to keep her voice from trembling with the knife brushing her carotid artery.

“OK, Robbie. You’re in control here. Tell me what you want.”

“What I want?” His eyes stretched wide in the rearview mirror. “I want you to stop snooping around after me. I want you to leave me the fuck alone.”

Charlie tried to nod, but the edge of the knife stopped her.

“Alright. But I don’t know if that’s going to help you all that much anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“The cops busted the Red Velvet Lounge last night.”

His face went hard, eyes flashing.