Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 65112 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 326(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65112 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 326(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
“I’m sitting.” She barely looks at him. Her eyes stay on me. “I started yelling at her the second she opened the door. I didn’t even get through the sentence. I saw someone move behind me, and then I woke up on the porch with Mr. Keller standing over me.”
A uniformed officer steps closer, notebook in hand.
“Mr. Keller lives across the street. He found her around six-thirty when he came outside for the morning paper. Called 9-1-1.”
Some old man with a newspaper subscription is the only reason Gia isn’t still lying on that porch. I look past the officer at Val’s front door. It stands open now, but I can see the scene clearly in my head. Gia on the porch. Val inside. Adrian waiting in the blind spot.
I don’t let myself think about how she got out of my house.
Not yet.
“Did you see him?” I ask Gia.
Her eyes fill with tears again, which seems to piss her off more than anything. “No. I’m sorry. I tried to remember, but I didn’t see his face. It happened too fast.”
“It was Adrian.”
She nods once, too quickly, and winces from the movement. “It had to be.”
My phone is already in my hand when I stand. Nico picks up before the first ring finishes.
“Did you find her?” he asks.
“No. Get to Val’s house now.”
“What happened?”
“Gia was attacked. Val is gone.”
There’s a sharp sound on the other end, like he knocked something over getting up. “I’m coming.”
He hangs up first. I turn toward my man at the curb.
“Pull the doorbell footage. Front, side, street if she has it stored. I want it on my phone in two minutes.”
“Yes, sir.” A police officer steps in front of me before I can move toward the house.
“This is an active scene,” he says. “We can’t have you contaminating evidence.”
I look down at him.
“Call your boss and tell him Sebastian DeLuca is asking questions. He’ll tell you exactly what I can and can’t do.”
His jaw tightens. “We’ll need a statement.”
“You’ll get one from her when I bring her home.”
I walk around him before he decides whether to be stupid about it.
Inside, Val’s house looks normal. A lamp glows in the living room. Her purse sits on the kitchen island. Her phone is on the floor near the entry, screen cracked. I pick it up with my handkerchief because the officer wasn’t completely wrong about evidence, even if he is currently useless to me.
One of my men comes through the door behind me. “Footage is uploading now.”
“Send it to Matteo too.”
“Already did.”
Good. At least one person is thinking.
I step back onto the porch as Nico’s SUV comes in too fast and stops half on the curb. He’s out before the car settles, eyes sweeping from the police cruiser to the ambulance to Gia.
He goes to Gia first.
“Nico,” she says, and the shift in her voice makes me notice something I don’t have time to think about.
He crouches in front of her, taking her hand carefully. “You okay?”
“I will be.”
He lets out one hard breath. “That’s good.”
“I lost her,” she whispers.
“No,” he says immediately. “You didn’t. This wasn’t your fault.”
Her face crumples again. He touches her cheek with two fingers, careful of the bruise, then stands and turns to me.
All the softness drains out of him. “Tell me.”
“Adrian took her.”
“Where?”
“I’m working on that.”
“That’s not a good enough answer.”
“I couldn’t agree more. But you know nothing is going to stop me from finding her.”
For once, he doesn’t try to argue.
My phone buzzes with the first footage file. I open it, and Nico steps close enough to watch over my shoulder. The doorbell camera shows Gia approaching the porch, half-dressed and annoyed, exactly the way she looks now. The door opens. Val appears inside.
Then motion comes from the left, just outside the main angle. Gia goes down. Val lunges forward. A hand catches her arm. The camera catches Adrian’s profile for less than a second as he drags her out under the porch light. Enough to identify him.
Nico makes a wrecked sound. I close the video before he has to watch Adrian haul her away.
He grabs my wrist. “Show me the rest.”
“No.”
“Sebastian.”
“No.” I meet his eyes. “You don’t need that in your head.”
He looks ready to hit me, and for a moment, I almost let him. Then Gia makes a pained noise from the ambulance, and his attention snaps back to her.
“She needs you here,” I say.
His eyes cut back to mine. “Don’t do that. You’re not going to talk me out of looking for my sister.”
“She has a concussion at minimum. She’s scared, and she shouldn’t be alone.”
“My sister is missing.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t ask me to sit here.”
“I’m not asking because I think you want to. I’m asking because Val would never forgive either of us if Gia was left alone after this.”