9. LANDON
It had been all too easy to keep track of Danielle while she was in the hospital.
Before the police even realized what had happened, I had already stashed Liam’s car somewhere discreet, secured a fake ID, and checked into a hotel room overlooking the hospital.
All their energy went into searching for the car and assuming I was hundreds of miles away, never suspecting that I’d been hiding in plain sight for weeks.
Each day, I watched Alex enter and leave the building. There was no chance Danielle could slip away without me knowing. After that, my plan was simple: wait for the moment she was alone. At some point, Alex had to head to work. I knew where he lived. The pieces were clicking into place.
This morning, I woke up later than usual, grabbed some coffee and breakfast, and settled in by the window to keep watch.
Hours passed, and Alex was nowhere to be seen.
Normally, he brought Danielle dinner every night after work and left every morning at seven sharp.
For weeks, their routine hadn’t changed.
Now, something felt off. Alex wouldn’t go a day without visiting her, and there was no way Danielle could have left without me noticing.
Even when I was sleeping, Thomas kept watch, just in case they tried to sneak her out in the middle of the night.
I picked up the phone and dialed Thomas.
"Yeah?"
"Thomas, did you see anything last night?"
"No, sir. Neither of them left the hospital at all. The last thing I saw was Alex and another guy taking her dinner in. Then Alex left. Why, what’s going on?"
Shit.
“So, you didn’t think for one second that two guys in, one guy out, meant something?”
“Well, boss. Now that you say that, I guess that is a little weird.”
“Thomas, make yourself useful, okay?” Honestly, this guy was a fucking idiot. “I need you to call the police department and ask for Detective Traser. Figure out if he is there or not, and then just hang up and call me back.”
“Sure thing, boss. But what’s going on?”
“Just fucking do it, okay?” I hung up the phone.
How the fuck did she get past two of us watching the hospital?
One of us would have seen Alex, or Danielle, or one of their cars, a squad car, an unmarked car, something.
While I was sitting there dumbfounded, racking my brain for an answer, the phone rang.
“Well?”
“He was there, sir. I hung up as soon as they transferred the call, and he answered. What is going on?”
“God DAMNIT! Bet you she’s fucking gone, and I missed my chance all because you can’t fucking think.” I hung up the phone and ran downstairs to the lobby.
How the hell did they manage to get her out? It had to be out the fucking back or something. Before I exited the stairwell, I hid my phone and walked up to the woman at the front desk.
“Good morning, sir. Can I help you?”
“Yes, please. I need a favor. My phone isn’t working, and I was wondering if you could call the hospital across the street for me and see if my friend is still there. I wanted to go visit her this morning.”
“Sure thing, sir. What’s her name?”
“Danielle. Danielle Traser. Tell them you’re her sister.
” I smiled at her, and she smiled back, now with a hint of discomfort like she just figured out she probably shouldn’t be doing this, but I knew how to turn on the charm quite well when I needed to.
She didn’t question at all why I wouldn’t just go walk across the street and ask; she just picked up the phone and dialed the hospital.
“Yes, good morning,” she started, “I was wondering if you could tell me what room Danielle Traser is in, please? I’m her sister. I tried calling her, but she didn’t answer, and I don’t want to visit if she’s already left.”
There was a long pause.
“Okay, thank you, ma’am. Have a good day.” She hung up the phone and gave me a disappointing smile. “I’m sorry, sir. It looks like your friend was discharged early this morning.”
FUCK.
I had to keep my composure. I forced a smile, said thank you, and went back up to my room. I called Thomas back right away.
“Boss?”
“She fucking left early this morning. I don’t know how the fuck they got past us. I’m doing a drive-by at Alex’s house. Stay where you are until you hear from me.”
I checked out of the hotel and sped over to our old apartment while I tried to calculate what I had missed.
Her car was still parked outside, and mine was right where I’d left it.
I drove past the police station—Alex’s car was there.
If Danielle had left, there was no way she’d done it on her own, and she definitely hadn’t left with Alex.
The real question was, who had been with Alex?
Thomas mentioned he saw Alex and another man bring her dinner, and then only Alex left.
With Alex at work, it was too easy for me to check out his house.
Not long after leaving the police station, I pulled up in front of Alex’s place.
There wasn’t a single car in the driveway.
If Danielle was inside, chances were good she’d be alone.
I parked by the curb, glanced around to make sure no one was watching, rounded the corner of the house, slipped past the gate, and headed toward the back door.
Despite Alex being a detective, it was almost laughable how fast I took my knife out and popped open the lock. The deadbolt hadn’t even been turned.
Inside, the house was silent. Still, I moved slow, with intention, from room to room, checking each bedroom just to be sure.
There was nothing out of place in the guest room, no trace of anyone having been there.
Next, I tried the room I assumed belonged to Alex’s roommate.
At first glance, everything looked normal, as if nothing had changed for months.
But Thomas remembered two people going into the hospital that night, and only Alex coming out.
Driven by suspicion, I began to rummage through the dresser.
The top drawer was empty. So were the next two.
The pieces of the puzzle were starting to connect in my mind, the picture shifting as I tried to figure out where Danielle had gone.
Would Alex really trust his roommate with her, or was there something else I was missing?
Why would all this guy’s clothes be gone, but nothing else?
I decided to check Alex’s room just in case, but there was no sign of Danielle, and all his clothes were still there.
Wherever Danielle was, it was obvious Alex wasn’t the one watching her.
It had to be the roommate. Nothing else made sense.
There was just one problem. I didn’t have the slightest idea what this guy looked like.
I didn’t know his name, where he came from, where he worked, nothing. I’d never met him.
Realizing I wouldn’t find anything here—and knowing I was pushing my luck just by being in Alex’s house—I finally gave up and slipped back out.
I drove around for another hour, racking my brain as I tried to figure out my next move.
Alex wasn’t stupid. If he helped Danielle disappear, he wouldn’t leave a single clue.
I was running out of options. At this point, I either had to wait for her to make a mistake or find another way to get the information I needed without Alex catching on, which would be nearly impossible.
My chances were better with Danielle; she was nowhere near as sharp as Alex.
Eventually, I pulled back into the parking lot of the hotel where Thomas and I were staying and went up to the room.
When I walked in, Thomas was sitting there as useless as ever, lying on the bed and watching some bullshit TV show.
I would have thought after letting Danielle slip through his fucking butterfingers, he’d be doing something to try and fix it.
No, instead, he sat there waiting for me to tell him what to do.
It was getting fucking tiring having to think for him. It had been the same old shit since middle school. He may have been book smart, but God, he was fucking stupid.
“You have work to do,” I told him, pulling out a laptop. “I want a tracker on her accounts. If she’s dumb enough to use her card for anything, I want to know the second she does.”
Thomas sat up, opened the laptop, and started working.
It only took him a few minutes to get everything set up so we could monitor her transactions.
He was always a genius with computers. When we were younger, I would try to get him to show me how to do this shit on my own, but I think he realized he was more valuable if I couldn’t do any of it myself.
Maybe that made him smarter than I gave him credit for.
By the time dinner rolled around, I was pissed off and exhausted.
There wasn’t a single clue as to where Danielle had disappeared to, and there had been no activity on her card.
The thought that Alex and Danielle might have outsmarted me disgusted me, fueling both my anger and my need to hunt her down.
Still, there was no point in trying anything else tonight.
Wherever she was, I knew Alex would make sure she stayed put until he found me.
As long as I stayed careful, I had all the time I needed to track her down.
After dinner and a bit of idle talk with Thomas, I crashed.
As soon as the first light peered through the window, I was ready to get moving.
Part of me wanted to hit the road immediately and start searching for Danielle, but I was going to have to play it smart if I didn’t want to get caught.
Fortunately, I had enough cash to last at least a month without using any credit cards.
If I needed more, I could pick up some side jobs along the way.
Growing a beard would help hide my face, and changing cars was something I could do quicker than changing clothes.
If Alex wanted to find me, I was going to make it really fucking difficult for him.
First, I had to dump Liam’s car if I was going to leave the hotel. I had been driving Thomas’s car around, but getting rid of Liam’s car should throw him off a good bit. Not to mention, send the message that I’d been here the whole time, and he was too stupid to figure it out.
Thomas walked in with a plate of breakfast from the lobby just as I was grabbing my keys and heading for the door.
“Where you going, boss?” he asked.
“I need to ditch Liam’s car. Take it to some lot and ditch it, get a new one, and meet me at the corner of 85 and 355 in an hour. I’m taking yours.”
I grabbed my things and walked out, not looking back.