Chapter Five #2
“It’s Nicki. I’ve been trying to reach her, but she won’t answer my texts or calls.”
Stephen’s twenty-five-year-old daughter lived in Scarlet Falls. “How long have you been trying?”
“Two days. Have you seen her or texted with her?”
“She was at family dinner Thursday night.” Olivia’s parents hosted dinner every week for anyone in the family who could make it.
“I haven’t texted with her since then.” Her niece was seemingly allergic to making phone calls.
“I’ll run by her place now and call you back.
” She didn’t bother trying to soothe her brother.
Their sister’s son had overdosed years before.
Stephen would worry no matter what Olivia said. The whole family was extra sensitive.
She headed for her niece’s place. Nicki didn’t own a car.
She lived near the university, within walking distance of shopping and restaurants.
Housing was plentiful but parking was a problem.
Olivia circled two blocks before finding a spot.
She parallel parked and then walked to her niece’s front door—an old three-story house that had been divided into six apartments.
She approached the front door behind a lanky young man with a backpack slung over one shoulder.
He entered the code, pulled open the door, and held it for Olivia.
“Thank you.” She stepped inside the vestibule before adding, “But you shouldn’t let strangers into the building.”
He grinned down at her from his significant height advantage. “You don’t look very dangerous.” He loped up the steps, leaving her in the foyer.
Olivia sighed. Being short could be so annoying, though she acknowledged that her nonthreatening physique occasionally worked in her favor.
She took the steps to the third floor. She knocked on Nicki’s door.
When her niece didn’t answer for a solid minute, anxiety began to coil in Olivia’s belly.
She banged a full fist on the door. When Nicki still didn’t respond, Olivia opened her purse to find the key her niece had given her when she’d moved into the place the previous year.
The sound of footsteps approaching unraveled the knot, and apprehension shifted into irritation.
The door opened. Her niece stared at her, blinking at the daylight pouring through a nearby window. “What?”
“What have you been doing?” Stress sharpened Olivia’s voice, and she quickly toned it down. “Your dad has been trying to reach you.”
“Sleeping.” Nicki pivoted on one sheepskin bootie and walked to the breakfast bar. She snapped her phone off its magnetic charging base. “Oh.”
“Oh?”
Without looking up, Nicki typed with both thumbs. “There. I answered him. It’s cool.”
Olivia closed her eyes for a single deep breath.
Opening them, she focused on her niece. Unlike Olivia, Nicki was Cuban and Irish, but there was no sign of her mother’s heritage in her features.
She and Olivia had the same deep-brown eyes and hair, the same complexion.
Nicki was Olivia’s mini-me. Today, she wore flannel pajama bottoms and an oversize sweatshirt.
Her dark hair was scooped into a messy bun on top of her head.
A pillow crease divided her left cheek. Olivia had obviously woken her. “Your dad was worried.”
“Is that why you’re here?” Nicki rolled her eyes. “He’s always worried.”
Olivia said nothing. She let the guilt marinate. Nicki would try to rationalize her behavior, but she was maturing, moving from young adult to adult. Part of that transition was learning to see situations from other people’s perspective.
Nicki huffed, but it was obviously a cover. She knew she’d caused her dad unnecessary stress. “I played in a video game tournament last night and forgot to check my phone. Unlike you and my dad, I’m not married to my devices.”
Olivia ignored the quip and stayed on message. “He said he’s been trying to reach you for two days.”
“Huh. What day is it?” Nicki rubbed an eye with a knuckle.
“Sunday.”
“Feels like a Monday.”
“It’s not.” But Olivia agreed. It did, indeed, feel as crappy as a Monday.
Nicki worked from home as a social media marketer.
Since she’d quit her job and started her own business, her hours didn’t adhere to the usual business-day calendar.
She opened a text and grimaced. “Technically, he’s only been trying for a day and a half, but I lost track of time last night. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me.” Olivia nodded toward the phone. “Call him. I’m sure he wants to hear your voice. You know the family is paranoid.” She didn’t need to say why. Olivia’s kidnapping had changed everything.
The realization swept over Nicki’s face. “Yeah. You’re right.” She tapped on the screen, then took the phone into the bedroom.
Olivia scanned the apartment, a tiny one-bedroom barely bigger than a hotel room.
A few dishes sat in the sink, and an uncountable number of fleece blankets were piled on the couch.
Her niece liked to cocoon. A game controller, a laptop computer, and an empty sushi container occupied the coffee table.
A tall stack of her latest book binge—a romantasy series with dragons on the covers—occupied the end table.
Other than that, the space was tidy in a normal, lived-in way.
Nicki kept her apartment clean enough, but she didn’t obsess about it.
Olivia couldn’t judge people by her own unrealistic, possibly—definitely—compulsive standards.
Nicki emerged from her bedroom. “I’m going for coffee. Wanna come?”
“You have a coffee machine right there.” Olivia pointed to the pod-style machine she’d bought her niece as a housewarming gift.
“I’m not in the mood for straight coffee. Plus, I want a breakfast sandwich.”
“It’s after two o’clock.”
“Call it a brunch sandwich, then.” Nicky traded her bootie slippers for big, black lug-soled boots.
“Aren’t you going to get dressed?”
Nicki looked down at her pajamas and shrugged.
“I could change, I guess.” She called over her shoulder as she walked back into the bedroom, “Everyone doesn’t have to be a fashionista, you know.
” She returned in less than a minute. She’d swapped her pajama bottoms for a pair of yoga pants. That was it.
Olivia pressed her lips together. She shouldn’t comment on her niece’s appearance.
It was superficial and could damage her self-esteem, though Nicki had never exhibited confidence issues.
Quite the opposite, actually. Nicki’s attitude bordered on arrogant.
But at least her niece was wearing actual clothes.
Olivia couldn’t comprehend why anyone would want to go out in public wearing pajamas.
Her nieces and nephews couldn’t understand why it mattered.
“What are you doing this afternoon?” Nicki filled a giant stainless steel tumbler with water, then collected her keys and phone from the nearby counter. “Isn’t today your big interview?”
“Zoe didn’t show.”
“What?” Nicki stopped. She often went to yoga class with Olivia.
That’s where she’d met Zoe a few years before.
Last summer, Nicki had started handling the social media marketing for Zoe’s podcast. Zoe had been thrilled and impressed with the success of Nicki’s campaign. “That doesn’t sound like her.”
“I know. No one has seen her,” Olivia said. “Dylan reported her missing.”
They left the apartment. Nicki locked her door. “Did you look for her phone’s GPS location?”
“Dylan tried. The phone is either off or the battery is dead.”
“What about the last known location?”
“Dylan gave me the password for their cell service account. He’s not very tech savvy. I was going to go home and try that on my computer.”
“Doesn’t he have a laptop? You could have done that at his place.”
“I told him I needed help,” Olivia said in a vague tone.
“You lied.”
Olivia winced and admitted, “Yeah.”
“So you don’t trust him,” Nicki concluded.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I just don’t know him well enough to decide. When I get together with Zoe, he rarely comes along.”
“That’s fair.”
Nicki studied Olivia’s face for a second. “She hasn’t been unavailable for long, but you have a bad feeling about it?”
When Olivia had been kidnapped, she’d only missed one appointment, but Lincoln had known immediately that she’d been in trouble.
He hadn’t wasted a second before starting to look for her.
His determination had made the difference between Olivia’s life and death.
“Yes. Something is wrong. Anyone can miss a meeting, but Zoe would have called if she could.”
“OK.” Nicki unlocked her door, slipped back into her apartment, and grabbed her laptop from the coffee table. She tucked it under one arm. Back on the landing, she relocked the door and jogged down the steps. “We’ll check her cell history at the coffee shop.”
Olivia hustled to keep up with her niece’s longer legs.
Nicki was average height, but she was taller than Olivia.
But then, most people over the age of twelve were taller than Olivia.
She rarely wore shoes without a heel because she preferred to be perceived as an adult.
“Didn’t we just agree that I don’t need help with the tech? ”
“I’m bored, and I’m better with devices than you are. I can do it faster than you can. You’ll save time.”
Olivia couldn’t argue with that. It often seemed as if her nieces and nephews had been born with a computer chip embedded in their brains, and Nicki had professional technical expertise.
Nicki flashed a grin over her shoulder. “You can buy me my breakfast.”
“Brunch,” Olivia corrected.
The sun emerged, warming the air.
“It’ll be faster to walk.” Nicki headed down the tree-lined street at a brisk clip.
Olivia hustled to keep up. Footsteps pounded the pavement behind her.
She turned toward the sound. A shoulder slammed into her back, knocking her forward.
Her crossbody purse strap jerked against her neck, the counter pull throwing her further off balance.
She lost her footing, stumbling onto one knee, her heart slamming into her rib cage.
She extended a hand, reaching for a tree planted in the middle of the sidewalk, and lurched back onto her feet.
Olivia recovered her balance to focus on the man pulling at her purse strap.
He was big, well over six feet, and broad shouldered.
A bandanna was tied around his face but had slid a few millimeters on one side, exposing the top edge of a dark beard.
Over the impromptu mask, hostile brown eyes glared at her.
Though he was dressed like a college student in jeans, a hoodie, and sneakers, the crow’s-feet around his eyes told her he was older.
“Give it,” he snarled. “Or I’ll hurt you.”
Fear—and a flashback—paralyzed Olivia as her memory sucked her backward in time.
Her muscles locked into place, refusing to respond to her brain’s command to run.
All she could see was a dark underground cellar.
Unrelenting cold seeped into her bones, dampness tightening her throat, her airway narrowing to the size of a cocktail straw.
She couldn’t breathe. Tiny starbursts exploded in her vision like mini fireworks. Her eyes locked open. She couldn’t even blink. Time slowed, until the current attack melded with flashbacks of her kidnapping.
Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe can’t breathe.
She blinked, her survival instinct dragging her back to the present.
A large fist drew back, aiming for her face.