Chapter 2 #2
Lori met his eyes across the table. "Where do Sally, Dr. Simons, whom I don't even know, Tessa, and I overlap?" She took a deep breath. "What connects us all? There has to be a connection. People don't just randomly kidnap two women who have nothing in common and threaten another two."
Mitch was quiet for a moment, turning the problem over in his mind like a Rubik's cube he couldn't quite solve.
"All I can think of is the Standsteads," he finally said.
"Who your late husband was unsuspectingly involved with in that fraud case.
Marcus found out that the Lane family was acquainted with them.
There's a business connection there, though we haven't nailed down the details yet. "
"The Standsteads," Lori repeated, testing the name. "But that was my husband's dealings, not mine. I barely knew them. And what would that have to do with Sally or Dr. Simons?"
"I don't know," Mitch admitted. "But it's the only thread connecting you to the Lane family that we've found so far."
Before Lori could respond, Misty's head suddenly shot up from her empty bowl. The dog's entire body went rigid, and a low growl rumbled from her chest. The hair along her spine stood up in a ridge, making her look twice her size.
Lori jumped in her chair, her hand flying to her chest.
Mitch and Lori's eyes met across the table, both of them frozen for half a heartbeat.
Then Misty shot out of the kitchen like a rocket, her nails scrabbling on the hardwood floor as she raced for the front door.
Her barks echoed through the house, frantic and urgent, punctuated by the sound of her paws scratching at the door.
"What on earth?" Lori hissed again, her eyes wide with alarm.
Mitch was already on his feet, his hand instinctively going to where his weapon would be if he were on duty. "Stay here," he barked, his voice coming out sharper than he intended.
He moved quickly to the front door, his mind racing through possibilities. Another attack? Had the kidnappers come back? Were they targeting Lori now?
His fingers fumbled slightly with the lock, and he thought briefly that they'd never needed to lock their doors on Pelican Lane until recently. Mitch managed to turn the deadbolt and push the door open.
Misty burst past him before he could stop her, a blur of brown and black fur racing across the front lawn. Mitch followed, his eyes scanning the area for threats.
That's when he heard it: the sound of a car engine roaring to life somewhere down the road. The high-pitched squeal of tires on asphalt.
Mitch raced after Misty as he cleared the front lawn of Pelican Cottage, his heart pounding in his chest. He caught a glimpse of a grey sedan squealing around the corner at the end of Pelican Lane, moving fast enough that the tires actually left black marks on the road.
But his attention was immediately caught and redirected as Misty changed course, no longer chasing the vehicle but instead rushing toward Sunrise House.
Mitch froze for a few seconds, his brain struggling to process what he was seeing. The front door of his house was standing wide open, swinging slightly in the morning breeze.
Something caught in his gut. A cold, sinking feeling that he knew too well from years of police work. The feeling that told him something was very, very wrong.
He shook it off and forced himself to move, his legs carrying him after Misty across the expanse of grass that separated the two properties. But he stopped abruptly when he noticed the drag marks.
Two parallel lines in the grass beside the front patio, as if something, or someone, had been dragged from the porch toward the road where that grey sedan had been.
A sliver of cold crept up Mitch's spine, settling at the base of his skull like ice.
"No," he breathed. "No, no, no."
Misty was on the front porch now, sniffing frantically at the boards, her tail rigid and her body tense. Mitch took the two front stairs at a time, his boots thundering on the wood as he rushed into the house.
"Ryan!" he called, his voice echoing through the empty rooms. "Ryan, are you here?"
No answer.
Mitch moved through the house quickly, checking each room with the methodical efficiency of a trained investigator, even as panic threatened to cloud his judgment. The living room was empty. The kitchen was empty. The downstairs bathroom was empty.
He bounded up the stairs two at a time. "Ryan!"
Still no answer.
Ryan's bedroom door was open, the bed unmade but empty. Mitch checked the other bedrooms, the upstairs bathroom, and he even looked in the closets, though he knew it was futile.
His son wasn't here.
Mitch came back downstairs, his breath coming faster now, and stopped in the doorway of his home office. Everything looked normal at first glance. His desk, his chair, his bookshelves lined with case files and reference books.
But then he saw the coffee mug on his desk. It was half full, the liquid inside still slightly warm when he touched the ceramic. Luke-warm, really. Not hot, but not completely cold either. Which meant Ryan had been here recently. Very recently.
Mitch's eyes were drawn to the window, and he moved to look out at the driveway. Ryan's pickup truck was still parked where it had been last night, right next to Mitch's.
Where could Ryan have gone? Mitch moved to the kitchen, opened the back door, and went into the back garden.
He even walked through to his shed. Ryan wasn’t there, and there were no traces that he’d been there.
Mitch walked back inside and pulled his phone from his pocket, his hands shaking, and dialed Ryan's number. He couldn’t stop the feeling that something was wrong.
Ryan wouldn’t have gone anywhere and left the front door open like that.
Not now anyway. Not with everything that had and was happening in Pelican Lane.
Mitch held his breath, listening to the ringtone, praying his son would answer with a reasonable explanation for all of this.
But then he heard it. The faint but unmistakable sound of a phone ringing somewhere in the house.
Mitch followed the sound through the kitchen, down the hall, back to the front door. It was getting louder, clearer. He stepped out onto the front porch, and there it was.
Ryan's phone was lying on the wooden boards beneath the chair beside the front door. The screen lit up with Mitch's incoming call, vibrating against the wood.
Mitch bent down and picked it up, his hand trembling as he ended the call. Fear clawed at his chest, making it hard to breathe. This was bad. This was very bad.
"Mitch!"
He looked up to see Lori rushing up the front path from Seabird Cottage, her face pale and frightened. She must have followed despite his order to stay put.
"Stop!" Mitch yelled, holding up his hand with more force than he intended. The word came out harsh, almost violent in its urgency.
Lori froze on the path, her eyes going wide.
"Sorry," Mitch said, trying to control his tone but not quite succeeding. "Sorry, but please, don't come any further. I've already probably destroyed a lot of evidence by running through here."
He could see Lori's mind working, see the moment comprehension dawned on her face. Her eyes darted from Mitch to the open door, to the drag marks in the grass, to Misty still sniffing anxiously on the porch.
"Evidence of what?" she asked, though her voice suggested she already knew the answer.
Mitch looked down at Ryan's phone in his hand, then back up at Lori. He forced himself to say the words out loud, to make it real.
"Ryan's kidnapping."