Closing Books (15 page)

“Need help?”

Dan looked up and gave the white-haired man a sheepish smile. “I can’t find my card and my girlfriend isn’t home.”

“Here.” The man scanned his card and the door popped opened. “Problem solved.”

He held the door open while the old man strode in. “Thank you so much.”

Instead of waiting for the lift, he walked up the first flight of stairs. Once he was out of the old man’s sight, he sprinted all the way up to Evelyn’s apartment.

There, he kept knocking on Evelyn’s door until the door next to Evelyn’s opened.

He turned, seeing an extremely disgruntled neighbor.

“What are you doing?”

Dan stopped his knocking and smiled politely. “Hi, I’m looking for Evelyn Jordan. Is she inside?”

“I don’t think so. I saw her heading out with two suitcases when I got home. Looks like she’ll be gone for a while.”

“When was that?”

“Less than an hour ago.”
 

Resisting the urge to groan aloud, he ran his hand through his hair. “Thanks. I need to make a call.”

“All right and stop knocking on the door. It’s annoying.”

Dan nodded as he pulled out his phone from the pocket, calling Kate. “Kate, can you—”
 

“Kate is bathing.”

“Ty? I know Kate has Evelyn’s spare key. Can you ask Joe to bring it over?”

“I’ll ask her when she’s out.”

“No, ask her now.” Dan rolled his eyes at the signature silence from Tyler. “Look, I know you’re pissed about what happened. But something is wrong, and Kate will be extremely angry with you if she finds out that you did nothing to help her best friend.”

Tyler sighed audibly, and Dan knew he’d won.
 

“Hang on.”

Dan heard the water running on the other end, the muffled voice of Tyler, then Kate finally picked up the phone. “Why do you need her keys?”

Another of Evelyn’s neighbor opened the door, and Dan realized he had been pacing up and down the corridor. He smiled and waved, then moved to sit on the stairs. “Her neighbor said she left the house with two suitcases a while ago.”

“Suitcases?”

“Quote, looks like she’ll be gone for a while.”

“Aargh! She’s exceptionally good at making destructive choices. I’ll head over now.”

Dan sat and twirled the phone in his hand, thinking if there was anything he could do instead of sitting there while Evelyn slipped further away from him.

Dan stared at his phone, willing it to ring with a text reply or call from Evelyn. He’d already left a voicemail and sent her a text. He was tempted to spam her phone with text messages, but he didn’t think that would help in bringing Evelyn back to him.

Eve, I’m really worried about you. Please call me when you see my text.

He stared at the blue bubble containing his message and continued to wait for a reply.
 

It was tough to remain seated. He was getting antsier by the minute.
 

He pressed the home button on his phone and checked the time again. He jumped to his feet when he thought he heard footsteps coming up the stairs.

False alarm.

The young teenager clipped his skateboard tighter under his arm and stared suspiciously at Dan while walking by. He sat down again, hoping that no one would call the cops on him before Kate got here.

“Dan?”

Dan got up and looked down the stairwell.
 

Tyler must have seen how anxious he was. Taking the keys from Kate, Tyler jogged up the steps and threw them to Dan when he neared.

Once Dan had the keys in his hand, he headed back to Evelyn’s apartment.

The moment he opened the door, he was sure Evelyn’s neighbor was right. There were still clutters of shoes and clothes on the floor, but it was significantly neater. He stepped into the house and crossed the living room without bothering to avoid what was scattered around.

Once he was in Evelyn’s room, he opened her wardrobe. The only things that Evelyn always took great care of were her handbags.

If she were intending to leave for good, she would take her bags.

“Damn. Her bags are missing.”

“Oh, crap.” Kate’s words came out in a sigh.

That wasn’t the reaction he was hoping for, but the exact one that he’d expected.
 

He turned, just as Kate got onto Evelyn’s bed, lifting the pillows and tossing them over her shoulders, then stuffing her hand into the edge of the bed that was against the wall. “She took her gun, too.”

Dan stared at Kate while she reached into the rest of the edges around the bed.
 

“She always slept with a gun,” Kate explained.

Dan didn’t blame her; he would, too.
 

In fact, if he had been through what she did, he would probably install bolts on his bedroom door.

Standing in her bedroom, Dan suddenly felt the prison that Evelyn had kept herself in; she was still a captive to the horrors she had been through.

On those nights that he had come by to accompany her, he’d noticed how she jumped at the slightest sound in the corridor; sounds that he might not even have noticed.

She might think that keeping herself in the locked bedroom with her gun under the pillow was dealing with her fears. She was actually just suppressing them.
 

All of it was still trapped within her, fresh in her mind, which was probably why she couldn’t bring herself to speak about it, which was why she didn’t want anyone else to find out.

Though the physical torture had ended years ago, its clutches were still on her, and she was as trapped as the young Mandy Shannon was.

His heart was getting heavier with each moment spent in her room. He sighed, wishing he was with her.
 

He needed to make her understand that she wasn’t Mandy Shannon anymore. She no longer had to deal with monsters on her own.

“She’ll be fine,” Tyler said.

Dan managed a wry smile. “She’s all alone.”

“She’ll be fine,” Kate said softly.

“And how would you know that?” Dan said, taking a step forward toward Kate. “Because she’d survived it before?”

“Dan,” Tyler warned, but Dan had turned away and continued his rant.

“You shouldn’t have gotten angry with her. I know you got injured, but she’s been suffering through this whole thing alone. She was so upset she got you hurt—”

“Really? You’re going to blame Kate for what happened? She should’ve just told us the truth. We would’ve helped her. Then Kate wouldn’t be hurt and she wouldn’t have to do this.”

“She couldn’t ask for help! She may think that she has some legit reason, but the truth is, she just didn’t think anyone would help.”

“Then she was being stupid, wasn’t she?”

“You have no idea what she went through.”

“Again, because
she
didn’t want it told.”

For a moment, Dan was at a loss of words.

Another epiphany.

He had been whining about Evelyn keeping the secret, and how frustrating it was for him. He had been vexed at Evelyn for choosing to run each time he wanted more.
 

He had thought that whatever he was doing was enough, but as it turned out, Marianne was right. He hadn’t stepped up.

Each time she had run behind the gates of her prison, he had stood and watched her lock herself up. Then, he would complain about it like a spoiled brat thinking she was being unfair to him.

“You have no idea what she went through,” he repeated, softer this time.

He ran his hand through his hair and sighed heavily while Kate began digging into Tyler’s pocket. “What the hell are you doing?”

“When are you going to learn that Kate isn’t here for you to vent your anger on?” Tyler said, pulling Kate behind him.

Kate shook her head as she got her phone out of Tyler’s pocket and staggered a few steps back from Tyler’s manhandling.
 

He ignored Tyler; he wasn’t interested in getting into a fight with him. He continued staring at Kate, waiting for an answer.

“What? I thought you guys were having so much fun yelling at each other. Go ahead; be idiotic. Don’t worry, I’ll find her,” she said sarcastically and moved to sit on the couch.

“I thought you didn’t know where she was?” Dan asked, moving to sit beside her.

Kate rolled her eyes, but didn’t bother answering him.

He turned to Tyler, wondering what was going on.

“Don’t look at me. I don’t know what she’s doing.”

“I know her iTunes account. I can track her phone’s GPS through the
Find my iPhone
app. That was how I found her earlier.” She glanced up at Tyler and gave him a small, embarrassed smile.
 

“So can you tell me the full story now?”

“She didn’t tell you? By the way, her phone is switched off. You won’t be able to locate the phone.”

“You mean you didn’t know that Kate always kept Evelyn’s secret for her?”

Immediately, he was remorseful of his words. Even after all this, Kate was still guarding Evelyn’s secret. “I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t care if you told them now.”

Her head bobbed up and down while her fingers continued working on the phone. “Sorry, honey. I’ll tell you everything I know on the way home. But I don’t have the full story. Like I said, I saw her fighting with that woman, so I helped.”

“You do know that the email notification will be sent to
her
email when she turns on the phone,” he said as he looked at what Kate was doing.

“Dan, if you continue to treat me like some bimbo…” She paused, taking the time to glare at Dan before returning to the phone. “I know her email password, too. I just need to add her email account to my phone and set it to check every fifteen minutes. This way, there’s a higher chance of us seeing the notification before she does. Then she won’t know that we’re trying to track her through the phone.”

“So what do we do now?” he asked while Kate continued with the configuration.

“Think of the possible places she’d go,” Tyler said.

Dan turned to look at Kate, expecting her to start listing all the possible places.
 

“She stays home and calls me over, or comes over to look for me. That was how things were.”

Since Kate was of no help, he decided to come up with a list on his own. “She needs a place to stay, so nearby hotels?”

“I hope you’re not suggesting that we call each and every hotel,” Kate said, handing her phone over to Tyler. “Even if we do, I doubt the receptionists at the hotels will just tell us if she’s staying there.”

“You can call Detective Allen and ask him to send patrol cars to search for her.”

“Have you gone out of your mind?” Tyler asked.

He glowered, irritated at the hypocrisy of Tyler’s statement. If Kate had gone missing, he would be calling Detective Allen without a second thought.

“Guys.”

Both Tyler and Dan turned their attention to Kate. She had successfully prevented another shouting match that Dan was ready to enter.

“Everyone has a place they’ll go when they want to think, right? Where’s that place for her?” Tyler smiled at Kate and continued softly. “Take your time. I’m sure you know it.”

“Playgrounds.” Dan suddenly interjected. “Whenever we walked by one, she loved sitting on the benches to watch the children.”

“Which playground?” Tyler asked.

“Every playground. Was there one she loved in particular?” Dan stood as he asked, confident that Kate would have the answer. His initial confidence disappeared when he saw Kate playing with the angel pendant on her necklace. “You have no idea.”

Kate sighed. “I’m sorry, Dan. I know she does that, but like you said, it’s every playground.”

“It’s all right. I’ll just drive around and look for her.”

“We’ll go with you,” Kate offered.

Dan shook his head and said, “She’s upset that she got you hurt. If she finds out that you’re going around looking for her, she’ll never forgive herself.” That was when Dan saw her eyes lighting up.
 

“Does she know where the woman stays?” Kate asked.

“Amy?”

“Amy—I figured it was one of them. Does she know where Amy stays?” she repeated, rushing through her words.

Running through Evelyn’s account, he couldn’t recall her saying anything about that. “I don’t think so.”

“Then she should be waiting at one of the places they met. I don’t know if they have a usual meeting place, but we can try the street where I saw them.”

“And where’s that?” he asked.

Kate threw her head back and groaned. “I don’t know. I gave the driver my phone and told him to follow the GPS.”

“Mr. Sawyer took down the cab driver’s details while we were checking your wounds, just in case we needed a witness to prosecute the woman,” Tyler said as he pulled out his phone, calling Mr. Sawyer.

The moment Mr. Sawyer answered the phone, Tyler stood and signaled for them to get moving while he got the information they needed from Mr. Sawyer. Tyler repeated the address aloud for Dan and hung up after thanking Mr. Sawyer.

Without waiting for the couple, Dan sprinted down the steps. “We’ll take separate cars in case we need to split and search for her later.”

Not having been in the neighborhood before, Dan had to rely on the GPS in his car. Slowly, he cruised around the neighborhood, keeping his eyes out for Evelyn or anyone who resembled her. It wasn't a difficult task; she’d stick out like a sore thumb in this neighborhood.

The women, either standing by or trotting down the sidewalk, were clad in provocatively scanty clothing. In comparison, the dress that Evelyn was wearing, despite barely touching her knees, would be considered highly conservative.
 

His speed, which would usually elicit immediate honks from impatient drivers, wasn't giving him any problem. All the drivers were taking their own sweet time driving along as they looked out at the women on display.

Dan gave a frustrated sigh as he cleared another block with no sign of Evelyn being around.

He was certain that Kate was right. After what Amy had done to Kate, there was no way Evelyn would let her off. With the growing conviction of that reasoning, Dan’s grip around the steering wheel tightened as his concern and fear escalated.