Beautiful Storm (Lightning Strikes Book 1) (16 page)

He got into the car but didn’t bother to start the engine. He wasn't sure where to go next.

Alicia fastened her seatbelt, and then said, "I think we're on the right track."

"Do you?" He cast her a confused look. "I have no idea what to think. If Liliana's disappearance was connected to the legal case she was investigating, why didn't someone go after her here? Why follow her to Miami?"

"Maybe she wasn't kidnapped. Maybe she went into hiding."

He appreciated her suggestion, but he just couldn't believe it. "She wouldn't have stayed hidden for two months. She would have reached out to someone. She hated to wait. It wasn't in her nature to be that patient. It's been too long."

"Okay, so let's go over what we know."

"We don't know anything," he said in frustration, hitting his hand against the steering wheel.

"We know a lot more now than we did an hour ago," she said, a forceful note in her voice. "We know she was investigating a double homicide, that there's a possibility an innocent person is in jail, which, if true, means there's a murderer on the loose. If Liliana got too close to the truth, she could have put herself in danger."

"Again I have to ask, why would the danger follow her to Miami?"

"Why not? What better way to throw off the police?"

She had a point.

"Did the police review airplane passenger lists to see if anyone came from Texas to Miami who was in Liliana's circle?" Alicia asked.

He stared at her in amazement. "How the hell did you think of that?"

"I don’t know. Just trying to figure things out. Maybe you could ask Diego."

"I'll do that. But there are other ways to get to Florida. Someone could have come by car or train. Liliana was in Miami for three days before she went missing."

"Good point. But it's still something to think about." She pulled out her phone. "I jotted down some notes while you were talking to Lieutenant Hodges. We need to go down the list and speak to some of these people. I'm thinking we should start with Cheryl Alton, Lieutenant Bryer's sister. She has the most to gain by giving us information that might help prove her sister is innocent."

He was more and more impressed by Alicia's deductive skills and her determined spirit couldn't help but lift him up. "You're making a damn good partner, I have to say."

She smiled. "I'm not as emotionally involved as you are. I saw your face when Lieutenant Hodges spoke about the gift you gave to Liliana. I don't know how Detective Kellerman can't see the truth in your eyes. It's so completely obvious to me that you loved her."

His gut twisted in a knot. "I did love her."

"And she loved you. It didn't matter that you hadn't seen each other in years; you were still in her heart and she was in yours."

"Thank you," he said finally. "I don't know how you always know the right thing to say, but somehow you do."

Alicia laughed at that. "I must be on a roll with you, because I'm usually more likely to put my foot in my mouth."

"I want you to know something, Alicia," he said slowly, watching the humor fade from her eyes with the seriousness of his tone.

"What's that?"

He took a moment to find the right words. "I loved Liliana in the purest way. It wasn't romantic. It wasn't sexual. She wasn't the love of my life, and I wasn't hers. She was a sister to me, and I was a brother to her." He paused. "I need you to know that."

"Okay," she said a little uncertainly. "Why do you need me to know that?"

He couldn't get an explanation out of his mouth, because he didn't quite understand the need himself. "I just do."

Their gazes clung together for a long moment, mixed emotions flowing between them.

Alicia drew in a breath and cleared her throat. "All right," she said. "Should I read through my notes?"

"Let's do that later. I want to go to Liliana's apartment. Can you look up the address on your phone? 112 Pierpont Street?"

"Sure." She went into maps on her phone and found directions. "It's really close, about half a mile."

She gave him directions and a few moments later they pulled up in front of a three-story apartment building.

As he stepped onto the sidewalk, he glanced around the neighborhood. It was a modest block of apartment buildings and quiet for almost four o'clock in the afternoon. He suspected most people were at work.

He led the way into the building, which was not a security building. In fact, it looked more like a motel with exterior hallways and an open stairwell. Liliana's unit was on the second floor. It was the last apartment at the end of the hall and across from the laundry room. The blinds in the window of her unit were closed, so it was impossible to see inside.

"Now what?" Alicia asked. "I'm guessing you don't have a key."

"No, I don't."

"Does this apartment even still belong to Liliana? Who's paying the rent?"

"I am. After the first month, the landlord sent a letter to Liliana's father saying that if we didn't pay the rent, we needed to pick up Liliana's things, or he would hire a mover and send us the bill. I told them I'd prepay the rent for a year so that Liliana wouldn't lose her home."

"If you paid the rent, then you should be able to get a key. I wonder if the landlord is on site."

"I don't think he is. And we don't need a key." He pulled out his own key ring, on which he had a very small universal tool set. "Keep a look out, will you?"

"You're going to break in?" she asked in surprise. "Do you know how to do that?"

He gave her a dry smile. "I did learn something from my troubled youth, and this lock is child's play."

Within a minute, he had the door open. He stepped inside, Alicia following close behind. He closed the door behind them while Alicia flipped on a lamp to give some light to the shadowy room.

"It smells musty," she commented, wrinkling her nose.

"I should hire a cleaner to come in here once a month."

"Everything is very neat, just dusty."

He walked down the short hallway and into the bedroom. There were only two pieces of furniture: a double bed and a dresser. On the dresser were several framed photographs. He picked up the first one of the Valdez family. "Looks like Christmas last year. David is in the shot with Isabel."

"I no longer think David is a suspect," Alicia said. "I don't think he and Liliana liked each other, but I don't think he was responsible for her disappearance."

"I agree."

Alicia opened the closet door. "Lots of uniforms in here."

He set the photo down and walked over to join her. She was right. There were very few civilian clothes in the closet. His gaze moved up to the top shelf where a box was labeled
Photos
. He grabbed the box and pulled it off the shelf, coughing as another layer of dust swirled around him.

He set the box on the bed and took off the lid. Inside were hundreds of loose photos, many from Liliana's childhood. He rifled through them, pausing when he came to a photo of a group of kids on the steps in front of a church. The boys were dressed in suits and the girls wore white dresses.

"Did you find something?" Alicia asked.

"First Communion. That's me." He pointed to a kid in the second row, third from the left. "And that's Liliana." His finger slid to the cute, dark-haired girl with big brown eyes and a happy smile standing right next to him. "I was two years late for my First Communion, because my mom had gotten sick the year I was supposed to do it. I ended up making my First Communion with Liliana's grade." As he tossed the photo back in the box, he couldn't help thinking how that moment felt like several lifetimes ago. "I'll take these back to the Valdez family. They'll want them."

"Are you okay, Michael?"

"I haven't felt okay in a long time. It's so damned unfair. Liliana should be here, living her life, making her dreams come true. Where the hell is she?"

"I don't know, but we're going to find out."

"Will we find out? We may never know what happened to her." He ran a hand through his hair, feeling overwhelmingly angry and discouraged.

"It's too soon to think that way."

Her optimism only pissed him off. "You may believe in miracles, but I don't, and I think that's what it's going to take. There are no clues here. There are no clues anywhere. We're chasing dreams just to make ourselves feel better."

"Michael—"

"No," he said, putting up his hand. He saw the plea in her eyes to not give up, but he couldn't go along with that plea, not now, not in this moment, standing in Liliana's bedroom, in the home she would probably never see again. "I have to get out of here."

He was out the door before she could utter a word, and he didn't stop moving until he'd walked past the car and down the block.

* * *

Alicia stared after Michael, not sure whether she should go after him or give him a minute. She chose the latter.

Michael needed time to get his head together. Hopefully then he would see that it was too soon to give up. They'd only just arrived in Corpus Christi. There were lots of people to talk to. They weren't at the end—at least not yet.

She walked over to the dresser and opened one drawer after another. The police had no doubt come here during their investigation, but nothing seemed too messy. Whoever had looked around the apartment had not done a very thorough search, or they'd been extraordinarily neat, which didn't seem that likely.

For a moment, she felt a little of Michael's discouragement. Maybe the police had only done a cursory search because there was absolutely no link between Liliana's life in Texas and what had happened in Miami.

Or…they hadn't looked closely enough.

She took the box of photos into the living room and set it down on the coffee table, then moved into the kitchen. The refrigerator had been cleaned out. Maybe the landlord had done that.

She opened the cupboards and found boxes of cereal, tea, flour, sugar and canned soups. It was strange to look at someone's life from the outside, think about who they were, how they lived. One minute they were there and the next they were gone.

Liliana obviously hadn't left Texas thinking she wouldn't be back.

As that thought ran around in her head, she wondered where Liliana would keep her work if she brought it home with her. There was no obvious briefcase or computer anywhere in sight.

She walked back into the living room. She tried to see the details, to consider whether there was a clue here in this apartment. Lieutenant Hodges had said that Liliana would have been a good spy, that she was a good judge of people and always dug deeper than anyone else. So where were her notes? Work made the most sense. On the other hand, she had a feeling Liliana took her work home.

There would have been no reason for her to hide her notes. She lived alone. She could have left anything she was working on in plain sight, unless she wanted to hide something away. But Liliana hadn't acted like a woman who was hiding anything. She'd gone to Miami, participated in pre-wedding events, and never mentioned any problems to anyone in her family.

So she hadn't been afraid, but would she still have been careful? Would she have tucked her notes away somewhere?

Alicia let out a sigh. She was trying too hard. Michael was right. There was nothing here.

Her phone rang, jolting her out of her reverie. She expected to see Michael's number. He probably wondered what the hell she was doing and why she hadn't left the apartment yet, but it was her mom's number. She thought about answering but then let the call go to voicemail. She wasn't ready to deal with her mother just yet.

As she slipped the phone back into her bag, her gaze caught on the bookshelf.

Her mom used to hide spare cash in books. She'd said no robber would ever go looking for anything in a book.

It was a long shot, but the memory drew her over to the shelves. She went through the books but quickly saw there was nothing unusual. So much for that brainstorm. She might as well go find Michael. They needed to move on with their day.

As she went to pick up the box of photos from the coffee table, her gaze fell on a much older book sitting on top of a pile of magazines in a basket next to the couch.

It was
Emma
by Jane Austen—Michael's gift to Liliana.

She picked up the old book and opened the cover to check the copyright. That's when she saw a piece of paper holding a place about midway through the book. She pulled out the paper, her heart beginning to race as she saw Liliana's handwriting. Maybe they were going to get lucky after all.

* * *

Michael paced up and down the sidewalk.
Where was Alicia?

He appreciated the fact that she'd given him a little time to regroup. Seeing that picture of Liliana at their First Communion had hit him hard, but now he wanted to get on with things, figure out what to do next. He was about to go back to the apartment when he saw Alicia come jogging down the sidewalk with the box of photos in her hands.

Her face was lit up like a kid on Christmas morning.

"I found something," she said, coming to a breathless stop in front of him. She put the box down on the ground and handed him a piece of paper. "Take a look at this."

He took the paper from her hand. For a moment, he couldn't figure out what he was looking at. "What—"

"It's notes from Liliana's case. Look at the list of names and notations," she said, moving next to him so she could read them aloud. "Cheryl-sister, doesn't believe affair; BR-ex-husband, temper, jealous? PS-frustrated during court testimony; housekeeper's son-professor cheap; teaching assistants not fans-professor arrogant SOB; Randolph-no friends, why?"

Alicia looked over at Michael, who was studying the paper. "This is a list of who she spoke to regarding the case."

"And where she went," he continued, pointing to the next column. "MDT-fake willingness to help—whatever that means; Flight Deck-meeting place with a question mark—sounds like she was trying to figure out where the professor met his lover."

"There's another reference to the bar on the back," she said as he flipped the paper over.