Hard as It Gets (21 page)

Nick’s hand fell on her shoulder. “Hey.”

Becca met his gaze. “What?”

“Everything’s okay. Breathe,” he said, squeezing gently.

Closing her eyes, she took a deep, cleansing breath. How did he know she really needed a little reassurance? “What if we’re too late?” she said, voicing her worst fear as she looked up at him again.

He shook his head. “Stay positive until you have a solid reason to think otherwise, okay? You’ll drive yourself crazy. Today’s going to be a marathon, so you gotta pace yourself.”

“Right. You’re right. Okay.”

Cupping her face, he studied her. “How are you feeling today, anyway? I didn’t get a chance to ask earlier . . .”

Earlier . . . as in when they were having sex and then he was giving her the cold shoulder. And was she imagining it, or had there been more than a hint of guilt in his voice? “Mostly just achy. And my side hurts. But I took ibuprofen and it’s manageable. You?”

The small smile brought out his dimple. “About the same.” Man, the combination of those harshly handsome good looks and his sweet concern was a real heart-stealer. And the more time she spent with Nick Rixey, the clearer it became that he was stealing hers. It had started before the sex, but clearly their closeness this morning had amplified everything she was feeling for him. The admission made her stomach flip-flop and her heart race and her knees weak—it was just . . . overwhelming in the midst of all this other chaos.

“Learn anything?” Beckett asked when he rejoined them. Nick filled him in, and Beck nodded. “Marz might be able to find that ATM withdrawal.”

“Good point,” Nick said. He fired off a text.

She huffed. “If we could go to the cops, they could get a warrant or a subpoena or whatever it is they need and get the bank to just give them the information.”

Nick frowned. “Yeah. It sucks, but until we know more, we gotta assume someone on the inside is helping the bad guys, which means for the time being we have to consider the police unfriendlies.”

“I know. Where to now?” Hard to believe she and Charlie were caught in a situation where she couldn’t trust the police. What the hell had Charlie found?

“I did the block up that way,” Beckett said.

“All right. Let’s head back the other way, then.”

“Oh, did you put one in that bus stop shelter over there?” she asked, pointing.

Beckett held up the stapler. “This doesn’t work in plastic or metal.”

“Finally, a problem I can fix.” She rooted in her purse and found the roll of clear tape she’d brought. “Ta-da!”

Beckett arched a brow. “You got a cold beer in there, too?”

She chuckled and passed him the tape. “Don’t I wish.”

Tape in hand, Beckett jogged across the street and taped a flyer to the inside and the outside of the shelter. For the next half hour, they hit up more cars, poles, and shelters. A barber agreed to tape the flyer in the window of his shop, and a pastor let them post it on the community bulletin board inside his church.

“Hold up,” Nick said, his phone buzzing in his pocket. With a quick scan of the relatively empty street, he pulled it out and answered on speaker phone. “Marz, this is Nick. You’re on speaker.”

“Hey. I got something,” Derek said. Becca looked between the men with wide eyes. “The ATM was a dead end. I managed to dial into it, and it was pretty easy to bypass the remote authentication system and override the machine’s firmware, but that only lets me record current and future transactions, not past ones.”

“Marz, I didn’t understand half of that, but you’re killing me here,” Becca said.

The man chuckled. “Oh, sorry. I get carried away. I got into Yellow Cab’s dispatch records. Man, their firewall was seriously weak. Anyway, there have been three pickups from that convenience store in the past two weeks. Two dropped off to residential addresses and one to a motel.”

Nick nodded. “Text me the addresses?”

Pause. “Done. They’re all near you, so it shouldn’t take long to check them. Hey, you all have enough hands? I forgot something, and Easy said he’d get it.”

“That should be fine, but send Shane our way.” Becca met Nick’s gaze, wondering why he’d asked for more help.

“Roger that.” Marz hung up.

“Why did you ask him to send Shane?” she asked.

“Because we have specific addresses to check out now. If we happen upon the location where Charlie’s being held, I want us to have more backup.” His phone vibrated with an incoming text message. “Our first solid lead,” he said. “Let’s check them out.”

Becca’s stomach churned with equal parts dread, anticipation, and hope.
Wherever you are, Charlie, we’re coming. Just hang in there a little while longer.

B
ECCA’S HOPES WERE
hanging on by a very thin thread with a frayed spot in the middle. After ruling out the two elderly ladies who lived at the residences on Marz’s initial list, they were on their way to a third motel. Apparently Charlie had been moving around a lot. What the hell made him so afraid? Any other time, she might’ve written it off to his paranoia, but given that someone had kidnapped and tortured him, he’d clearly behaved completely rationally.

And she hadn’t believed him the last time they’d chatted. Her stomach was a sour churning sea at the memory.

At the first seedy motel, it had taken the entire seventy-five dollars she’d had in her wallet to get the clerk to agree to look in their records to see when Charlie had checked in and out. He’d used the name Scott Charles—a combination of both her brothers’ names, which made Becca’s heart clench in her chest—and stayed for four days before he’d called a cab and left at the crack of dawn.

In case it took more bribes to track his movements, Becca made the maximum withdrawals from two different ATMs. In the meantime, Marz found what they needed in Yellow Cab’s dispatch records to locate Charlie’s second hotel, where he’d stayed only two days, and then his third.

Heading out Pulaski Highway, they crossed the city line into Baltimore County. With each hotel, Charlie had moved further away from his home. She couldn’t begin to imagine why he’d moved when he had—or what he’d been running from. It was like she’d stepped into the middle of a nightmare where nothing made sense and the rules changed the moment something became clearer.

A few minutes later, Nick eased his car into the parking lot of a roadside motel. Two stories high and maybe fifteen rooms wide, the place screamed
cheap!
or, maybe,
rooms by the hour!
Shane pulled in behind them in his pickup, and they all met outside the lobby.

“Third time’s a charm,” she said, forcing positivity she didn’t feel into her voice. The guys murmured words of encouragement she’d bet they didn’t really feel, either. They stepped inside.

“Can I help you?” the woman behind the desk asked around a wad of gum. Probably in her fifties and the definition of haggard, she had a drawn, bored look to her expression.

“I hope you can. My brother Charlie is missing, and we know that a cab dropped him off here on Sunday.” Six days ago.
Six days ago
Charlie might’ve been standing right where she stood now.

The desk phone let out a shrill buzz. “Excuse me a second.” She cracked her gum as she answered.

Becca frowned at Nick, and he gave her a wink that told her to hang in there. Suddenly, a wave of gratitude washed over her. No way she could’ve done this without him, without all of them. Not just because they provided protection and know-how but because they gave her the confidence and the wherewithal to go out searching for Charlie, to talk to people, to
bribe
them to talk to her. She’d always been more of the straightlaced, follow-the-rules type, so she was pretty close to certain she never would’ve had the lady balls to do that on her own.

“Someone will bring that right up,” the woman said and hung up the phone. “Marla?” She called the name twice, the second time nearly yelling. A slim woman in an outdated maid’s uniform rushed into the lobby from a door marked Staff Only. “Take new towels to 203,” she ordered.

With a quick glance at them, the housekeeper nodded and slipped back through the door.

“I’m sorry, what were you saying?” the woman droned.

Becca tamped down her annoyance and slid a flyer on the counter. “My brother Charlie is missing. We’re looking for him. And we know from Yellow Cab that they dropped him off here last Sunday.”

A
bang
sounded out behind her. Becca flinched and looked over her shoulder, noting that Nick had placed his body between her and the noise and the other guys had their hands in their jackets. The maid’s brown face blanched, and the door she’d apparently opened too hard slowly eased back toward her. “Sorry,” she said, bending to retrieve a pile of white terrycloth she’d dropped to the dingy tile floor.

The desk clerk rolled her eyes. “So, you think your brother stayed here?”

“Yes,” Becca said, releasing a breath. “Can you tell us how long he was here or when he left?”

“Sorry, hon. It’s against our policy to give out any information about our guests,” she said in the most patronizing tone on earth.

But Becca wasn’t dissuaded, since this was the same thing the other clerks had said, too. At first.

Checking over her shoulder, Becca waited for the maid to exit the lobby. Her gaze whipped back to the receptionist. “Is there anything I can do to convince you to help me? I have reason to believe Charlie’s life is in danger.”

The woman gave her a once-over and loudly chawed on her gum. “You’re not suggesting I do something unethical, are you?”

“You call it unethical. I call it doing the right thing. I know he was here, and I know when he arrived. I only need your help with when he left.” Frustration pricked at the back of her eyes.

“Sorry. If the police bring me a warrant, I’ll be happy to share.” She snapped her gum. Becca was ready to strangle her with it.

Nick leaned his hands on the counter. “We’ll make it worth your while,” he said with a nod toward her computer. “Can’t you help us?”

Her eyebrows flew to her teased hairline. “I think y’all better get on out of here.”

Becca’s stomach dropped to her feet. “Ma’am, please—”

Nick grasped her arms from behind and squeezed. “It’s okay. Come on,” he whispered against her ear. He bustled her across the lobby and out the door to the parking lot.

“What are we going to do now?” she said, looking up at Nick.

“We’ll figure it out. Don’t worry.” When he rubbed her hand, she realized she was shaking.

Anger roared through her. They were
so
close. She felt it, like Charlie’d left an echo behind she could still hear. She blew out a long breath and looked away.

At the far end of the row of exterior doors, the maid they’d seen in the lobby—Marla, the clerk had called her—came jogging down a set of concrete steps. Head lowered, shoulders curled in, walking fast, it was like she didn’t want anyone to notice her . . .

On a gasp, Becca’s gaze whipped to Nick’s.

“I’m already with you,” he said. “She looks like a scared rabbit, though. You comfortable asking?”

Becca was already heading toward her. “Miss? Marla?” she said, walking fast across the parking lot, flyers in hand. “Can I please ask you a question?”

The woman lifted her head, her gaze darting between Becca, the guys, and the lobby door.

“Please? I need your help.”

Her shoulders sagging, Marla came to a stop, looked both ways, then waved Becca to follow her. She walked a few steps back the way she’d come and ducked into a dim hallway.

Becca followed at a jog. Nick called out after her, but she was too afraid the maid would slip away to wait for him. She crossed between two parked cars, hopped up onto the cracked sidewalk, and, heart a racehorse in her chest, stepped into the same hallway. At the end of a row of vending and ice machines, Marla stood with her arms crossed tight over her chest.

“Do you know something about my brother, Marla?” Becca asked, passing her a flyer.

Nick barreled into the hallway a moment later, a dark scowl on his face. He didn’t say a word, though the cocked eyebrow said plenty.

Marla’s brown eyes latched onto the sheet Becca held, though she didn’t take it. “Yeah, I saw him. But I need money,” she said, eyes on the floor like maybe she wasn’t proud of the words. “I got kids, and this place don’t pay enough.” She shrugged her thin shoulders.

Becca dug into her purse and grabbed five twenties. Marla balled them in her fist. “My brother? When did you see him?”

Marla sniffed and lifted her gaze, working it back and forth between Becca and Nick. “He came on Sunday, like you said.” Becca leaned in as if she could will the words from the woman’s mouth. “On Monday morning, early . . . they took him off in a gray van.”

Becca’s heart tripped into a sprint. She knew the trail they’d been following probably ended in exactly this kind of story. Obviously,
someone
had taken Charlie against his will at some point, because he hadn’t cut off his own finger and left it at her house. But hearing it . . . she had no words.

“Who’s ‘they’?” Nick took over, wrapping his arm around Becca’s shoulders and pulling her in against him. Solid. Strong. Unwavering. She soaked him in and forced herself to calm down.

Marla played with a chain at her throat. “Bangers. Kind I left the city to get away from. Same types you see downtown selling heroin on street corners. Was three of ’em.”

“Any of them this man?” Nick said, slipping the paper from Becca’s tight grip and holding it up.

Marla shook her head. “I don’t think so, but I wasn’t trying to see them, either, if you know what I mean. Got a bad feeling the minute their van rolled into the lot. I was upstairs cleaning the room of an early checkout when I heard this loud bang. I peeked through the curtains, and sure enough the men from the van were breaking down a door. They put a hood over his head and dragged him out.”

“Did you call the police?” Becca managed, incredulous. How had something like this happened in broad daylight?

Marla looked at her like she had three heads. “I wasn’t risking narking on a gang for some addict with an unpaid debt.”