The woman returned and held out a scrap of paper to him. An address was scrawled on it. “Your friend Rhonda asked me to forward any stray mail or packages to this address,” she explained. “That’s where her daughter is staying with her aunt and uncle.”
Hunt looked down ruefully at the lettering. The address was somewhere in Maine. If he’d known he was going to crisscross the country like this, he would have put in for frequent flyer miles.
He handed the note back, but the woman stopped him. “You can keep that. I made a copy.”
The cowboy tipped his hat before putting it back on. “Thank you kindly, ma’am. Have a nice day.”
“Yes, goodbye.” She closed the door behind him.
As Hunt walked slowly down the stairs pondering this new information, he registered something out of the corner of his eye. It was a “For Rent” sign lying flat on the grass. He hadn’t seen it before because it was right next to the foundation. He noticed that there were fresh holes in the turf where the sign had been uprooted.
He didn’t want to go over for a closer look in case the woman was watching him from the window, but something about that sign was fishy. If the place had been occupied for the past few months, why would the sign still be there? Why would it look like it had just been pulled up a few days before? He irritably dismissed that line of inquiry for the time being. He already had enough questions buzzing around inside his head.
Hunt climbed into his car and sat motionless behind the wheel, ruminating over the facts the old lady had given him. He couldn’t quite get a handle on what was happening—not just today but right from the beginning when he first started tailing little Hannah. A couple days after the gal showed up at Miss Cassie’s apartment, a moving truck whisked them away to parts unknown. Then the minute Leroy got too curious about the goings on in the antique shop, Miz Rhonda got whisked away too. And now, just when he thought he’d got both Miz Rhonda and little Hannah cornered in Phoenix, they disappeared again. It was all connected somehow. Miss Cassie and her merry band of thieves. Little Hannah. Miz Rhonda. Somebody was the mastermind behind all those disappearances and that Somebody was always one step ahead of him. How could that happen?
Leroy felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. The only possible explanation was that he was being watched. All his life, he’d been the hunter, not the prey. This arrangement was downright unnatural. He switched his attention from his injured feelings to how his invisible foe had accomplished such a trick. His phone must be tapped. That meant every time he called in a status report to Abe, Somebody knew where he was headed next.
If he called Abe today to tell him he was on his way to Maine, Somebody would whisk Hannah away before he got there. He needed to think of a better plan. He’d call Abe and fob him off with a story about checking out some other leads. Then when nobody was looking, he would double back to the moving company and ask a few more questions about who paid for the move. That intel might bring him one step closer to the Somebody who was behind all this.
It occurred to him that he’d have to get a burner phone if he didn’t want all his calls monitored. He could use his regular cell to feed Abe the info he wanted Somebody to hear and keep the rest of his investigation private. Empathy wasn’t in Leroy’s nature but, for a split second, he knew what it felt like to be the target instead of the hunter. He didn’t like the sensation at all. He needed to restore the natural order of things—pronto.
Chapter 18—Right of Passage
Zach turned his car into the tree-lined glade, his muffler growling all the way. He’d just driven through a bone-rattling stretch of dirt road and was amazed his tailpipe hadn’t fallen off. He checked the directions his grandmother had given him. In disbelief, he realized that this old white schoolhouse out in the middle of nowhere was the right place. It didn’t seem all that special as far as secret headquarters went. He’d been envisioning something more impressive—a glass tower, a geodesic dome, a steel bunker. As the boy got out of his car, the driver’s side door squeaked in protest on its rusty hinges. He sighed in exasperation. He’d need to scrape up more money for repairs.
Taking a furtive look around him, he wondered if he was being watched. His jalopy had made enough noise to wake the dead, but nothing stirred in this clearing. It was completely quiet. No cars, no people. He crossed the lawn and jogged up the stairs to the entry. Just as he was about to turn the knob, the door swung open, and a very large woman blocked his path. A woman with olive skin, frizzy red hair and scarlet nails that looked like they could rip his throat out. She was dressed in a fake leopard skin jacket and jeans. Bracelets made a jangling sound on her wrists as she parked her hands on her hips and stared him down.
“Whoa, junior. Not so fast.” She stepped outside and closed the door behind her.
Zach backed away and retreated down a few stairs. “Maisie,” he blurted out, immediately realizing his mistake. “Oh, crap,” he muttered under his breath.
She towered over him, glowering. “What’s my name?”
“Uh, sorry. Maddie. Your name is Maddie.”
“That’s right, and you’ll make a point of remembering it in the future.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed humbly. No sense in ticking her off any
