“It’s not a good idea to be by yourself right now. Don’t you have a friend you can stay with?”
Connor shook his head. “No, not here.”
“Well, look, you can stay with me if you want to. I’ve got an apartment in the city. Two bedrooms, even, so you’ll have your own space. I don’t like the idea of you being all alone.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Austin stood up. “Don’t ever get old. Everything hurts,” he said as he stretched his elbows in toward his spine. “While you’re thinking, how about you help me clean this mess up?”
Connor put on a pair of work gloves. He started with the largest pieces of drywall, carrying them out to the dumpster Austin had rented. It was one of those big ones used on construction sites and it took up most of the driveway.
“Any word from the police so far?” Austin asked as he helped Connor toss the drywall over the lip of the dumpster.
“Not yet.” The question reminded Connor of his conversation with Isaiah, who had asked pretty much the same thing. He wondered, now that he had had a little sleep, if he was making a mistake. He needed a second opinion. “Have you ever heard of that show Uncovered?”
“That’s like 48 Hours, right?”
“Something like that.”
“What about it?”
“I had a guy visit me yesterday. A producer for the show. He said he wants to use my story.”
“So, like, interview you? Film a recreation in your house? That sort of thing?”
Connor tossed the last of the drywall into the dumpster, then patted his gloves together to shake loose the dust. “I would assume so.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“Do you really want to watch them recreate the abduction of your parents? I can’t imagine that would be good for you right now.”
That was exactly what Connor had thought when the idea had first been presented. And as far as he was concerned, hearing his first instinct repeated back to him confirmed he had been right.
CHAPTER 9
Letting go of Uncovered did not mean Connor was letting go of everything, though. He’d had an idea when he’d been lying in bed last night, and it, unlike the TV show, seemed better and better the more he thought about it. He wasn’t going to let the abduction of his parents end up getting labeled an unsolved case.
When Austin called it a day, he again encouraged Connor to stay with him, said they could even go up to Austin’s cabin over the weekend and do a little fishing. Something peaceful. It would be good for him, Austin insisted.
Connor again said he would think about it, but instead went home, powered up his laptop, and hacked his way into William Marks Hospital. It didn’t take him long to find the records tied to his mother’s name. The patient she had recently lost was one Carlos Hernandez. His records included an address, mentioned a wife named Adriana and a daughter named Rosa. Armed with that information, Connor figured he knew everything he needed to.
He found a small, ramshackle house at the address in Carlos’s records. It had been squeezed onto a particularly small plot of land, in a part of town Connor had never visited. The white wood siding had grayed and cracked in places, succumbed to rot in others. Most of the window screens were missing or torn. The curtains appeared to be bedsheets. The grass—weeds, mostly—was overgrown.
But it also didn’t seem much worse than the houses around it.
He made his way up to the front porch and knocked. Waited. Knocked again. Rang the bell. Then, after he looked around to make sure there was nobody staring at him, he squeezed through the bushes in front of the closest pair of windows. He cupped his hands around his eyes, leaned forward so that he was touching the glass. He didn’t have much hope of seeing anything with the bedsheet in his way. But maybe there was a tear, and maybe it would be enough to give him a glimpse into Carlos’s world.
And what will that tell you?
Nothing, he knew. Still, he looked, and perhaps a second after he connected with the glass, a Rottweiler pushed aside the curtain, landed with his paws on the glass, and started barking.
Connor leaped back, got tangled in the bushes, and fell. Once he was on his feet again, the dog was still there, still barking. He didn’t want to draw more attention to himself than he already had, so he returned to his car and tried to decide what to do next.
The neighbors had told Olivia the family was out of town. Connor doubted they knew any more than that. But there had to be somebody taking care of that dog. And that person—they probably would know something.
Connor decided to wait. Give it a couple of hours, at least. See if anyone came.
But, parked directly across the street from the house, he couldn’t stay where he was.
He drove around the block, parked at the corner. From here, he could still see the cement path that led to the Hernandezes’ front door, but not the house itself. It was enough.
The sun started to set. Connor wasn’t sure it would be a good idea to hang around this neighborhood after dark. He was about to call it quits, maybe come back in the morning, when he saw a child appear on the path in front of the Hernandezes’ house. She hauled a bag of trash that was almost as big as she was to the bin at the end of the driveway and struggled to get it inside. Then she returned the way she had come.
Connor hopped out of the car, ran toward the house. He was sure he hadn’t seen anyone enter, so where had this girl come from?
The front door came into view just as the child stepped through it.
Once she was out of sight, the house looked as still and
