“Where are you going?”
“I found an address written down in Pete’s bedroom. I want to see where it is.” Checking her mirrors for traffic, Mickey eased back onto the road. GPS showed she needed to get off at the next exit toward Old Town. Thank God. She hated driving so fast in the rain.
A beat passed before Lydia said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You should leave this to the police.”
Turning off the highway, she blew out a sigh of relief. Her grip on the steering wheel relaxed, but her muscles remained tense. “I can’t. They’ve been trying to find Pete and Becca for over thirty-six hours, and time’s running out. Let them run down the leads they have. I need to do this. For Becca and Suzi. Suzi…she blames me.” Emotion clogged her throat.
“You didn’t know Pete was going to take Becca, or anyone else. You can’t blame yourself. And Suzi’s upset right now. She’s scared to death and needs to lash out.” The sympathy in Lydia’s voice threatened to tear down the thin wall she’d built to keep her emotions at bay.
Mickey’s eyes burned with unshed tears, but she refused to let them fall. “I let him in, Lydia. I was blind to who he is. How could I not have seen it?”
She shook her head, marveling at her own stupidity. Nausea rose from the pit of her stomach, just like it did every time she imagined all of the time she’d spent with Pete. All of the nights she’d spent with him, the plans they’d made for the future. It’d all been a lie, a trap to get his hands on the most important person in her life. Bile burned her esophagus as it rose up her throat, and she swallowed it down. She couldn’t dwell on this now. She had to focus on the directions the GPS spewed.
“I’m not going to argue about this over the phone. Why don’t you meet me for a drink?” The rain pounding on the hood of her car and the whoosh of the windshield wipers almost drowned out Lydia’s plea.
“I have to do this. I can’t sit around and let everyone else try to find Becca. Especially when Agent Asshole thinks I had something to do with it. You’re not going to talk me out of it, but if you want to stay on the phone while I figure out where the hell I’m going, then fine.”
Nothing but heavy breathing came through the speakers. Every shred of her focus stayed on the voice from her GPS tellingher where to turn. The city lights whirled by her and traffic blared its angry horns. She shut it out of her mind as she weaved through the city streets.
“I just passed St. Michael’s church.” She glanced around, but not many pedestrians littered the tree-lined sidewalks in the storm.
“You’re in Old Town?”
“Yeah. I turned off Eugenie Street onto Cleveland Avenue.” White numbers on mailboxes announced the house numbers. She found the one she wanted and slid her car next to the curb across the street. “The address I have is for an old house. It looks old enough to have been here before the Chicago fire burned this part of the city to the ground. There’s an SUV parked in the driveway. Should I knock on the door?”
“Are you crazy?” Lydia’s screech pierced her eardrums. “If the house is connected to Pete, nothing good is going on inside. Call Agent Grassi!”
She bit into the side of her cheek as she considered her options. “I don’t know. I’m here now. I could go up and see what’s going on before I waste his time. I could get Becca out if she’s in there.”
“With what? Your charm? You’re a flight attendant, not a cop.”
Ignoring Lydia, she dimmed her headlights and surveyed the area around her. Her gaze locked on the old Victorian house. The door opened and a blond woman stepped out of the house and walked toward the SUV. Mickey slid down low in her seat. “Oh my God, it’s her. Connie Difico is at the house. Pete has to be in there.”
“Who’s Connie Difico?”
“The woman who broke into our apartment.” Her pulse beat wildly in her ears, blocking out whatever Lydia was saying.She rubbed her sweat-slicked palms on her thighs, leaving tiny marks of perspiration on her dark blue skirt.
Connie threw a suitcase into the SUV and walked up the stairs to the porch. She opened the door and stepped back inside. Mickey scanned the front of the house as she weighed her options. Hostas and ferns lined the sidewalk and filled in the space in front of the dark gray porch. The yard was small, but well maintained.
The front door swung open again, but this time a hulking man with broad shoulders and a face hidden by a black hoodie stepped out with Connie. His massive frame dwarfed her, but the determination in her stride showed who was in charge. Connie climbed into the passenger side of the SUV, the man jumped into the driver’s seat, and they peeled out of the driveway without a moment’s hesitation.
“She left with a man. She put a suitcase in the car. I wonder if they’re gone for good, or if they’ll come back soon.” Mickey searched for a sign of someone else in the house, but there was none. No lights shone through the windows, no shadows danced across the yard.
“It’s time to stop acting like an idiot and get out of there.”
She sighed and closed her eyes, trying to figure out the best move to make. She could call Graham and tell him she’d found Connie, but a sliver of resistance nagged at her gut. He still believed she wasn’t being honest with him. She’d come to this house with hopes to find Becca, and to find something to convince him she was a victim in this whole thing. Not an accomplice. Besides, she had no idea how much time she had before Connie and the man came back. If she waited for Graham to come to check things out, she could miss her chance to find Becca.
“I need to get a closer look at the house.”
“No, you don’t. You need to call the authorities. These people are dangerous, and you’re only going to get yourself killed if you get out of your car and try to save the day.”
A shiver of fear raced up her spine. She couldn’t argue with her friend. Lydia was right. It would be dangerous and stupid to go up to a house where a woman that had tried to kill her lived. But she didn’t care. Wherever Becca was, she was more afraid and more alone than Mickey had ever been. She had to act…now.
“Sorry, but I have to go. I’ll call you later.”
“Mick—”
Mickey ended the call. Add guilt to the kaleidoscope of emotions twirling through her mind. Unclasping her seatbelt and stepping out of the car, she pushed Lydia’s frantic voice from her brain and crossed the street to the house.
