But her and her brother’s security lapses were still inexcusable to Hawk. “You’re right,” he said flatly. “It doesn’t matter now.”
Von glanced at his unfortunate sister. She took the rap for him, and that nasty family still didn’t give her any grace. “It wasn’t all her fault,” he said.
“Yes, it was,” Janita fired back at him. He knew how she hated appeasement. “I messed up. I told you we aren’t going to dress that up and pretend there was blame to go around. I’m to blame. It starts and stops with me. And now Mrs. Webster is missing. This man has every right to be angry with me.”
Hawk looked at her. In his world, nobody took the blame for anything. Making excuses was the name of the game. It was refreshing to see somebody refusing to play that game.
And they rode the rest of the way to Ellen’s Boutique in silence.
But a part of Hawk felt a sense of regret about how he had responded to her. As if he was beating her down when she was already beating herself down quite enough. He wanted to say something to her. He wanted to tell her how he appreciated that she was stepping up even though it was after the fact. Even though she bore some blame just as she said.
But that was why he didn’t say a word. He didn’t care for appeasement either.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ellen Fischer was shocked to see Janita back again after what she considered to be her incompetence after letting a kidnapping take place in her establishment, but she was pleased to see Hawk. She gave Janita a harsh look, and then turned her big blue eyes toward Hawk. And she smiled even grander. “I haven’t seen you in a month of Sundays, Hawthorne. How have you been faring?”
“You remember Miss Cooper?” he asked her.
“Best forgotten,” Ellen said snidely. “But yes. I remember the young lady.” Then she forced herself to look at Janita. “How are you?”
Janita didn’t dignify that throwaway question. That woman didn’t want her anywhere near her establishment and she knew it. But she had a job to do. “Mr. Webster wishes to see where the kidnapping occurred,” she said. “Is the dressing room available?”
“For Hawk, of course.” She began escorting them toward the VIP dressing room. “I would have been better prepared, and would not have left her side had I known she would drop by. But out of the blue she shows up and, alas, I was not prepared. But right this way,” she said and was about to enter the room.
But Hawk stopped her. “That won’t be necessary,” he said. “Miss Cooper will show me around.”
They both could tell Ellen was offended. But she kept that fake smile. “Of course,” she said, and motioned for them to go right ahead.
But before they walked in, Janita was surprised. “They removed the tape already?” she said.
“What tape?” asked Hawk.
“The police tape. It’s still a crime scene that anybody can just walk into.”
She was very observant, he thought, although not so observant when it mattered. They entered the dressing room.
“What happened after you heard my mother scream?”
“I ran in here with my gun ready for whatever. But she wasn’t here. I was panicking, I’m not gonna lie, but I kept my wits about me. I knew she had to have gotten out of this room some kind of way. So I searched it up and down.”
“There aren’t any windows?”
“Yes. In the bathroom,” she said as she escorted him to the private bathroom inside the dressing room.
“That’s the only exit out,” she said, “and it was locked. So I knew that wasn’t the way she got out. And that was when I noticed what looked like sawdust on the floor by the vanity. Unfortunately,” she said with distress on her face, “I didn’t notice it when I was doing my sweep. But I noticed it after I heard that scream. So I put my hands on the vanity and began to move it around. And that was when I realized it wasn’t bolted down at all. So I moved it aside. And that was when I saw this hole.”
She showed him the hole that now had a sheet of thin plywood leaned against it.
Hawk removed the plywood and then, to Janita’s shock, he told her that they were going to crawl to the other side.
“You?” she asked and then looked at what looked to her like one of those super-expensive Versace tracksuits. And those sneakers he wore looked like they cost as much as the suit. But he insisted.
“It’s kind of tight,” she said to him.
“I know how to maneuver. I’ll be okay. You go first.”
Janita got down on her knees and began crawling through the crawlspace. She could hear Hawk grunting as he crawled behind her, but she’d already told him it was tight. But he still insisted. There was nothing more she could have done.
