Page 21 of Dancing With Redemption

“Those might be exactly what we’re looking for.” Lincoln moved to stand beside Tanya. “He won’t tell me who this person is that he thinks has her, but I have an idea on it. Let’s have a look at those addresses. I have a feeling that’s where we’ll find her.”

“Sure, these are the buildings.” Tanya frowned as she scrolled through a document file on her screen, and Lincoln leaned to look over her shoulder. “This one is an apartment building. One of my cousins lives near there. I doubt Matteo even knows it exists. My cousin says she won’t go near the place because a slumlord owns it. A lot of drugs and prostitution in the vicinity and inside the building.”

“Oh?” Lincoln noted the address and typed it into his phone to send to Dr. Bennet as he walked over to the man. “Have we got a team free? I want them to check out this place.”

“Hm. An apartment building. We might need to involve the cops with this one. We can’t search occupied apartments.” Dr. Bennet looked over his black-rimmed glasses to give Lincoln a look that said he didn’t like not involving the cops, but he’d do whatever Lincoln asked of him. Because that’s what a good dad did. Lincoln sighed heavily, but nodded, the older man would do whatever he asked, but he wouldn’t force him to on this one. “No, we don’t want to go into validly-occupied apartments. It’s the ones that are empty or the ones that are supposed to be empty that we’ll search. Without the police, for now.”

“As you wish, Lincoln. I know you’re suspicious of the local cops but maybe we should contact the police in NYC soon? We’re going to run out of legal ways to search if we keep going.” Dr. Bennet sighed this time, and Lincoln flattened his lips before he gave another nod.

“I understand, but for now we have Matteo’s agreement that we can search the empty buildings and apartments. The man owns a huge chunk of New York City and that’s the good news. That means we don’t need to involve anybody just yet. Later, if we don’t find Roxie, we may need to get the police involved to search a building or two, but for now, we’re still within the law. It’s fine, really.” Lincoln smiled with reassurance, and that seemed to appease the man he respected as the only real father figure he’d ever known.

“That’s fine then, son. Let me get a team on this new place.” Dr. Bennet turned away to look at the board, picked the one that was closest, and sent the new address to the team leader.

The teams were taking their time, doing a thorough search of each building and the rooms inside. The searches were being done as quickly as possible, though, even if it felt like they were going on forever to Lincoln. The sun had gone down, and his stomach grumbled, but he couldn’t think about food right now. Not with Roxie out there somewhere, needing rescue.

He wasn’t sure who she needed rescue from or why exactly she’d been taken. Murder was the obvious answer, but he didn’t want to think about that. Unfortunately, it was the logical answer he couldn’t stomach. Whoever had her wanted her because of the business with Roxie’s dad. That was the undeniable link in all of this.

Matteo had tried to call those two men who’d been at Roxie’s childhood home that night, but neither had answered the calls. He’d been determined to get them in, to question them and demand answers, but they’d dropped off the face of the Earth. None of Matteo’s people knew where the men were either, which meant they’d deliberately dropped out. Not answering the head of the family was a no-no with Matteo’s bunch, so it was huge that both men had disappeared.

It meant their allegiance was with someone else and Lincoln suspected they’d pay for abandoning the family long before Matteo could handle that situation. Someone lower down, someone closer to the men, would take care of the betrayal first. If Lincoln didn’t get to either one of them before anyone else could. He wanted to break their kneecaps, wanted to crush their spines, and make them pay for what they’d done over the years to Roxie and her family. To his daughter’s family.

And if he ever got his hands on any of the people involved, he’d do just that.