Liquid Smoke

FORTY-NINE

“Wellton!” I screamed into the phone as Carter and I flew down the freeway in his car. We’d left Miranda with my mother. “Tell me you know where she is.”

I’d called her home and her cell and the station. She was nowhere to be found. Wellton was my last shot.

“Braddock?” he said, confused. “What the hell—”

“Liz! Is she with you?”

“No, man. Haven’t seen her since this afternoon. She said—” “Get someone to her house! Now!”

“What’s going on?” he said, his tone sharper now, on alert.

“Just do it! Please.”

“I’m on it,” he said and clicked off.

I clutched the phone, feeling like it could shatter against the bones in my hand.

“Come on, come on,” I said, rocking back and forth in the passenger seat.

We were halfway over the bridge now, and Carter was doing ninety.

“She can handle herself, Noah,” he said, laying on the horn as we came up on the bumper of a truck. The truck moved over quickly, and Carter accelerated. “She’s a cop.”

“Why didn’t she answer?” I asked. “Why? Fuck!”

We came to the bottom of the bridge, and he swung the huge car to the right, the rear fishtailing behind us.

“Your mom was at the store,” he said, not sounding confident. “Maybe she’s out.”

His argument was rational. She could have been out anywhere without her phone. A five-minute trip to the store or the beach.

But it didn’t feel right.

He hit the brakes, and I was out of the car before it stopped in front of her place, tumbling to the wet street, the rain stinging my face. I jumped up and ran to the house.

No lights.

I hit her door the same way I’d hit Carolina’s and pain radiated through my shoulder. Liz’s much heavier door fought me a little more, but landed on the floor with a thud, and I stumbled in on top of it.

I stood still for a moment. The room was black and quiet. All I could hear was Carter’s and my breathing and the rain spanking the pavement outside.

“Liz?” I yelled.

Nothing.

“I got upstairs,” Carter said, moving past me, his gun up and ready. “You get the kitchen?”

I took a deep breath, bent my knees, and stepped quickly from the living room into the kitchen. I rotated my gun through the room. Dishes in the sink. A napkin on the table. Lightning flashed outside the window.

No one.

I stood up and took another deep breath, trying to gain control. Maybe Keene had just played me, messed with my head. Trying to show me he was in control. He’d gotten in my head at the airport. He’d seen it, and now he was seeing what he could do to me.

I walked out of the kitchen and Carter was at the top of the stairs. He took one step down, his entire body lethargic and heavy. When I saw the expression on his face, an expression I’d never seen before—disbelief, confusion—I knew.