His body sank into the mattress. His aches floated away. And his mind drifted . . . to the image of Becca Merritt standing in a loose robe in her bedroom window. She ran her fingers through her wet hair, coaxing it to air dry and causing the neckline of the white terry cloth to gape, hinting at the swells of her breasts. After a few moments, she pressed her palms to the glass and scanned to the right and left.
As if she knew he was there, her gaze landed on him. For a moment, it was white hot, and the scorch of it reached down his throat and settled into his balls. Blood flowed to his groin, waking up a part of his anatomy that hadn’t seen action in more months than he wanted to count. But then the fierce blue of her gaze changed. Dark circles settled under wide eyes that looked at him with abject desperation. Her lips moved. “I don’t know what else to do, where else to go.”
Sleep fell away in a rush.
Blood pounding in his ears, Rixey stared up at the dark ceiling, its pattern of pipes, beams, and ductwork becoming discernible the longer he lay there, unconsciousness eluding him, guilt weighing him down.
Goddamnit.
Frank Merritt had stolen his career, his reputation, six of his best friends, and his fucking ability to sit or stand for any length of time without wanting to whimper like a little girl. What the hell more was he supposed to give? When would it be enough?
Even as he asked himself the questions, icy tendrils of dread snaked down his spine. And Rixey’s internal oh-shit-ometer went on full alert.
That sixth sense he had—that uncanny instinct that had kept him alive and unharmed on more ops than he could name—was telling him Becca Merritt had brought bad news to his doorstep. The kind that reached out from the grave, grabbed you by the throat, and did everything it could to lay you six feet under.
BECCA KNEW THE key wouldn’t work. Before she even slid it in the lock, she knew. Just to be sure, though, she pulled it out and slid it in again. It fit but wouldn’t turn.
Charlie had changed the locks. Again.
He didn’t like her to come to his apartment. He sorta hated having anyone mess with his space, especially with his equipment. But his message, which she could only interpret as a call for help in light of her inability to find him, was a game changer. She had to figure out where he’d gone and why. And his apartment made the most sense as a starting point.
She sighed and braced her hands on her hips. Nowhere in this small stairwell to hide a key, either.
Oh, Charlie, what the hell is going on with you?
Maybe whoever lived upstairs could help. She jogged up the narrow cement steps, whipped around the railing to the front porch, and knocked three times on the door.
Nothing. Three more raps still didn’t get a response.
If she wanted a way into Charlie’s cramped basement apartment, that only left the windows.
As she stepped off the stoop, she immediately ruled out the front basement window. A cracked plastic cap screwed into the sidewalk ensured no one fell into the below-ground window well. Not that her brother appreciated the light—one of the first things he’d done was tape several layers of newspaper over the glass.
Hoping she’d have more luck with his bedroom window, Becca circled the block on foot and made her way down the alley that ought to lead to the back of his house. Her sneakers scuffed on the debris-strewn cracked pavement, the sound loud in the otherwise quiet pass-through. For the umpteenth time, she looked over her shoulder, feeling conspicuous in her scrubs and suspicious all at the same time.
From out of nowhere, the memory of the night their mom died of an aneurysm slammed into her brain. When the ambulance had driven away, Charlie had hidden. She, Scott, and their dad had searched for over a half hour before Scott had found Charlie sitting in the dark in their tree house out back. Her thirteen-year-old heart had been sure she was going to lose her mom and her little brother all in the same night. The relief of finding him had unleashed her grief.
That night was why she’d become a nurse. She wanted to know how to help if something like that ever happened again. Without question, she’d played a role in saving so many people’s lives, doing what she did. Just never the lives of the people in her own family. And Charlie was her last chance.
Becca counted to the back of the fifth row house and groaned. Freaking perfect. The rusted gate that sat at one end of the chain-link fence separating the property from the alley was chained and padlocked.
I can’t believe I’m doing this. It was like an episode of Nurses Gone Wild. If such a show existed. Which it probably did.
Toe in one square, she grabbed the rusted fence top and hiked herself over. She dropped to the overgrown grass and darted up the length of the narrow yard, her gaze flashing to the windows of each of the surrounding houses. It was a Thursday, so most people were probably at work, right? Still, Charlie’s paranoia must’ve worn off on her, because her skin absolutely crawled with the sensation of being watched. But maybe that was normal when you were about to perpetrate a breaking and entering. Or at least try to. This wasn’t the kind of thing with which she had a lot of experience.
Unlike out front, the back half-window was neither covered nor below ground. She knelt in the tall grass and leaned in close, shielding her eyes to block the glare of the afternoon sun. A set of yellowed blinds hung over the window, allowing her a view only where they were bent or askew. But it was so dark—
A door rattled and squeaked. “Hey! What the hell you think you’re doing?”
Becca wrenched into a kneeling position, scraping her temple on the brick molding above the window in her haste. She gasped hard and fell back on her butt, gaping up as a man flew out onto the rear stoop above her. Had he been home the whole time? “I’m . . . I . . .” She swallowed, struggling for even a little bit of moisture in her suddenly arid mouth, and shook her head. The freckles covering the old man’s brown cheeks might’ve given him a friendly appearance if he hadn’t been glaring at her. Or wielding a bat. “The guy that lives here is my brother. I haven’t heard from him in days,” she blurted.
He lowered the Louisville, thoughts of slugging apparently fading away, and the tension drained out of his sloped shoulders. He pressed his fingers to his ear and adjusted a hearing aid. Guess that explained the no-answer when she’d knocked. “Charlie’s sister, you say? You got some ID or something?”
The lanyard holding her UMC credentials still hung around her neck. She lifted it and rose to her feet. “Becca Merritt.”
“Hmm,” he said, his light brown eyes flipping from the plastic card to the green scrubs she hadn’t bothered to change at the end of her shift. “You a doctor?”
“Nurse. Have you seen Charlie? He’s not answering his phone or returning any of my messages.”
He swiped his fingers against his temple. “You’re bleeding there.”
The sting had already told her as much. “It’s okay. Have you seen him? Please.”
The man rested the bat against the door and shook his head. “I don’t think he’s been staying here. Ain’t seen him coming and going, ain’t seen no lights, haven’t heard that music he likes to play.”
Becca’s stomach prepped for a three-story drop. “How long has this been going on?”
He gripped the rusted iron railing. “I’d say . . . a week. Maybe two. He’s current, though.”
Hope held her stomach in place. “Are you the landlord? Can you let me in?”
“He’s in some kinda trouble, ain’t he? Boy’s too damn smart on a computer for his own good.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, suspicion curling in her belly.