I touch my chin as I think. Allie must have headed back here. Maybe she was in a hurry because she wanted to go to the Bowles house with me and was afraid I’d gone without her, which I did. The question is: Did she get here?
I look around the room. Her purse is here. Good. She got here.
Then I see something else on the bed – a wooden box that wasn’t here before.
“What’s that?” I ask Grae as I point to it.
He glances at it. “Apparently, it belonged to my father and my mother sent it over, thinking that maybe it would help Allie find out who her real parents are. It was locked and I couldn’t find the key, so I broke it open just to see if maybe I could find a clue to where Allie was, but there’s nothing helpful in it. Just papers and old, random stuff.”
But sometimes, what appears random really isn’t. Not to the right pair of eyes.
I gesture towards the box. “May I?”
Grae shrugs. “Sure.”
As I rummage through the contents of the box, Grae talks.
“I went to Allie’s house to check on her last night but she wasn’t there. It seemed like she hadn’t been there for a while. The place was a mess.”
I can imagine.
“Naturally, I got worried. When I tried to call her phone and no one answered, I just had this feeling she was in danger. I tried searching for her. I called her boss. She didn’t know where Allie was, said she was suspended, which I was shocked to hear.”
“So was I,” I tell him.
“I found out she was checked in here, so I came here. I didn’t find her, though. Just the box. I thought she was with you.”
My eyebrows crease. Didn’t I leave a note on the bedside table to tell her that I was going somewhere and that she should just wait for me to come back?
I search for it and find it under the table. Great.
Grae lifts a hand. “You know what? I’m going to talk to security and ask to look at their cameras and keycard entry records. Now that we know that Allie is really missing, we have to find her.”
He heads towards the door.
“Wait,” Taylor stops him.
He’s been so silent this whole time I forgot he was around, but he’s just been doing stuff on his laptop.
“I was able to trace that anonymous message,” he says. “I have an address.”
“What anonymous message?” Grae asks.
I don’t respond to either of them because I’m staring at the black diamond ring at the bottom of the box. The final piece of the puzzle clicks.
Allie isn’t Sergio Bianchi’s daughter. She’s…
My chest tightens. If she’s who I think she is and Sergio Bianchi has her, that means she’s in real danger. In fact, she’s in serious danger.
I put down the box. “What’s the address? I’m going there right now.”
“I’m going with you,” Grae says.
I look at Taylor, who lifts his shoulders.
“I can call for back-up.”
Chapter Seventeen
Allie
Where am I?
The question comes to mind after I wake up and the first thing I see is a cobweb clinging to the legs of a wooden stool. The stool is sideways, which makes me realize that I’m on the floor. I pick myself up, struggling when I find my wrists tied behind me with – duct tape again? I tug at them, but it’s no use.
What the hell?
I stop when my gaze falls on the cardboard beneath me, the cardboard I’ve been sleeping on.
Cardboard on the floor.
A lump forms in my throat as I look around. By the light of a dusty old table lamp, I see a wardrobe, the stool, and a jug in the corner. The last one makes me cringe, though not as much as the dog bowl on the floor and the familiar-looking teddy bear. Too familiar.
Even before I glance out the window, I know where I am, and the knowledge sends a chill running down my spine.
An attic.
It doesn’t seem to be the one I was kept in. That one was smaller. Still, someone made it to look just like the place of my nightmares. Someone who was probably there.
The man who kidnapped me, the one with the swollen red face and menacing grin.
No.
The memories come flooding back like worms spilled from a can crawling all over me. I try to shake them off but I can’t. I can’t leave this stuffy place, after all. I can’t breathe. I can’t even wrap my arms around myself to ward off the chill that’s clinging to my spine or hug my knees to my chest and bury my face in my arms like I do when I’m upset.
I can’t. I’m drowning.
I close my eyes and squeeze them shut as I feel the cold and the darkness closing in on me. Isn’t there anyone who can help me? Anyone who can get me out of here?