My cell rings, and I dig it out of my pocket. Beau’s number glows in the cab of my borrowed truck.
“Yeah?” I answer.
“Did you find her? Talia’s going out of her mind.”
“Not yet, but you can tell her I know where she is. Everett and Stevie brought her out to the site. I’m driving out there now. McAllister and I talked to them at Stevie’s new warehouse off Highway 65. Get security on Simpson and Kelly. Seville, too. They’re going to start covering their tracks. They let me go too easily not to have a plan.”
“Be careful, Rick. The site’s not secure. It could be a trap, and Devyn could be the bait.”
“Copy that. I’ll get a hold of you when I find her. If she needs medical attention, I’ll have to call an ambulance. I can’t—” My breath hitches “—I can’t pick her up.” There’s no way my back can handle her weight.
“Keep us posted. I’ll talk to Talia and make some calls.”
Beau disconnects, and I tuck my phone back into my pocket.
The site’s security lights have flickered on in the dark, and the soft white light drifts down over the abandoned equipment. When I came out of the first surgery to repair my leg and arm, I hadn’t known what happened. I hadn’t known about Tony and his cerebral hemorrhaging; I hadn’t known two of my ironworkers lost their lives. I hadn’t known when I would look at the site years later, the abandoned equipment would so eerily echo my own life.
I park McAllister’s truck on the street, swear when I remember I don’t have a key for the padlock that keeps the fence locked. I dig through the truck and find a toolbox. I grab the biggest pair of wire cutters I can find, but I waste several minutes I don’t have cutting enough of the fencing to allow me to crawl through it.
I take off at a hobbling run. They could have hidden her anywhere. I stagger down the east wing, past the spot where Beau encouraged me to say goodbye to Renata once and for all. The crate of tools is still there, and I rush past it, searching the site for any sign of her or for something that isn’t right. Everett would have an easy time getting his hands on explosives. He’s blasted his share of buildings, demolished the old to make way for the new. He wouldn’t have needed any effort at all to boobytrap this place, to time detonation at the exact moment he knows I’m in the middle of the structure.
I can’t let that stop me.
Devyn isn’t down this wing.
I want to call out to her, but I’m already a sitting duck, and if they gagged her, she won’t be able to respond.
The cold cuts through my wool jacket, and the suit I wore to the meetings today wasn’t made to keep someone warm in ten-degree cold.
I run down the other wing, but she’s not here. The foundation is empty but for the steel supports that hold up the second floor. Bits of plastic and fluffs of snow swirl around the concrete, the security lights creating shadows. Turning, I’m about to search a different part of the site—the crane, or the framework where we left it when it crashed to the ground after the truck tipped over.
It’s scary how little the site has changed from the day the accident happened.
Then I stop. A whisper, a feeling, something in the cold air. Later, when I look at her over dinner or sit next to her on the couch in front of the fire, I’ll say it was love, but now, when I pause, listening, I don’t call it love, I call it a premonition, intuition, a hunch. She’s here.
I don’t see her, or her jacket, or her purse. I don’t have anything to go on but a voice that tells me I can’t leave.
The only place she could be is up, but there isn’t a ladder.
A portable outhouse lays on its side, forgotten by the sanitation company, the contents frozen in the cold. Graffiti covers the beige plastic, and the door is locked from the inside. That will be something I’ll need to check into, but not right now. A garbage dumpster sits a few hundred feet away, and I roll it over to the outhouse creating crude steppingstones as a way to climb onto the second story.
Gripping a support beam for balance, the cold biting into my fingers, I step onto the outhouse, my dress shoes fighting for purchase against the smooth plastic. From there I climb onto the dumpster, the black lid cracking and sagging from age and exposure to the elements. I try to keep to the container’s edge, but the dumpster’s empty and unstable, and it tips as the wheels roll under my weight. My muscles are already straining, and I grip the floor of the second story, the wood smooth under my fingertips. My back aches and my shoulders burn as I haul myself up.
Panting, I lay flat and catch my breath. Something like that shouldn’t take so much out of me. I’ll never feel my age, never get to fully enjoy the rest of my life all because Declan Everett is jealous of my success.
Dragging in a cold and shuddering breath, I force myself to roll onto my knees, and I stand wobbly and woozily to my feet, a searing pain traveling from my shoulder into my neck. Glimpses of working on this floor flash through my mind, laughing with my men, pounding a hammer strong and true, just like I did to the initials down below. Nothing satisfied me more than a hard day’s work.
That’s not true anymore. Since meeting Devyn, nothing makes me happier than waking up to her.
The floor is uncluttered, and for thousands of feet, support beams create a grid. The wind is sharper up here, blowing hair into my eyes, and briskly, I begin to search. There isn’t anywhere to hide her, not like on the ground where they could have thrown her into the dumpster or locked her in the portable outhouse. I don’t see anything, but something tells me she’s here.
I search the entire perimeter and push back tears of frustration and desperation. If I don’t find her soon, I’ll need to call for help. I don’t know what condition she’s in. Hell, I don’t even know for sure she’s on the site, except for a feeling deep in my bones because Everett couldn’t get this project out of his mind for one fucking second.
Stopping near the south side, I scan the construction site below, searching for any sign of her. A mitten, a shoe.Anything.The boom lays like a broken arm in the dirt, snow glittering like beautiful, crushed diamonds, an odd juxtaposition against the ugliness of what happened that day.
She isn’t here. My gut was wrong.
Clouds float away from the moon, and that’s when I see a lock of her blonde hair glinting in the light.