He needed to check behind the cartons, a good hiding space, if Merritt was in fact here. The odds were that he was not, but the consequence if that slim chance proved to be the case would not be good.
Shaw could only search behind the boxes by walking around the stacks.
Making him a perfect target.
And so he picked another option: with his left hand he shoved the top row of cartons into the space behind them, keeping the Glock pointed toward where an attacker would emerge.
One by one, they fell with varying types and levels of noise. China and glassware were not his priorities, but nothing seemed to shatter.
This took less than a minute. He circled around and confirmed no one was here.
When he finished, he returned to the kitchen, locked the door and began turning on lights. He walked from room to room, looking for anything that might tell him where Allison had gone.
It didn’t take long to see that this would probably be futile. The bedroom in the back was empty, except for a few storage boxes, which were sealed. As for the other two, it looked like a tornado hadswept through them. Of course they’d been in a hurry to leave, but this was not the result of fast, careless packing. The rooms had been tossed, and by somebody who knew what they were doing—an ex-cop, for instance. Drawers had been removed and inverted, as Merritt would have looked for anything taped underneath. The contents of the desk, dresser and bedside tables were in different piles on the carpeted floor. Shaw could just about tell where Merritt had sat to sort through what he’d gathered.
The same was true about the daughter’s room.
Anything helpful would be gone.
He doused the lights and stepped outside, then walked to a neighbor’s house. The home was dark, except for one interior light, dim, and he was not surprised there was no answer when he rang the bell. The residence on the other side was well lit and occupied. The woman who answered nodded pleasantly to a smiling Shaw—his expression of choice for getting information from strangers. He told her he was a friend of Allison’s mother’s, a not wholly deceptive statement, and had some things to give her. She was supposed to be home but she wasn’t answering the door.
“You know when they’ll be back?”
“Oh, I couldn’t tell you. I haven’t seen them today. Matter of fact, they keep to themselves mostly. The mother and girl. Always seemed suspicious. Not social at all. I left cupcakes, and she mailed me a note. I thought she’d come over in person.”
Shaw thanked her and returned to the street in front of the house and walked to the intersection of Maple View and Cross County, a four-lane thoroughfare. Sitting on the sidewalk in the middle of the block was a man in dusty rumpled clothing. A sign beside him informed passersby he was out of work and a veteran.
Shaw approached. He dropped a ten into a cardboard box, in which sat a few coins.
“Bless you.” Spoken with an understandable hint of wariness, since Shaw was not walking on after the donation.
“Got a question.” He displayed pictures of Allison and Hannah on his phone. “These two, they’re missing. You seen them today?”
He frowned, tilted his head.
A twenty made its way into the box.
“Yeah, they left, fast, was hours ago. Her SUV ran the stop sign. A driver gave her the finger. She just kept going fast, till she got to the truck.”
“What truck?”
“White pickup. Was about there.” He pointed.
“Ford F-150?”
He shrugged.
“You said she stopped?”
The man chuckled. “Yep. Let the air out of a tire. Then kept going. Bat outta hell.”
There were skid marks where she’d gunned the engine.
“How soon after she left did the driver of the truck come back?”
“Oh, right after. Dangerous-looking guy. Pale, spooky. Ghoulish. Don’t hear that word much, do you?”
Shaw pulled out his phone and showed a mug shot of Merritt.