They were gone.
I flipped through the shirts again, then dumped them all out on the closet floor. No cards, no money, nothing. Then for good measure, I rifled through all the drawers. Nothing. It was like the Grinch had taken my Christmas, not even leaving the empty envelope behind.
I had a crazy thought that I’d imagined all of it. Colin was safe, and I’d only imagined my meeting with Andrew and the cops in some sort of housewife hallucinations. I indulged in those fantasies for half a second before snapping back to reality. Colin needed me.
Except Colin must have found the money and the business card. I rolled that over in my mind—he found them together. Would he have thought, was it possible he might think they were connected? That I’d gotten the money from the cops? And there was only one reason the cops would give me money like that: to betray Colin.
No, he’d know better. I wouldn’t betray him—I hadn’t—and he trusted me. He’d said as much to his brother when Philip had accused me of being an informant. But the money—fuck! And of course Colin had no idea that I’d even met with Andrew, much less that he’d given me money. This looked bad.
The discovery compounded the cluster fuck, but it didn’t change my purpose. If anything, it strengthened it. I couldn’t sit on my hands at home while Colin did God knew what with the wrong information. It could get him hurt—or arrested.
I peeked in on Bailey, sending up a quick prayer for her safety here at home. Back downstairs, Linda came in carrying a thick book. She hugged me hard, clasping me to her round body. I resisted as if a hug was a threat to me, but she held on until I slumped in her arms.
“Don’t worry, hon. Whatever happens, you’ll be okay, you know. Go on now.”
The words helped, which was strange, because they never had before. I stumbled from the house, hoping I was doing the right thing, hoping I wouldn’t be Colin’s downfall.
Chapter Four
Some of my panic morphed into frustration as I circled the warehouses that huddled the one I was looking for. For blocks they went on, all large gray boxes, and none of them labeled. Around I went, peering at the tiny block numbers on the street signs, trying to make out the right section of street. Christ, if I was too late because of a fucking street sign…well, that would just be hilarious.
The streetlamps glowed meekly, suspended in the thick of the night. No grassy plots or stick-thin trees dotted this concrete landscape. They’d done away with any pretense that this place was natural.
Cars whirred by, oblivious to my worry. The people inside them surely had worries of their own, but to me those cars were just two bright lights tacked onto metal freight, part of the machinery. All backdrop.
I hadn’t identified the warehouse, but I found my stop anyway. Shelly’s car. Parked on the side of the road behind a long line of cars, innocuously dark. I pulled in behind her and cut the engine. We were in this together, after all.
The cars zoomed past my door, shaking my car like a bobblehead. At a break in the line, I opened the car door and clipped around to the curb. I started down the sidewalk when I heard a car door open behind me. My breath stuttered, and I whirled.
Shelly sat in the shadows of the backseat, head bent low.
“Christ, Shelly! You scared me.”
She scared me still, unmoving. I walked back toward her, or at least I tried to, but ended up making an arc on the sidewalk, keeping my distance. I squinted into the car—it was empty.
I approached cautiously and squatted in front of her. “Shelly? What’s going on?”
She lifted her face, streaked with tear tracks. “I made a mistake.”
“I know, shhh.” I tried to soothe. “Did you get ahold of Philip?”
She shook her head, and fresh tears spilled over.
“It’s okay. We’ll find them. We’ll fix this.”
“It’s too late,” she said.
“No,” I said, feeling clumsy. I wished I had a large, soft body made for comfort and the courage to give her a hug. “Whatever happens, we’ll be okay.”
I expected her to blow me off with an I’m always okay, honey, but she sniffled and wiped her face with her forearms like a child. We were too young for this. Not the skulking around at night—that was the propriety of youth. We were too young for our lives. Selling our bodies and making babies. But then again, when was anyone really ready to do those things?