Colin immediately pulled over, braking hard. He jumped out of the car and took off running, not waiting for Maria as she struggled to open her door, furious that her body had gone into revolt and needed to recover. She didn’t have time for that. Not now. Especially not now. Finally pushing the door open, she willed herself to stand and start moving.
By then, Colin had already reached the lobby door. She saw him struggling to open it, finding it locked, then jabbing at something beside the handle. When Maria looked up, there were seven or eight offices still illuminated on various floors, and she watched as Colin pounded the glass. She could tell from his body language that he was debating whether to smash his way in, but Maria instinctively knew that Serena wasn’t in the office building. Nor was Dr. Manning. He’d been far too careful to this point to make that mistake now; he’d been far too meticulous, and there were too many people in the building, too many potential witnesses, too many things that could go wrong. She guessed that Dr. Manning had been waiting for Serena on the sidewalk in front of the building and probably had a story about a pipe that burst or whatever, so the interview would be held elsewhere. She knew that he wanted someplace private, where he knew he wouldn’t be caught, a place that would burn.
“Colin!” she tried to shout. The sound came out weak. She tried to wave her arms, but the dizziness came back in a rush and she stumbled. “Colin!” she called out again, and this time he heard her voice and ran toward her.
“The door has one of those key-code locks! There’s no listing for the foundation, so I just hit all the buttons, but no one’s buzzing.”
“Serena’s not in there,” Maria forced out. “Manning took her someplace else. There are too many people inside, too many people still working.”
“If she got in his car…”
“She texted that she was walking to the interview.”
“Then where’s his car? I don’t see it.”
“Check around the corner,” Maria wheezed, still fighting waves of dizziness. “He probably parked there. If he’s looking for someplace deserted, he took her to one of the shacks or boathouses near the river. Hurry!” she said, feeling like she was about to fall over. “Just go. I’ll get my phone and call the police…” And my parents, my relatives, Lily, everyone who jumped in their cars to follow us, she thought.
By then, Colin was already backing up toward the intersection, uncertain, wanting to trust her, but…
“How do you know that’s where they’ll be?”
“Because,” she said, wondering when the police would arrive, remembering the lakeside cabin where Cassie had been murdered, remembering the shacks and boathouses common to this portion of the Cape Fear River, “that’s where Laws would have gone.”
CHAPTER 33
Colin
M
aria’s instincts had been right. He found the blue Camry parked on the cross street that ran beside the building. He sprinted past it. Straight ahead was an unkempt field that stretched toward the muddy banks of the Cape Fear River, a black void ahead of him, barren of reflection on this almost moonless night.
The street gave way to a gravel road that forked to the left and right, toward the river’s edge. One way led to a small, run-down marina with a rusting metal structure that was home to a hodgepodge of boats, protected by low fencing; in the other direction stood two decaying barnlike structures near the riverbank, spaced maybe fifty yards apart. Those buildings looked abandoned, with cracked planks and peeling, faded paint, overgrown weeds and kudzu surrounding them. Colin slowed, frantically trying to guess where Manning had taken Serena. In that instant, he saw a ray of light leaking out intermittently between the planks of the abandoned building on the left, vanishing and reappearing.
The beam of a flashlight?