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“Kayli,” Axel said, “come check out the bedroom with me.”
The bedroom had a double bed, mattress stripped, no headboard. There was a simple dresser against the wall. Outside of clothes being piled up in the corner, there were a handful of toys in the room, but not much else as far as personal items. A side table held an alarm clock, and a dock for a cordless phone but the phone was missing. Nothing extraordinary.
Axel went to the dresser, and started checking out the contents. I went to the closet. Work uniforms were hung up along a line, and the other side had girl clothes. One side for him, one side for her. “What am I looking for?”
“Anything,” Axel said. He knelt, checking the lower drawers. After, he went for the side table by the bed, checking the contents. “Phone numbers. Photos. Tax records. I want to know the type of cereal he likes. What his favorite football team is. Let’s find out if he’s got any friends.”
“He has a little girl who has taken over his house,” I said. I stood in the closet, feeling weird about snooping other than just scanning the contents. “Her stuff is everywhere.”
“True.” He picked up a toy pony that had been in the table. He presented it to me. “Funny how he’s got all this stuff here for her.”
“How is that funny?”
He dropped the pony back into the table and closed the drawer. “Does it seem like Sara was here only every other weekend?”
I thought about it. “Seems like she lives here.”
He nodded. “Which tells us a lot more about this situation without ever talking to them. Picture this: wife gets a bug up her ass about wanting more money. She goes to the ex for it. When he refuses, she phones the police about how he’s suddenly kidnapped the daughter.”
“That’s still a lot to speculate,” I said. “I mean he can’t work for more money if he’s on the run. How do we know that’s how it happened? What if he’s just a jerk?”
He came over to the closet, scanning the items. “Does this look like he’s selfish? He works, and he takes care of his little girl. His whole world revolves around Sara.”
“Must be nice,” I said, and then bit my lip before I could say anything else. I didn’t mean to sound bitter. It really was sweet the way the guy cared about his kid. It didn’t seem like the place where a little girl was unhappy. She had toys. She had a cute place to sleep. I didn’t grow up with much, but I could just imagine a little girl crawling all over this place, with a dad that looked after her.
Axel turned his head toward me, his intense dark eyes studying my face. “You okay?” he asked.
I folded my arms over my stomach, shifting from one foot to the other. “I’m… I don’t know. You make a point, though. I want to know more before we simply hunt him down.”
Axel nodded. He reached out, slowly, placing his palms on my shoulders, getting me to face him. “This is why we check out situations before we dive head in. If I were the police, I’d have to arrest him on sight, and take her back to her mother, no questions asked. This way, we’ve got a chance to make things right. We get the whole of it, and make a decision. A humane decision not restricted by laws.”
His warm touch, encouraging me, had the pit of anger in my stomach easing a little. “Who makes the decision?” I asked. “The Academy? Do you report back what you find and they tell you?”
“We make the decision,” he said. “And if you’re with our group, you’ll have that choice, too.”
“I will?”
He nodded. “Everyone in the group gets a vote. Marc and I may need to make a final decision, but everyone is heard.” He released me and started rifling through the clothes.
I stepped back, letting him do the snooping. “Corey told you?” I asked.
“Told me what?”
The way Axel was talking, I just assumed Corey must have mentioned it. “I mean,” I said, trying to come up with something to protect Corey’s request not to let the others know. “Corey said he was coming down here, and I kind of jumped on it and asked to come along. I didn’t realize you even knew I was going.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, he mentioned it before he left.”
“I’d asked if it was another Academy thing,” I said. “He told me it was.”
Axel went for a couple of boxes on top of the shelf. He opened one, and started sorting through some papers. “Is there something you’re trying to ask me?”
“If the Academy is supposed to stay a secret, I didn’t think I would be allowed to join in on this stuff.”
“You’re here because we’re okay with you being here, and you want to be,” he said. He held the box with one arm for a moment so he could take out the black glasses and put them on his face. He pilfered through check stubs and paperwork. He put them back in and put the box back on the shelf. He reached for the other box. “No one is in the Academy who doesn’t want to be a part of it.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to suggest I could be in it, but again, Corey saying I shouldn’t tell them yet forced me to stop. Corey said he could get me in quickly, so I had to listen to him. Still, if Axel wanted to talk about the Academy, no harm in asking, right?
The phone inside the apartment started ringing. We paused, looking at each other in the closet. My heart hammered at my ribs like we’d been caught, when it was only the phone.
Axel shoved the box he’d been holding into my arms, marching out to the side table where the holder was. “Shit,” he said. He turned, scanning. “Find that phone.”
I put the box back, and rushed out.
I followed the sound to the living room. I paused, listening.
Axel nudged me. “The couch.” He started pulling off the couch pillows.
I got on my knees, checking the underside. I found it just next to a doll, propped up with it like she had been talking to it. I scooped both of them up, presenting to him. “Do you want to answer?”
Axel took the phone, checking the screen just before it went dark. He pulled out his cell phone and started typing into it.
“What are we doing?” I asked.
Axel put a finger to his lips, encouraging me to be quiet.
“Hello,” Axel said into his phone. “I got a call yesterday from this number and I was just calling back… I…” He stumbled over his words, but I sensed this was on purpose. “Sorry, just wanted to check who it was.” Pause. “Oh, right. The bond place. Am I on your books? Probably not. I’m a health insurance agent. I probab
ly called and left a message to schedule a sales appointment. Could I schedule one with…? Hello?” He frowned and then hung up. “Bail bond place is calling.”
That didn’t seem right. “I thought the old lady paid those guys off. Why would they call? Are they still looking for him?”
Axel shook his head for a moment and pointed to the door. “We’ll talk in a minute. We need to leave.”
“Why?”
“I don’t think they called randomly. They know someone’s here.”
I turned toward the door.
Axel tugged my arm. “Hang on.” He went to the door, checked out the glass and then ducked into the corner. He shook his head and then pointed to the bedroom. “Go.”
He didn’t have to tell me. Someone was coming.
I started for the window in the bedroom, ready to jump out, when Axel nearly tackled me to the floor.
“Under the bed,” he whispered.
I followed him, crawling on my stomach underneath the bed. It was crazy. It would be obvious, wouldn’t it?
Axel crawled in after me just as there was scraping at the door. There was talking, a shout and then another. I couldn’t hear exactly, but I understood they were warnings. They were banging on the door, telling people who might be inside the apartment to get down. I imagined they had guns ready and pointing inside.
Axel took out his pocket knife and started cutting up the cambric under the box spring. I was seething at him, worried he’d make noise, but the knife slid through the material easily.
Axel climbed in first, squeezing in, using his butt against a wide supporting beam, he gripped at the wood frame against the top. “Climb in,” he whispered.
“Where?”
Axel tugged at my arm. With the guys at the door still shouting warnings, we had some cover noise. I climbed into the hole he’d made, between two slats of wood. He pulled me in until I was nestled between him and the top of the box spring.
