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Louise frowned, blinking in confusion before she unzipped the bag and peeked inside. She sucked in a small breath. “This is—”
“Over ten thousand dollars. My dad apparently paid Dow for a job in cash, so, um, it’s yours.” Noelle gave her a smile. “I wish you the best, Louise.”
She started to head back to her car when Louise called her name. Noelle turned, tilting her head to the side in question.
“Hold on one sec,” the woman said, pulling at the scarf on her head the way she’d done before and then turning and disappearing for a minute. Noelle took the few steps back to her door, and Louise reappeared, holding something out to her. An iPad. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t totally honest. This was in Dow’s things. It was near the top of the box, and I found it when I moved. I even charged it a week and a half ago so I could wipe it and then sell it. I just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.” She looked momentarily embarrassed. Noelle pulled in a breath, reaching for the electronic device. “Sorry,” Louise said. “I really needed the money.”
Noelle shook her head. “Don’t be. I understand. I’ll ... I’ll look at this, and then I’ll return it. You can still sell it if you want to.”
Louise shook her head and nodded to the duffel bag she’d placed on the floor near the door. Tears filled her eyes, and she tugged on her scarf again. “No. Keep it. Do whatever you want. His code was our dog Scout’s birthday, oh four eleven. Stupid man loved the hell out of that dog. Still cried when he talked about him until ... well, until the last time I saw him. For someone so technical, he sure did pick an easy password, but that was Dow for you. Brilliant and stupid as hell. Anyway, I hope there’s something on it that will help. Thank you for that.” Again, she nodded toward the duffel bag. “You have no idea how much it will help.”
Noelle walked to her car in a slight daze. Well, that was the last thing she’d expected. An iPad. Not a phone, which would have given her more hope of finding something. For all she knew, Dow had used this to download books to further impress that female friend. And yet even so, her heart sped up with excited hope. Anticipation of what might be on it.
She got in her car and cranked up the air and then turned on the iPad. It still had 10 percent charge. She let out a long slow breath as shetyped in the code Louise had given her. The programs and apps popped up on the small screen, and Noelle opened the photos. There were only a handful, and at first, she didn’t comprehend what they were. When she did, her eyes widened, and she almost dropped the device. “Oh my God,” she breathed. She couldn’t search much more right then, as anything else would require a wireless connection. She set the iPad on the passenger seat, and with shaking hands, she gripped the steering wheel.Was this the link they’d been looking for?
CHAPTER FORTY
Cedro let out a small yelp as the door slid open. He’d been drifting into a disturbing dream, and the sound had pulled him quickly from slumber. He watched as two guards entered this time, the man who had taken him out of there and the one who stood guard in the other room. One was holding Grim under his shoulders, and the other was carrying his feet. Cedro’s pulse jumped, and he stared as they carted him over to his cage, tossed him inside, and then brought the door up and secured it.
Cedro waited for the men to leave before hurrying to the far side of his cage. “Hey! Hey! Are you alive?” he called. Panic rose in his throat. He didn’t want to be alone.Please don’t be dead.
Grim lay on the floor of his cage. He was soaking wet, and his skin was bright red. As Cedro stared, trying to see if he had injuries anywhere, the old man startedlaughing. It was soft at first, but then it rose. Cedro blinked. Had he gone insane? What had happened to him to drive him out of his mind? Grim wrapped his arms around his waist, turning onto his side and howling with laughter.
“What’s wrong with you?” Cedro yelled. He wished he had something to throw at the man. His laughter was confusing and scary.
As if the older man had read his mind even while he was having fits of laughter, the sounds grew softer, the laughs turning to gulps and then to shallow breaths. He groaned, removing his arms from his waist and then turning onto his stomach, his cheek against the cold cement floor.For several minutes, he simply breathed that way, drops of moisture rolling down his cheek. Was he soaked in ... sweat? What had they made him do? “I thought you were dead,” Cedro said.
“Almost,” Grim remarked, peeling himself off the floor and rising slowly until he was sitting, slumped against the bars. “But not quite.”
Cedro felt steaming mad, and he wasn’t even sure why. He made a sound of disgust in his throat.How could the old man laugh if they’d done to him what they did to me?“If you wanted to die, why didn’t you, pig?”
Grim smiled, and there was something almost gentle about it. “That’s a good question.” He sighed, then let out another small laugh that faded quickly. Cedro wasn’t going to ask what was funny. Whatever had happened in that room down the hall had made him sweat buckets and made him laugh, but Cedro didn’t want to know, because then he might have to tell Grim what had happened to him, and he couldn’t do that.
Cedro glanced over at the two peppermint candies. He could throw the candies at Grim, but he’d probably miss with all those bars in the way, and even if they hit him, they wouldn’t hurt at all. Plus, he wanted them. He didn’t know why he was saving them; he just was. They reminded him of his father, some of the only good memories he had. His father had told him to eat them slowly, they could be a choking hazard ...
Cedro turned his head to see Grim picking up the two prayer cards they’d both received, fanning himself with them for a moment, his expression thoughtful. “You know your prayers, don’t you, Cedro? Your mother taught them to you, didn’t she?”
Cedro made a grunting sound in his throat and swallowed down the emotion that the mention of his mother brought. Yes, he knew his prayers. He said them sometimes before he fell asleep, not because he was asking anyone for help but because they made him feel less alone.
“Good,” Grim said, and something came into the man’s eyes that Cedro didn’t know how to describe. For a moment, the old man, drenched in sweat and barely sitting up in his cage, lookedfierce. “Pray with me, Cedro,” he said.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Noelle hardly remembered the trip to Evan’s apartment, almost surprised she’d been able to guide herself there in a stupor of shock. She grabbed the iPad and her purse and then climbed out of her car and rushed toward his door.
It only took him a minute to answer her knock, his brow lowering when he saw her. “Noelle. Hey, I thought we were meeting for—are you okay?”
She thrust the iPad toward him. “I took the money to Louise, and she gave me this. It was Dow’s. She was going to wipe it and sell it.” She stepped inside, and he shut the door behind her.
“Have you looked at it?”
“Just the photos.” She opened the iPad and then brought the photos up, handing him the device. She didn’t know exactly what they meant. Her brain felt fuzzy, and she was having trouble connecting the dots betweenthisand everything else they’d found.
Evan took it, his frown increasing as he scrolled through the handful of pictures. “These are pictures of ... the gym where I used to go.” He looked up at her. “The gym I was taken from.”
“I thought so,” she said. He’d never told her the name of the gym where he’d been snatched, but she’d recognized it as one that used tobe—and perhaps still was—about ten minutes from their high school. All the jocks had used it. “What does it mean?” she asked.
Evan had opened something else on the screen, and his eyes widened as he looked at it. “He wrote the name and address of the gym in the notes app,” he said. “And my name too.”
