“No, I think he’s truly terrified. When the calls from his father started, he did a one-eighty. Before that he was calm, we were chilling, watching TV. After the calls, he was unhinged. I’ve seen nothing that smacks of mental illness, and I’d recognize it if I saw it.” The comment was a reminder that Freddie’s father, who’d recently reentered his life after a twenty-year absence, suffered from bipolar disorder.

“I’ll talk to him and explain the plan. Your job is to keep him calm until I get back.”

“Lucky me.” They rounded the corner and Freddie withdrew the keycard from his pocket to open the door to an empty room. “Aw, shit, he’s gone.”

“Check the bathroom,” Sam said, her heart sinking.

“Gone.”

“Fuck.” She rushed out of the room and ran for the stairwell at the end of the hallway, well aware that he had a decent head start on them. Freddie’s pounding footsteps followed behind her. They went down seven flights and burst into the lobby, startling an older couple.

“You’re the second lady!” the man said.

Ignoring him, Sam said to Freddie, “Take the back.” She ran for the main doors, hoping for a glimpse of Josh before he disappeared, but there was no sign of him. Motherfucker. She jogged to the corner of Fifteenth Street, but he wasn’t there either. Goddamn it.

Freddie came out the front door and ran over to her. “Anything?”

“No.”

Sam powered up her phone and tried to call Josh, but the call went straight to voicemail. She left a message, begging him to call her, to trust her to keep him safe, and then slapped the phone closed.

“So what now?”

“Now I do what I probably should’ve done on Friday,” she said grimly. “I’m going to Farnsworth.”

“What should I do?”

“Grab your stuff and anything of Josh’s out of the room and go home.. I’ll call you after I see the chief.”

“You were trying to help him, Sam. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Maybe so, but if he turns up dead, that’s on me.”

“No, it’s on the person who kills him.”

“Let’s hope we can find him before anything happens.”

“Since I’ve got nothing going on at home until later when Elin gets back, I’m heading to HQ. Hit me up there when you know what the plan is.”

“What do I tell the Rollings family if he turns out to be their son and I can’t find him?”

“We’ll find him.”

As Sam trudged to her car, her stomach aching the way it used to when she was strung out on diet cola, she wished she shared his certainty.

Chapter Nine

CHAPTER NINE