False Pretenses - Kathy Herman [82]
Vanessa picked up her cell phone, her hand shaking, and passed it back to Shapiro. Would he figure out the anonymous caller number she entered in the directory was the Broussards’ prepaid cell number? Would he think to look for that?
“Now start the car!”
“Where are we going?”
“Shut up. Just do what I say.”
CHAPTER 26
Zoe sat on her air mattress, hugging her knees, wishing Pierce would say something about the phone call they’d just had with Jude.
Finally she said, “Thank you for staying calm. I know it was humiliating telling Jude our personal business.”
He lifted his gaze and shot her one of his classic you-got-that-right looks.
“At least Jude knows everything now,” she said. “Maybe he’ll get DNA evidence off the clothes and shoes I was wearing when Shapiro assaulted me.”
“We can only hope.”
The disgust in his voice made her want to cry. Could she blame him for feeling repulsed by the whole drama?
“When Vanessa calls,” Zoe said, “we need to fill her in on everything so she won’t be alarmed if she sees deputies in our apartment.”
Pierce stretched out on his air mattress, his hands behind his head. “You’d better hope they find something that tells them who this Shapiro creep is, or we’re going to live in fear until he finally kills us. Drug dealers are ruthless. They settle every score. I still can’t believe you got us into this.”
Zoe wiped away the tear that trailed down her face. Did it even matter that there was no way she could have seen this coming? None of it would have happened if she hadn’t tried to be someone she wasn’t.
A dull thud came from upstairs. Zoe froze.
“What was that?” Pierce jumped to his feet and grabbed the ball bat from behind the door.
For a split second she was a child again, staring up at her drunken father.
Pierce gripped the bat with one hand and put his index finger to his lips with the other.
She listened intently for footsteps moving across the ceiling, but the only sound she heard was the thumping of her heart. Had something fallen? There was no furniture upstairs and nothing hanging on the walls that she could recall.
Neither of them moved for several minutes. Had Shapiro found them? Had he forced Vanessa or Ethan to tell him where they were? Fear seized her. What if they were going to die?
God, when Ethan prayed, he said we’re never out of Your sight—not for a second. That means You see us right now. Help us! Don’t let Shapiro hurt us!
“We need to get out of here,” Zoe whispered.
“And go where? We’re sure not safe outside this house.” Pierce stuck his head out in the hallway and then turned to her. “I’m going upstairs and take a look. It’s probably nothing.”
“It didn’t sound like nothing.”
“Every door and window is locked,” he said. “There has to be an explanation for the sound. Wait here.”
“Are you kidding?” Zoe scrambled to her feet. “I’m not staying here by myself. I’m coming with you.”
“Suit yourself. Stay right behind me.”
They crept down the hall to the back stairs and slowly climbed, one cautious step at a time, to the next level.
Despite the massive live oaks that shaded the house, enough light came through the window at the end of the hallway for them to see where they were going. Zoe stayed right on Pierce’s heels, clinging to the hem of his shirt, half expecting the ghost of Josiah Langley to jump out at them at any moment.
Pierce entered the first room, looking and listening intently before moving on to the next. Except for the sound of their breathing, it was absolutely still.
When they came to the last bedroom—where the deputies had found the door to the secret tunnel—Zoe stopped and clung to the door frame, her pulse racing so fast she feared she might faint.
Pierce crept over to the closet and gingerly tapped the walls with the bat. “I see the door to the tunnel.”
“Isn’t it behind the bookshelf?”
“No, the bookshelf’s next to it. The deputies must have left it there.” He turned the knob and pulled open the door, jumping back as if he were expecting someone to lunge at him.
“Do