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“No, he’s at work. Is something wrong?”
Hell, yes. “No. I just missed him.” Her heart dropped when she realized how true that was. She’d missed him for months. “Later.”
She heard her mom say her name.
“Later,” Della promised.
She rested her head on the steering wheel and tried to think. Where would her dad go to spend his days if he wasn’t at work?
* * *
Chase and Burnett walked around the empty house with a foreclosure sign out front. They had taken Chase’s car, but Burnett had insisted on driving. Chase didn’t know if Burnett didn’t trust Chase behind the wheel or if he just liked his car. He hoped the latter.
This was the third place they’d gone today from Kirk’s list and it appeared to be another one to simply scratch off his list. He couldn’t help but worry that this was a wild goose chase.
“You know, I don’t get why he’d be at any of these places and live and work at the apartment.”
“I checked, and all of the addresses you have were recently purchased, in different people’s names—but one of them was Don Williams, the alias that he used in France. He was either putting up his gang, or making sure he had several hideouts.”
Burnett hadn’t promised to ignore any information about Eddie that Stone might give, but he had promised to personally do the interview with Stone, and not hand anything over until he’d looked into it himself.
And since Burnett had called Chase at five this morning and told him to meet him at the FRU office, Chase suspected Burnett had already investigated some things.
They walked up onto the porch, both of them raising their faces to catch any scents and listen for any signs of someone hidden inside.
Chase got nothing.
“Where to next?” Burnett asked, and they started back to Chase’s car.
Before Chase could answer, Burnett’s phone rang. “Hey, babe,” the man answered.
Chase walked ahead to give Burnett privacy. But he stopped walking when he heard Burnett’s signature word for trouble.
“Shit!”
* * *
Della parked in front of the restaurant. The smell of fried rice filled the air. It was the same restaurant her grandparents used to own. The top floor was now used for storage, but it was where her father had lived for the first seven years of his life.
The Chinese couple who’d bought the place from her grandparents still owned it. And her dad brought her here regularly. And while they ate hot and sour soup and fried rice, he’d always tell her about his mother and father and his sister. Little did she know that during all of those talks, he’d been deceiving her about his other two siblings.
Yeah, the fact that he’d had a twin and another sister never came up.
Pushing away anger, she leaned forward, trying to see through the glass window to check out the patrons sitting at the tables.
In the back table, sitting by himself, she saw him. He had a paper in his hands, but she could see the side of his face, and his posture. And the way his hair stuck up in the back gave him away.
Tears filled her eyes. He’d been hiding out every day so he wouldn’t have to tell her mom he couldn’t face the thought that his associates might think he was guilty. Squaring her shoulders, she pushed the pity away, because she was about to upset him a lot more.
But it was time.
For Bao Yu and for Della.
* * *
“What is it?” Chase asked when Burnett hung up and started for the car.
“Your girlfriend,” Burnett said.
