Hide 'N Seek Read Free

window and front door lock. When that’s done, I’ll have a look around and see what I can find.”
    “I’ll come by and help,” Jamie offered.
    “No. I want you working with Carlos to get everything you can on Mr. Navigator. He may be our only lead to Syd.”
    “So once again you’re cleaning up Syd’s mess.” Jamie let out a disgusted sigh. “The woman is twenty-five years old and doesn’t know what the word responsibility means. You should—”
    “I’m not in the mood, Jamie.”
    She cut him off and hit the end button, shoving the phone into her pocket. The phone started to ring and she thought it was Jamie calling back, but when she looked at the caller ID it was her grandmother.
    “Hi, Nan.”
    Their parents had died in a car accident when she was thirteen. Sydney was three years younger. Nan had raised her and Sydney. Not wanting to worry Nan, Markie thought she would wait until Syd surfaced before getting her involved.
    “Marklynn,” Nan said, voice deep with worry. Her voice was strong for an eighty-year-old woman. Markie could picture Nan in her pink house frock with her gray hair in a neat bun pacing the floor as she often did when she was troubled. And Sydney was usually the cause of her worries.
    Nan was the only one who was allowed to call her by her given name. To Markie, it sounded too formal and since Nan was born in England, it just made sense somehow.
    “Are you okay?”
    “Sydney is in trouble,” she said without missing a beat.
    “Did she call you?” Markie asked, as she was about to enter Syd’s apartment building then stopped at the glass door and turned to look out onto the road where the Navigator had been parked.
    “No. It’s just a feeling,” Nan said. “Have you heard from her?”
    Nan was better at predicting the weather than any meteorologist around. Since Nan’s premonitions were always correct, Markie paused before answering. She didn’t want to upset Nan.
    “I’m at her place. We were to have lunch today but she’s not here.”
    “What has she gotten herself into? Why can’t she be more like you?”
    Yeah, right, Markie thought. How many times had she heard that? Sydney was Sydney. She loved adventure and didn’t want the responsibility of taking care of anyone but herself. Sometimes she wished she were more like her sister instead of taking care of the whole world. But wasn’t that what she did best?
    “There’s no need to worry. She’ll show up in a day or two wondering what all the fuss is about.”
    “No. Something happened to her. I can feel it,” Nan insisted. “She could be hurt.”
    “Let me look into it and get back to you.”
    “You need to find out what happened to her. Can I count on you to do that? She’s not like you.”
    There it was again, the responsibility that she didn’t want being shoved upon her, as it often was when they were growing up. That had created some friction between her and Syd.
    “Marklynn? Are you still there?”
    “Yes, Nan. I’ll take care of it,” she said, weary, when she saw the uniformed officer step out of the squad car. “I gotta go.”
    “Hi I’m Marklynn Brooks,” she said as the officer approached the building and she opened the door to let him in. She dropped the phone in her jacket pocket. “I made the call.”
    He followed her into the building and she waited by Sydney’s apartment door until he motioned for her to enter.
    “Did you touch anything?”
    He was a senior from the Cambridge police department. She could tell from the pins on his collars. He was tall, of athletic build, his head shaved.
    Cambridge was across the river from Boston. Even though her issues were with one man, not the entire Boston PD, word still got around. The way he looked at her she knew that he recognized her after she’d shown him her ID. Maybe she was being paranoid. After all, it had been almost five years ago.
    “I used to be a cop,” Markie said. “I know the drill.”
    “I didn’t ask if you knew the