Forced Disappearance by Marton Dana

Author:Marton, Dana [Marton, Dana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Published: 2014-11-17T16:00:00+00:00

Oh, for love’s sake. Miranda pushed forward. She remembered now why she’d fallen for him in the first place. Glenn never said what you’d expect from a guy. He was the type who’d keep a woman on her toes, and that was a good thing.

They kept walking south. When a police car turned onto the street, coming toward them, Glenn pulled her into the open courtyard of an abandoned house.

The ten-by-twenty-foot tiled space was strewn with dead potted plants and garbage. Two smaller doors opened from the courtyard, both of them boarded.

As the police car passed, Glenn threw her a questioning look. “We need someplace to spend the night.”

She nodded. They’d spent more time hidden on the bus than she’d expected. A small town like this would probably have only one flight to Caracas per day. Chances were, they’d missed it today. Their best bet was to get off the streets for the night. The police might step up patrols after dark. She didn’t want to run into them. She didn’t want to run into the criminal element either.

The abandoned home looked like decent shelter. They had no guarantee that they’d find better.

She helped Glenn pry the boards off the nearest door. A little pushing, a little heaving, and they were soon in a narrow hallway, laid with the same white and blue tiles as the courtyard.

The masonry walls were peeling, a bare light bulb hung from the ceiling. She flipped on the light switch. Nothing happened. “No electricity.”

For now, enough late-day sunlight filtered through the windows that they could see even when she pulled the door closed behind them. No sense in advertising that there were squatters here.

The downstairs consisted of only two rooms, one littered with broken furniture, the other—which might have been a kitchen before everything got ripped out—with more trash plus two dead pigeons. Way beyond the stage where they could be eaten, unfortunately.

Miranda ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. “Looks better up here.”

In the first room, an old mattress leaned against the far wall. Other than that, the room was empty and clean save for some dust. The single window looked to the street, its glass unbroken, a plus.

“At least we’ll be able to see if the cops or the guardsmen are coming, doing a house-to-house search,” she told Glenn when he came up behind her.

“I doubt they’ll do that. I have a feeling they’d prefer to catch us quietly, without causing a scene inside the city.” He opened the window a crack to let in fresh air. “There are too many tourists here. Must keep up appearances.”

They walked across the hall to a smaller room, also empty, then to the bathroom in the back. She could have danced with joy at the sight of the single sink, beat-up cast-iron tub, and toilet.

“And now the moment of truth.” She reached for the tap, turned it on. Nothing. “Oh well. It would have been too easy.”

But even as she said the last word, the pipe began to creak.

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