The Code of Silence Collection by Tim Shoemaker

Author:Tim Shoemaker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2015-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 44

Cooper knew it would be smarter to go home and change clothes first, but Stein’s house was on the way. Cooper sped down the block, heading straight for Stein’s place. His house was really close to Raymond Proctor’s … which meant it definitely was in the direction Cooper had last seen the minivan. Hiro’s theory was making more and more sense. Joseph Stein could be the man. Rain pelted him in the face. He blinked back the drops that hit his eyes and stayed focused on the road. “God, I can’t bear the thought that Gordy got taken instead of me,” he whispered. “Don’t let us be too late.”

With all the water, there was no way Cooper could get the speed he wanted. The speed he needed.

He saw the realty sign posted in the front yard from a distance. The house was small. One of the older single-story homes in Rolling Meadows. That meant one less floor to search, if it came to that. And he knew it would come to that. Cooper was going to search that house from top to bottom—legal or not. But the realtor probably never changed the locks. Joseph Stein could have snuck back in easily.

He pulled into the driveway with Hiro and Lunk right behind him. Was there basement? He scanned along the front of the house for a window well cover. Sure enough. And the basement would be the most likely place to check.

His heart hammered under his rib cage as he took the steps to the house and peered in the front window. Empty. Just like Proctor’s house. But Stein left in a hurry last Halloween. There had been no time for him to stop at the house to grab anything. Likely the bank that foreclosed had moved all Stein’s stuff to a storage unit somewhere—or maybe to a dumpster.

“We should get out of sight,” Hiro said. “We don’t need neighbors calling the police.”

Cooper totally agreed. Three kids hanging around an empty house? There was nothing to see through the front window anyway. Hiro and Lunk rounded the house and peered through the back windows.

The concrete driveway led to a single-car garage. Cooper hustled toward it. Maybe Stein had pulled the minivan inside.

Overgrown bushes flanked each side, and Cooper picked his way through them to look through the window. Three feet away, he stopped. The windows had been painted. From the inside.

Why would a guy paint out his garage windows? What—did he think somebody would try to steal his lawn mower if they saw it? What was Stein hiding in there?

He circled around the garage to the back window. The same white paint. Thin enough to allow diffused light inside, but too thick for anyone to see in. The window on the far side of the garage was the same.

Cooper checked down the driveway, then knocked on the wood siding of the garage. “Gordy. You in there?” He listened—hoping to hear a sound. A scraping noise. A knock. Anything to let him know his cousin was inside.

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