Made to Be Broken by Kelley Armstrong Page B

places someone could stash notes and receipts and scribbled phone numbers. No sign of a baby or anything connected to babyhood or adoption. I pulled a chair to the closet and looked on the top shelf.
    Finally, standing on the chair, looking at stacks of dusty photo albums, I had to admit it. There was no baby here. My brain popped back with "yes, but you could check bank records, phone records..." I was grasping at straws, unwilling to relinquish my one and only idea. I should have thought it through –
    A noise cut me off in midthought. Not a car in the drive or a key turning in a door lock. A toilet flushing.

Chapter Fourteen
    Rule one of breaking and entering: check the goddamned house for people.
    The first tingle of alarm quickly evaporated. I wanted answers? Here was my source. I knew the Draytons had Destiny. What better proof than a confession? The toilet flush had come from downstairs. Either Lauren had returned, or she'd never left. As I crept to the hall doorway, I pulled out my gun. Then I concentrated on listening.
    Footsteps padded across the hardwood floor. I ran a quick mental inventory on my knapsack. None of my supplies could be used for binding, but I'd seen bandage rolls in the main bathroom. They'd do.
    A squeak came from below. A chair being reclined. Perfect. Lauren was relaxing, probably with a book or magazine, enjoying her morning coffee. I could slip up behind, put the gun to her head, and she'd never see me. I'd take the bandages, but only as a last resort. With someone like Lauren, the cold steel of a gun pressing against the back of her neck would be enough.
    I took three steps toward the main bathroom.
    "Mom?"
    My heart slammed into my throat and I stopped so fast my shoe squeaked on the wood.
    "Mom!" A racking cough, then a muttered, "How long does it take her to pick up medicine?"
    The younger son, home from school, sick. No problem. He'd still know what happened to Destiny. I'd just –
    The image flashed in my mind. Pressing the gun to the head of a teenage boy.
    My God, what was I thinking?
    I took a deep breath.
    Destiny wasn't here. If she was, I would have found something. She wasn't here and the Draytons probably didn't have anything to do with her disappearance, and I'd been ready to hold a teenage boy at gunpoint to prove it.
    I crept back into the master bedroom and looked out the window, which overlooked the back of the house. There was a two-foot-wide overhang between floors, more architectural than structural, and I wasn't sure whether it would hold my weight.
    I removed the screen then slid through the open window, grasped the window sill, and lowered myself until my feet touched wood. Still gripping the ledge, I tested my weight on the overhang. Next I maneuvered the screen back into place. An imperfect job, one I hoped would be blamed on the cleaning staff.
    Footsteps stomped up the stairs. I ducked beneath the sill, listened. A door slammed as the boy retreated to his room.
    I crouched on the overhang and looked at the ten-foot drop. If I broke my ankle, it'd serve me right. I hit the ground hard, but straight, then I hightailed it back to my truck.
    An amateur's mistake. I'd been so busy laughing at the Draytons' lack of security I hadn't taken the most basic precautions.
    Sure it had been a sound lead. But even if I could believe Frank Drayton would hire a hitman to kill his granddaughter's teenage mother, I had to consider the kind of hit it had been. Professional. That required someone like Jack or me, and to get us you needed top-notch, Mafia-grade criminal connections. When your average Joe hires someone to off a lover or business partner, he ends up with semicompetent drug-addled morons.
    I remember a case from the eighties. Helmuth Buxbaum. I once went on a Sunday-school trip to his house, to swim in the indoor pool. A true pillar of the church. When his wife started interfering with his nightlife of cocaine and hookers, he decided to get rid of her. So, for