Disillusioned

by Christy Barritt

  Despite Nikki’s fears, her concern for the teen superseded everything else. Desmond’s parents must be scared right now—out of their minds with worry. Nikki knew what that was like.

  Marti shook her head again. “No, not yet. They’re giving him twenty-four hours.”

  Nikki rubbed her temples as she stood and began pacing. “I don’t understand. Did Bobby abduct him? Did he abduct Bobby? Did they leave together?”

  No one had an answer. She didn’t expect them to. But it felt good to voice the questions aloud.

  “There’s one other thing I thought you should know,” Marti said. “I don’t know Desmond’s family that well. We go to church together. He’s obviously got Hispanic heritage. Anyone can tell by looking at his coloring. But his mom also has dark skin and hair.”

  “Okay . . .” Where was Marti going with this?

  “Anyway . . .” Marti’s gaze skittered up to Nikki’s. “His mom just told me that Desmond was adopted when he was six years old.”

  “From where?” Nikki hardly wanted to ask the question.

  “It was an orphanage in Nicaragua, but I guess he was abandoned by his parents, so no one really knew much about his background.”

  “What?” Kade said, disbelief in his voice.

  Marti nodded. “It’s true. The family moved here the following year because her husband lost his job. Everyone just assumed that Desmond was their biological child. But he isn’t.” She paused. “What if what Bobby said was true?”

  Nikki’s fingers splayed over her stomach. She felt sick. Absolutely sick.

  “Maybe it’s time to stop hiding. Maybe it’s time to go to the authorities,” she said.

  To her great surprise, Kade shook his head. “No. They’d lock both of us up. And Nikki, we can’t deny that this goes deeper than we know. We need to find answers, and we need to stay free to do it.”

  Kade knew their days of hiding out here were quickly coming to an end. If they wanted to stop this madness, they were going to have to take chances, take risks, and possibly expose themselves to the people pursuing them.

  But every time he thought about Nikki, his heart ached with regret. He didn’t want to put her in that situation. He didn’t want to put her in the line of fire.

  He also knew that she wouldn’t sit back and do nothing when there was so much at stake. He knew better than to try to stop her.

  “There’s one other thing I wanted to mention,” Marti said, staring down each person at the table. “I found this forum of people on the dark web.”

  “Were they talking about Bobby?” Nikki’s voice sounded breathless.

  Marti shook her head. “No, they were talking about baseball games. They mentioned an Ace.”

  Kade’s blood pressure spiked. “Did they say anything else?”

  She shook her head again. “No, I’m sorry. But I thought it could be confirmation that Bobby was telling the truth.”

  “Now we just have to find him.” Nikki leaned back in her chair with a thump.

  Marti’s eyes brightened. “This may be nothing, but I was listening to my police scanner—”

  “You have a police scanner?” Kade said.

  “You know I love conspiracy theories, right? Police scanners kind of fit right in there. Anyway, I heard there was an abandoned vehicle on the side of Lankford Highway. It’s a Jeep.”

  Kade and Nikki exchanged a glance.

  “Bobby.” Nikki looked even paler than before.

  Kade grabbed his leather jacket from the coat rack by the back door and slipped it on. “I need to see it.”

  “What if the police are there?” Nikki’s voice was fraught with tension.

  Marti raised her hand, almost comically. “I also heard there’s a brawl out at the marina in Cape Charles. The police there called in backup, so there’s a good chance our sheriff and his deputy are out there now.”

  Marti was proving to be a wealth of information and a huge help to them right now, Kade mused. She’d been a godsend, for sure.

  “Can you take me in your car, Marti?” Kade asked.

  “Of course,” Marti said.

  Kade glanced at Tennyson. “Ten Man, hold down the fort here. Nikki, we’ll be right back.”

  “I’m going with you.” Nikki grabbed a sweatshirt by the back door.

  “That’s not a good idea.”

  “It’s not an option. I’m going. Bobby’s my brother.”

  They stared at each other, neither of them budging.

  “Guys, time is running out here.” Marti tapped her foot, looking back and forth between them. “I don’t know how long it will take for them to stop that fistfight.”

  Kade frowned but nodded. Marti was right: they were wasting valuable time arguing. “Come on then.”

  Kade and Nikki remained low in the car as Marti drove them. Twenty minutes later, she pulled off the highway and behind the Jeep. The back left tire was flat.

  Sure enough, it was Kade’s. What was Bobby thinking? Kade mused. Where was he now? And what did his text message mean? When they’d tried to call the number associated with the text, all they’d gotten was the voice mail of someone named Greg. Bobby had planned this down to the very last detail.

  Kade hopped out. “Stay here.”

  Before Nikki could respond, he hurried to the tire. There was a nail in it. Whatever Bobby’s plans had been, they’d been thwarted.

  “Anything?” Nikki appeared beside him.

  Kade sighed and looked at the highway. A semi drove past, ruffling their hair. Luckily the driver didn’t appear to give them a second glance. “Someone could recognize you.”

  “I’m wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. I doubt that. Besides, can we concentrate on Bobby right now?”

  Kade knew he didn’t have time to argue. He tried the door, and it easily opened. Someone had left it unlocked. Kade had halfway feared he’d find Bobby dead in the backseat. Nothing was beyond the realm of possibility.

  But there was no Bobby inside, nor were there any clues as to what he’d been doing in the vehicle.

  Kade paused and glanced around. Where would Bobby have gone from here? There were woods on one side. Train tracks stretched across the street, along with a field of collard greens.

  “This doesn’t really help us, does it?” Nikki said.

  Kade wasn’t ready to concede. He squatted closer and pointed to the ground. What he saw didn’t make him feel better.

  “There are footsteps,” he said. “And another set of tire marks.”

  “Someone picked Bobby up maybe. But who?” Nikki sounded just as baffled as Kade felt.

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  Kade nodded back toward Marti. “The sooner we’re out of sight, the better. Let’s go.”

  “You’re not going to take your Jeep back with you?”

  Kade shook his head. “Bobby took my only set of keys. I planned for many scenarios, but not that. Let’s get out of here before someone sees us.”

  They climbed back into Marti’s sedan, and she pulled onto the busy highway.

  They filled her in as she drove them back to Jack and Savannah’s house.

  “None of this makes sense,” Marti mused. “Why would Bobby take off?”

  Either to be a hero or to set a desperate plan in motion, Kade thought to himself.

  This is my war. The words still gave him chills.

  “That’s the question we’ve been asking ourselves,” Nikki said. “He may have been concerned that we would turn him over to the police.” She didn’t tell Marti that they had in fact discussed doing that.

  “You don’t think—” Marti stopped abruptly.

  “What?” Nikki leaned toward the front seat, and the knot of worry appeared between her eyes again.

  “Nothing.”

  “No, say it,” Nikki encouraged. “I can handle it.”

  Marti sucked on her bottom lip. “You don’t think he left so he could help ARM detonate their plan of attack?”

 
Kade had thought the same thing, but he hadn’t wanted to voice it aloud. But Nikki seemed to handle the possibility fairly well. She frowned and leaned back.

  “He wouldn’t do that. I don’t care what anyone says.” Her voice lacked a certain amount of conviction, however.

  Marti pulled up in front of their house and put the car in park. She tapped her lip in thought. “How about if I post information about these potential terrorist attacks to social media?”

  Nikki exchanged a glance with Kade and shrugged.

  “Tell me more,” Kade said.

  “I have a group of conspiracy theory friends. We’re all active online. We can start posting some information and see if we can make it go viral. At least maybe people will be aware. Maybe authorities will take notice.”

  Kade nodded slowly. “I like it. I wish I’d thought of it earlier.”

  “The only problem is that some of the social media sites might take it down. We’ll have to all post at one time to spread the word before administrators catch wind of it. By that time, maybe some website will have picked it up. There are some people who’ll think we’re just crazy. But maybe enough will listen.”

  “Whatever you can do, it will be a help.”

  Marti paused. “You guys are leaving, aren’t you?”

  “Most likely,” Kade said.

  “Well, if you need anything, you know where I am.”

  After waving good-bye, they walked inside the house.

  There, Nikki grabbed Kade’s arm, pulling him to a stop. “I don’t like this, Kade.”

  “I don’t either.” He stepped closer. “We need to leave tomorrow, Nikki. We’ve overstayed our welcome here. But I’m not sure where we should go.”

  “To talk to Darren Philips. If Bobby’s been framed by someone, Darren’s my best guess.”

  After a restless night of worrying about her brother and what he’d been doing since he left, Nikki awoke feeling worse than she had when she’d lain down well past midnight the night before. She found Kade in the office, on the computer again.

  “Anything new?”

  Kade shook his head. “No, nothing. There are no reports on the news about the baseball games. Of course the media can’t report that. It would cause hysteria.”

  “So we just wait more? I’m slowly figuring out that I’m terrible at waiting.”

  “Waiting is a necessary evil. But it’s hard. I agree with that.”

  Nikki sighed, suddenly feeling trapped by the house. “Listen, I’m going to step out into the backyard for a minute. I just need to clear my head.”

  She wasn’t asking for his permission. She was simply letting him know her plans. Pierce had tried to control her enough that she’d swung to the opposite side of the pendulum at times and was often too independent.

  Kade nodded, but something in his eyes led her to think he didn’t approve. Oh well.

  Nikki stepped outside and pulled her sweatshirt closer. The weather was perfect today—not too hot, not too cold. And she needed a minute by herself. Being inside pacing with her thoughts was doing nothing more than driving her crazy.

  She wrapped her arms across her chest as a chilly autumn breeze swept over the water. She walked down to where the bay peeked through the trees. After passing through a small patch of woods, her feet hit the sandy shore.

  Man, was it beautiful here. The bay stretched as far as the eye could see. Standing on the shore right now filled her with a moment of peace.

  If only that peace would last.

  She paced down the shoreline, looking at everything that had washed ashore. There were broken oyster shells, seaweed, some beer bottles.

  She paused farther down the shore. Was that a sand dollar?

  She picked it up and studied it for a moment. It was. She didn’t know they could be found along the bay.

  As she looked down, she saw several more.

  Her dad used to tell her a story about a boy and his grandfather who were walking along the shore and found sand dollars—lots of them. The grandfather would occasionally throw one back, and the boy asked why. The grandfather responded that it was to save the urchin’s life. When the boy pointed out that there were so many and they couldn’t actually save them all, the grandfather said at least they could save the life of one.

  With that thought in mind, Nikki threw one of the sand dollars back into the water.

  She longed to be that sand dollar. She wanted someone to reach down and see her and think she was worthy of saving. Not because she was more special than anyone else. But just because she needed to know she was loved.

  Instead, she’d been one of the ones God left on the shore. She’d been passed over, forgotten, not deemed worthy enough.

  And that was her problem with Christianity. There was no rhyme or reason to it. She’d followed the rules, and they’d gotten her nowhere. God hadn’t listened to her pleas. Not when she’d lain sobbing on the floor at night after Pierce beat her. Not when her parents had been killed in that car accident. Not when her brother had been taken prisoner.

  She’d prayed, and God was silent.

  Disillusioned. That was the word Kade had used when speaking about Bobby’s military service. But maybe that was the perfect word to use for her relationship with God.

  Nikki remembered the sand dollar again. She felt as if she was destined to be among those that perished on the shore.

  For good measure, she tossed one more back into the water.

  As she turned toward the house, a movement in the woods caught her eye.

  The next instant, a man bolted from the trees and tackled her.

  CHAPTER 24

  Nikki let out a half-scream, half-gasp as she realized what was happening.

  She only had a moment to gather details as the man lunged at her. He was tall and wore camo gear. A black mask that only showed his eyes covered his face.

  She tried to remember all of the self-defense moves she’d learned in the various classes she’d taken. All of them escaped her memory at the moment.

  Survive.

  That was the only thing she could think of. If she died, who would help Bobby then?

  No one.

  Or maybe Kade. But if this man killed her, he might turn on Kade next.

  Snapping back to her senses, Nikki rolled on the ground, dodging her attacker, who fumbled and went down, letting out a grunt as if he hadn’t expected any resistance.

  Nikki quickly scrambled to her feet, but before she could run, he grabbed her ankle and sent her tumbling onto the gritty sand.

  “I know who you are,” he growled as he jerked her closer to him.

  His fist connected with her jaw. Nikki moaned.

  Summoning all of her strength, she raised her knee and hit him in the groin. He moaned this time, and she quickly scrambled to her feet.

  She took off toward the sandy path leading to the house. But before she could reach it, the man tackled her again.

  Her face hit the sand with a thud. Her elbows screamed out in pain at the impact. Sharp, broken shells pierced her skin.

  She tried to claw the sand, to do anything to gain leverage and get away.

  Pebbles stung under her fingernails. The ground was too pliable to offer much help.

  The man’s iron hold on her ankle remained.

  As his clamplike grip climbed higher on her leg, panic surged in her. She couldn’t let it all end right here. Too much was at stake. There had to be something she could do.

  The gritty grains of sand beneath her sparked a shift in her thinking. She had a great weapon right here at her fingertips.

  Without reservation, Nikki grabbed a handful of sand and sprayed it in his face. He moaned again, swatting at his eyes and crouching over in discomfort.

  Nikki scrambled to her feet again and darted toward the path.

  “Stop right there or I’ll shoot,” the man said.

  She froze, her breath leaving her lungs, and raised her hands. As she turned, she saw a Glock aimed right at he
r heart. One flick of his finger and her life would be over.

  “Who are you?” she asked. Her chest heaved with exertion. Had this man just been waiting in the woods for the moment she would come outside alone? Was he a fed? A member of ARM?

  “That’s not for you to know.” He held the gun higher.

  “You’re a coward. You won’t even show your face.”

  “You’re tougher than I thought.” The man didn’t have an accent. Was he a member of one of those sleeper cells? Someone raised here but with strong connections to ARM? Someone who’d been programmed as a child to fight for his country, no matter the cost?

  If he was a fed, there would be others around. They rarely worked alone. He’d have a squad of his henchmen crawling out of the woodwork any second now to help control the situation.

  “You’re coming with me.” He reached for her arm.

  She jerked back. “No, I’m not.”

  He raised the gun again. “Yes, you are.”

  She knew the odds. If she went with this man, she’d end up dead. She’d rather take her chances here than face the possibility of torture.

  “Don’t make this hard,” he growled.

  Finding moxie she didn’t even know she had, Nikki swung her leg around. Her foot hit the gun, and it fell from his hands, landing on the sand, where it discharged. The sound echoed out over the bay.

  She held her breath.

  She hadn’t been shot, she realized. Neither had the man.

  They both stared at the gun. Nikki froze, realizing fully that whoever reached that gun first would be the winner. The man panted and grunted beside her. Each was trying to wait the other out.

  “Let’s talk,” she said, desperate not to lose this fight.

  “Nothing to talk about.”

  “There’s a better way than this.”

  “That’s what they all say.”

  She decided to go for it. Just as she lunged for the gun, so did her attacker. Their bodies collided, and pain burst through her shoulder at the impact.

  As they wrestled, another gunshot filled the air.

  They both froze.

  Nikki sucked in a breath and looked behind her. It was Kade, his own weapon aimed at the sky in a warning shot.

  He’d gotten here right in the nick of time.