Nothing answered me but silence…and the hold I had on that feeling inside of me burst.
Something was very wrong.
She wouldn’t have left the door open—especially with it being this cold.
And that shoe that was in the driveway? It was one of her favorite pairs. She had it on every single time I’d seen her but once.
Which led me to the most frightening sign that something wasn’t right – her cell phone was on her drawing table and she would never leave that behind.
Oh yes, something was wrong alright.
I knew it down to my bones.
I called Tyler.
I called my brothers.
Then I called her father—who was listed in her phone as Daddy.
***
I could tell it was her father by the way he looked—and not because he looked like Cora, but because he looked like he was scared out of his goddamn mind.
He was wearing dirty jeans—much like the ones I had on myself—and a black t-shirt.
His silvering black hair was on the shorter side, but just long enough that you could tell that he’d been running his fingers through it restlessly—causing it to stand straight up in some spots.
His eyes look positively haunted.
He didn’t waste time as he looked around her house. “The alarm was never activated. She was here, and someone surprised her.”
I didn’t disagree. In fact, I agreed but nodded instead of interrupting.
“I pulled the feed, but whomever it was, came from the south side of the house where I didn’t have a camera.” Gabe, her father, sounded sickened that he hadn’t put one out there. Like he’d failed her in some way. “I pulled her GPS location, and she’s right outside of town.”
My eyes zeroed in on him. “You know where she’s at?”
He shook his hand for the universal sign of ‘kind of.’ “I have a few men on her already. Ish. They’re canvassing the area. I decided to come here to explain that I had a few men in the area to the chief of police before I joined them myself.”
Tyler, who’d been silent up until then, narrowed his eyes. “I guess I should be thankful that you even informed me what you were doing at all.”
Gabe nodded, then turned to look at me. “You’re who called me?”
I nodded, prompting Gabe to ask if I knew this town.
I nodded again.
I’d grown up in this town. I knew everything there was to know about it, down to the places they’d take her if they were trying to keep her hidden.
“The only place that might be fit to keep her is the next town over. There’s a couple of low budget motels. Unless they have a private residence. I won’t be able to help you find her, exactly, until I know the specific area.”
Gabe gestured to me. “Follow me.”
***
“Surely, they weren’t stupid enough to take her to a hotel, then plant an armed goon outside her door to let us know exactly which door it was that she was behind,” a man named Sam said, pinching the bridge of his nose as he groaned. “This is the most fucked-up thing ever. Even if we didn’t have GPS on her, the surrounding hotels would’ve likely been the first place that we looked. Why does this seem so easy?”
I agreed.
But, unlike them, I kept my opinions to myself.
I was the outsider here, and I wasn’t finding this as amusing as they were.
I felt like my heart was beating out of my throat, and I wanted to race across the street and blow the door off its hinges in my haste to get to her.
Yet, none of them were freaking out.
Not one of them.
There were six of the motherfuckers, and all of them were standing around, studying the hotel.
Her father had been overruled, and he was sitting there silently, looking pissed as could be, yet understanding of the process.
Finally, I just couldn’t take it anymore.
“What’s taking y’all so long?” I finally burst out. “Let’s go over there and get her.”
Gabe gave me an amused smile. “Once we get a little more information on them, we will. I don’t want to accidentally kill them. There are three men in on this farce of a kidnapping. Two in the room next door with two hookers, and the one outside. Sam was able to grease a few of the ladies’ hands, and they—the hookers not occupied at this moment—informed us that all’s been quiet in the room beside theirs—which is the one Cora’s in. They saw her taken in there. Not to mention the fact that Cora’s more than capable of handling herself. You don’t know our girl but…”
He gestured to the door just as something started to happen, causing the goon outside to turn and survey the closed door he’d been guarding.
With his hand on the knob, he pushed it in just as someone on the other side slammed it back closed—with his freakin’ head solidly sandwiched between the door and the doorjamb.
The goon fell hard, his head still halfway in the door, half out.
“Show time.”
Before any of us could get across the parking lot, Cora emerged looking pissed as hell.
But before she could make it out of the doorway completely, two men came barreling out of the door beside hers, heading straight for her.
Cora stepped back, putting the prone man’s body between her and the new arrivals.
When they went to vault themselves over the body on the ground, Cora reached for the door again.
That’s when I arrived.
I wouldn’t say that I was the fastest one in the bunch, but the adrenaline coursing through my system paired with my desire to make sure that Cora was safe had me moving faster than every man there.
I arrived just in time to catch one of the men by the collar and yank him back.
Cora took care of the other by stabbing him with a screwdriver straight through his throat.
“Holy shit,” I breathed, watching as the guy clutched the screwdriver.
“I wouldn’t pull that out if I were you,” Cora said conversationally. “It’s likely very close to your carotid. You wouldn’t want to accidentally nick that bad boy.”
Gabe, who arrived just in time to hear that comment, started to chuckle.
“Why is it that you always find yourself in trouble?” Gabe inquired.
“It’s not my fault, Dad,” Cora explained defensively, taking a step away from the man who was trying very hard not to rip that screwdriver out. “I was just minding my own business, looking for something at Coke’s place, when these men came out of the woodwork thinking I was Coke’s daughter.”
My brows rose as confusion swept through me. “You were at my place? And what about my daughter?”
She shrugged. “Kind of. I hadn’t fully made it all the way to your house yet when I saw them. I ran through the garage and knocked a few of your tools down on the ground, then slipped out the back door and hauled ass back to my place, but I didn’t make it. And yes, your daughter. They thought I was Frankie.”
She gestured to the men at her feet.
The one I’d dispatched by throwing him into a wall was unconscious, but the other two were very aware of how much trouble they’d found themselves in.
My heart started to pound as I reached for my phone, wanting to know if my daughter was okay.
“I called the PD. Since I wasn’t sure what town we were in exactly, I called both Jefferson and Hostel,” Sam added. “You doing okay, beautiful?”
Cora gave him a thumbs up, then took a wide arc to get around the prone men.
Frankie answered in two rings, but she was whispering. “Dad, I’m literally about to walk into a placement test that’ll take me like four hours to do…can I call you back?”
“Yes,” I said. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, Dad. But the armed security guy that’s gathering up cell phones is glaring at me, so I gotta go. Love ya.”
Then she hung up before I could so much as reply.
Something inside of me seemed to loosen, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
The test she was talking about was at the city hall of all places. She was taking a placement test that was supposed to tell her what she should do with her life and had explained to me that it was sort of like the ASVAB—the placement test that the military used. Though this one was supposed to highlight certain areas that she excelled at, and places that she didn’t, so that she could be paired with jobs that she might be good at.
It was a complicated process, and as she’d explained in her phone call, it was also one that was held at city hall and to get into city hall you had to first pass through a metal detector and give up all your belongings so you couldn’t cheat.
Meaning she was safe for now.
“Fuck.” I sighed.
“She’s okay?”
I nodded at Cora’s quiet question as she headed in my direction. “She’s fine. About to take that placement test.”
She was safe. For now.
The four-hour test would give me time to either get up there or question these little shit heads to figure out my next course of action.
Cora stopped at my side, offered me up a small smile, and then kept walking until she was out in the dark parking lot.
When none of the men that came with her father went to make a move to follow, I sighed.
What the hell was wrong with these people? She was literally just kidnapped, and they acted like they weren’t concerned about her at all.
I followed Cora to a drink machine and stopped just short of being right on top of her. My chest brushed her arm.
“Do you have a dollar?”
I took my wallet out, fished out a dollar, and handed it to her.
She thanked me and then put it into the machine, moments later getting a Dr. Pepper in return for my dollar.
“I’ve had a really bad day,” she said, sounding much more tired than she looked. “I was coming over to tell you that I was sorry that I made you feel bad, that it was just one of those things that happens with my fucked-up moods. I wanted to tell you that you were annoying me, when those men surprised me. I turned and ran, making it to my front door before they caught up with me. Which reminds me, I need to stop eating so bad, and I seriously gotta work on my endurance.”
I stared at her, my mouth hanging open, unsure what to say.
“What?” she questioned.
“Why is everyone acting like this isn’t a big deal?” I questioned.
I was seriously dumbfounded.
“My father and uncles,” she gestured to the men that were still in the room looking at the two men she’d dispatched. “They taught me a lot. I was never in any danger…at least not from those men. I think, had they been smarter and taken me somewhere farther away, they might’ve treated this like a little bit bigger of a deal.”
“If I hadn’t gone looking for you…if I hadn’t known you were missing…would you have gotten away yourself?”
She shrugged. “Most likely.”
I blew out a breath. “This just feels so wrong. I mean, I feel like if this were my daughter, despite teaching her how to protect herself in case of situations like this, I still would’ve been freaking out.”
Cora popped the top on her Dr. Pepper, then took a long swallow.
“My dad, uncles, and us kids?”
I nodded for her to continue.
“They made us go through scenarios. We had to all prove that we could get ourselves out of almost any situation. Don’t think they’re taking this that lightly. They’re pissed, but they won’t show that in front of you. You’re an outsider. That chief of police over there is definitely an outsider. It’s hard to do illegal shit when the law is on your heels, watching your every move. They’re smart.”
Well, at least that made me feel better.
But still…
“And I was one of their best students. They’ve never been able to keep me ‘captured’ for long.”
I still didn’t know what to say to that.
“But…”
“But…I hate this. I hate it a lot. I’d rather just be home, where I don’t have to worry about any of this.”
“You and me both, Cora. You and me both.”
“I have a man that I trust on the way to your girl.”
My brows rose at the sound of Cora’s father’s voice.
“What?”
“Your girl. I have a man on the way there,” he repeated.
“I’m on my way there,” I countered.
He shook his head. “No. Until you figure out why they did what they did, you can’t go. You’ll tip your hand. Not to mention, if they were at your place searching for your girl, then they had no fuckin’ clue that she was gone. She’s safer where she’s at, away from here, and once she’s out of that test that you were talking about, my guy will introduce himself.”
“Who’s this boy you’re speaking of?” I questioned.
Gabe grinned. “His name is Castiel. He’s a police officer for Bear Bottom police department. I sent your phone number his name, number, badge number, and anything else you might want to know about him other than his shoe size.”
I looked down at the information he’d given me and realized rather quickly that these men weren’t as they appeared. First of all, I hadn’t given him my number. Second of all, as I pulled up the information that’d been sent to me, I knew that they weren’t normal people.
The papers they’d sent me had a photo of the man, his credentials, every single thing he’d ever done in his life—like buying two vehicles and three motorcycles—his credit report. You name it, it was on the information he’d sent me.
“Okay,” I paused. “But your guy will give me updates?”
My phone pinged in that moment, and I had a text from an unknown number.
Unknown: This is Castiel. I’m at the courthouse. In the room actually. Your girl is fine.
Then, accompanying that text, was a picture of my daughter sitting in front of a computer, staring at it hard as if she had a hard problem in front of her she couldn’t quite solve.
“Shit.”
Cora laughed.
***
I studied her. Hard.
I knew that she was tough—at least that was what she was trying to appear to be.
She was smiling and laughing, and it wasn’t until she gestured for her father to go home that I realized why she was doing what she was doing.
She wanted to be at her own place, and she wanted them all to leave.
Now, with them all here at her house, they were invading her safe place.
If she made it look like she was okay, then they’d likely leave her alone thinking that she was fine.
Though, I had a feeling that they would’ve left her to her own devices anyway. They still hadn’t taken today anywhere near as seriously as I would have.
I mean, I could see that they trusted her…but seriously. Even I could see that she wasn’t happy.
She wasn’t okay—not anywhere close to it, in fact.
But I didn’t contradict her words or her smiles.
I just sat back in my little corner and watched her put that fake smile on for her family and wondered why.
Why was she trying to be strong? Why was she acting like she wasn’t affected at all?
Chapter 13
If she doesn’t text you when she’s drunk, you aren’t the one.
-Words to live by
Cora
I don’t know what I was expecting when I sent my father away, but it definitely wasn’t a panic attack.
The moment the door closed behind him, and I saw him get into his truck, I contemplated calling him back.
I did not want to stay by myself.
Why had I put on such a brave face? Why did I act like today hadn’t been a big deal?
Because it was. To me, it was.
I’d been torn away from my comfort zone.
I’d been taken. I’d been held against my will.
Sure, I’d been able to get myself out. And yes, I’d never been in any real danger.
My father had explained to me that after arriving, a few of his buddies had inquired about the hotel, and two of the women who were apparently regulars and in the room right next to mine throughout the day told them that all was quiet. Meaning I wasn’t being beaten.
Apparently, according to the women, the walls were extremely thin. That when they brought guys back to the rooms, that they could hear everything that went on with a few of the other girls that also used this establishment for their business.
Meaning, they were prostitutes and brought their Johns back to the hotel rooms, where no one cared what kind of noise they did or didn’t make.
The women had also been very informative about the three men that they’d seen in the two rooms that they were occupying. Two of those men, after getting me settled in my temporary prison, had then partaken in some of the women’s services, which had been, apparently, what they’d been doing while they left me to my own devices for a few hours.
My father had explained that he’d been worried if he went in and got me, that the three men would kill themselves trying to run a fool’s mission. Which they damn well had almost done.
Seriously, they’d been taken out by a door, a wall, and a screwdriver.
Screwdriver guy, apparently, was a-okay.
The trajectory of the shaft hadn’t harmed any major organs and apparently the screwdriver hadn’t been anywhere near the artery—despite my saying it was.
Not to say he didn’t hurt or suffer from a lot of blood loss.
But the guy was obviously running low on brain cells, so I hadn’t worried that he would call my bluff.
The other two were in police custody. That’d been where my father and his friends had gone—to find out more information.
The three had been plenty chatty after the cuffs had been produced and hadn’t stopped talking since they’d left in the police cruiser.
“Cora?”
I jumped and whirled all at once, startled to find Coke in my house.
Then I was reminded about how sore I was now that all the adrenaline in my body had finally receded. My legs hurt. My hands. My freakin’ fingernails. Everything that could hurt, did hurt.
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