I hold my breath while the truck begins to give out. I realize with a sinking feeling that we’re only just barely more than halfway across— and then the engine promptly dies. The truck is now just floating, at the mercy of the current.
“Shit,” I mumble, looking through the back window of the truck cabin to see what Duncan is doing. The truck is starting to sink even more now, the front end lower in the water while the bed pokes up. Duncan immediately squeezes his bulky, powerful body through the open window, swimming out into the flood waters. It’s just deep enough that his feet can barely brush the bottom. He swims around back to get me, grabbing a plank of soggy wood floating by and extending it to me.
“Grab hold!” he shouts. “I’m going to get us across.”
I hesitate, nervous to put my whole body in the water. But I know I have no choice. So I grasp the plank with both hands, stepping out of the bed of the truck and into the cold, dirty water. I let out a gasp as the icy water rises to my bare arms, goosebumps prickling up on my skin. Duncan begins a combination of swimming and pushing himself along with the tips of his toes, dragging me along behind him, using the plank like a life preserver. All sorts of debris floats around us, some of it sharp and dangerous. There are entire chunks of pavement and asphalt drifting by, a testament to the storm’s immense power. I can scarcely breathe as we cross the water, but to my amazement, Duncan manages to get us across.
Gradually, the water becomes shallower, until finally we can both stand easily. I let go of the plank and we walk out of the washed-out ravine hand-in-hand. Up ahead of us, just a block or two down, is the address we need. My heart skips a beat as it dawns on me that the house where Jake is hiding, the Nag’s Head home from those Polaroids, is within walking distance. I only wish I knew exactly what we could expect to find there.
As though he can read my mind, Duncan squeezes my hand and says firmly, “We can handle this. Crystal, we are going to get our daughter back. We’re almost there.”
Duncan
I’ve never sprinted faster in my life.
Knowing the goal is in sight, knowing my girl could be behind that door, nothing in the world could stop me from barreling forward through water, across sharp and rusty debris, and anything else in my way to get to the front door of this damn manor. I came back to my hometown to see my girl, but now, I’m here to protect both of them.
I reach the front door, and without even breaking my pace, I put my full weight behind a kick that sends the wood flying open with a few splinters scattering in front of me. My gun is already out and at the ready, and my heart is pounding harder than all the times I’ve burst into the houses of men far more dangerous than Jake.
This isn’t about Jake and how dangerous he is.
This is about the vulnerable little life he has in his power.
The inside of the house is what I would expect from a family as wealthy as Jake’s. I’d spent time with him in high school, so I know how his family lives, but I’ve never been to this place. It must be newer. The furniture, the art on the walls, the quality of the tile floors, it all speaks to wealth.
It isn’t fashionable. I never grew up with an eye for that kind of thing, but over the years of my service, I’ve raided manors of the rich who both do and don’t have taste, and I know what good taste looks like. This isn’t it.
The outside of the house shows some damage, but the interior is eerily untouched. After everything I’ve seen today, it feels wrong to be standing somewhere that has been spared the onslaught of the storm, especially knowing the kind of person who’s using this place.
I move forward slowly, keeping my gun up and ears open. Jake isn’t a man who knows how to fight, unless he’s changed dramatically over the years, but that doesn’t make him much less dangerous. The element of surprise means everything. I’ve watched trained men and women get blindsided by people who can barely hold a gun, just because they happened to get the drop on them.
I move through the living room, where a Persian rug lies on the floor contrasting sharply with the tacky sofa and loveseat that looks like it could have come out of my great aunt’s house— no offense to her memory. I hear nothing but the sounds of Crystal’s footsteps behind me as she staggers into the house.
I hold up a hand to signal that we need to keep quiet, and she nods, eyes wide and quivering. The main room of the house is an open concept living room that exposes a counter dividing it from the kitchen. Both are empty, but beyond the kitchen is a hallway leading into darkness.
I approach the hallway slowly, and on the counter nearest to it, I notice a glass with light yellow liquid in it next to a bottle of rum. There are two ice cubes melting in the glass of rum. Every nerve in my body is poised— he was here recently, and he’s almost certainly still in the building.
Crystal walks up behind me, keeping some distance as I move toward the hallway.
Then, a voice.
“...Mommy?”
It’s Dakota, and she sounds scared, just on the verge of tears, probably just as terrified by the sound of me kicking down the door as by everything that’s been happening to her the past few hours.
I hear Crystal draw in a sharp breath, but I hold out my arm behind me just in case she follows her instinct to dart into the room to get her baby. I don’t blame her for that instinct for one second— I feel it too. It’s every parent's instinct to do everything possible to protect the child. But Jake might well know that, and he might be using that to his advantage against us. For all I know, he could be waiting just around the corner with a loaded gun. I can’t take that chance, for all our sakes.
So, I pick up the bottle of rum from the counter silently, then toss it down the hallway at about chest-level to provoke a reaction from Jake if he’s standing in the darkness, waiting for me to come into view.
The rum bottle clatters to the ground loudly, but as it rolls, I don’t hear the sound of any adult man making a move.
I advance slowly.
The hallway is full of family photos cast in shadow, none of them looking very happy. I can tell the difference between a real smile and a fake one. But I don’t pay much attention to them— the end of the hallway on the left hand side is where my goal is.
There’s a door there, open, a faint bit of light filtering through it from a window that must not have even been boarded up. That’s where the sound of Dakota’s voice came through. I move in slowly, carefully, more silent than a shadow, and I’m grateful that Crystal moves just as quietly behind me. She has a talent for this kind of thing.
Finally, the room comes into view, and my heart jumps to my throat as I see Dakota there, and I lower my weapon immediately. She’s sitting on the bed of a master bedroom, wringing her little hands and staring at the doorway with wide eyes. Her face gets excited and hopeful as soon as she sees me, and she gasps. I put a finger to my lips, then point to both sides of the door and raise my eyebrow. I pray she can figure out what I’m asking her.
“He’s gone!” Dakota shouts, and a moment later, to prove her point, she sticks out her index finger toward the broken window behind her. I hesitate for half a second, not ignoring the possibility that Jake has got her convinced this is some kind of game, using my own daughter as bait in a trap to kill me at the last second.
But I have to trust Kota, and we don’t have much time left.
I sweep into the room and round the corner, ready to see Jake standing there with a gun of his own.
The room’s empty, except for me and Kota.
“Sweetie!” Crystal gushes as soon as she sees my shoulders relax, and she dashes into the room after me and receives Kota, who has her arms outstretched for her mom before she even starts moving.
“Mommy!” she cries as the two hug, and my heart swells to the point of hurting in my chest as I look at the two of them. I check the ensuite bathroom while they have a moment, but after making sure it’s clear, I can’t help but approach them and hug them both in my arms.
I never thought of
myself as having a paternal instinct. It just never crossed my mind, and I had no idea I’d be called on to make it come into action anytime soon. But here, standing with my girls in my arms...it couldn’t feel more right. I even feel a tear threatening to spill from my eye.
“Did he hurt you, sweetie?” Crystal asks through sobs.
“No,” Kota says simply. “I’m okay, Mommy.”
Finally, I break the hug and kneel down at the bed to look at Dakota, who peers down at me from her mom’s embrace.
“Kota, honey,” I say in a soothing tone. “Where is Jake?”
Dakota looks over to the window and points to it again. I move around the bed, boots crunching on broken glass as I approach the window. What I see makes my heart jump to my throat.
There’s a boat docked out there that, judging by the marks in the grass, got partially blown onto shore, and the dock is nothing but ruined driftwood all around, but it looks like someone has finally gotten the boat back into the water.
That someone is Jake, and he looks up at me with wide eyes as he starts to climb into the speedboat. As soon as we make eye contact, I see red.
I vault over the window and land in the wet grass outside on both feet, and without a second thought, I start sprinting. Jake hops into the boat and begins starting the engine. I can hear him cursing the boat as I get closer by the second. Every drop of adrenaline rushing through my body is urging me forward, all united for one purpose: get the bastard who put my daughter in danger.
The boat engine starts up when I’m close enough to see the whites of Jake’s eyes, and it starts to move away from the shore just a few second before I reach it. But no, I did not make it all the way down here just for Jake to get away from me by boat at the last second.
I jump.
With my running start, my body soars further than I feel like I’ve ever jumped. Just when I think with a sense of dread that I’m going to miss the boat, I catch the very edge of it, my legs sinking into the water while my arms hold me up.
Jake is no soldier, but even he knows how to think fast. And the second I’m half-on the boat, he acts on pure instinct, and he kicks the gun out of my hand. It flies up into the air and hits the water behind me, sinking into the depths as the boat takes off into the choppy waves.
Up above us, the sky is gray and bleak, but I can see storms all around us in a circle.
It’s the eye of the storm, the one reprieve in the chaos. It’s the one shot I’ve got at this.
Jake readies another kick, this time to my face, but my body springs into gear. I haul myself up out of the water and vault onto the boat, landing with a heavy, wet thud. Jake lunges at me, but I catch him and throw him backward, onto the boat as I crouch down to avoid getting tossed by the waves as the speedboat races out into the Roanoke Sound.
“You were just going to leave her?” I bark at Jake as we square off at each other. There’s a look of fear mixed with anger in his eyes, while mine are nothing but pure rage. “She’s a child, Jake! You left her to die!”
“You don’t understand!” he shouts, fists shaking.
“No fucking explanation could be good enough for what you’ve done,” I growl taking a step toward him. “You hurt my girl and you took Kota— my child!”
“Oh, so the absentee father finally figured it out?” he snarls.
“She told me!” I shout back. “Because it was her choice when to involve me in that part of her life, you selfish bastard!”
“Oh, I’m the selfish one?” he blurts incredulously. “I’m not the one who fucked off to the other side of the world to chase some dream! I’m the one who stayed here, taking care of that ungrateful bitch when she need-”
I cut him off with a solid punch to the jaw. He pulls back just in time to avoid taking the full brunt of it, but he still staggers long enough for me to tackle him.
That’s when I see the knife he pulls out of his pocket.
We grapple as the boat speeds blindly out into the waters. A few times, it catches the choppy waves so hard that I worry the boat is about to tip over, but it holds out. I wrench Jake’s arm around as he holds the knife out to try to get a stab at me, but the turbulent waters make it hard to take him on properly.
I feel a sting as his elbow catches me in the face, but I bring my forehead down on his nose and hear a crack that makes him scream. Blood starts running down his face, and he thrashes back and forth while I try to get the knife away from him. He brings it down in a stabbing arc, and I just narrowly avoid it— it stabs into the anchor rope of the boat, cutting a segment of it clean off.
Finally, the chaotic grappling gets out of hand, and I have to let him break away from me to avoid getting stabbed in the side. We both stand up in an instant. For a fraction of a second, I swear I could see us as teenagers again, play-wrestling innocently instead of at each other’s throats.
“What the fuck happened to you?” I growl. “How long ago did the boy I know die and the man turn into this kind of evil?”
“I’m not the evil one,” he spits back at me. “I’m the only one who cares!”
As he says that, tapping his chest with his free hand, we go over another choppy wave that bumps the boat hard. Jake curses, and my eyes go wide as I watch him stumble back...and over the side of the boat. I see something moving on the boat and realize his leg has gotten wrapped around part of the anchor cord in the struggle. Before I can stop it, the anchor of the boat follows Jake into the water, and I watch the cord slither out, cut from the boat by Jake’s own knife.
I’ve barely had time to process what has happened when I rush to the boat’s controls and slow it to a stop, turning around and looking at the wake behind me.
I’ve lost track of the exact spot where Jake went under the waves, and now, there’s nothing left. No sign of either the friend I had or the villain he became.
Jake’s gone.
I become aware of how hard I’m breathing, and I let my shoulders relax as I run my hand over my face and lean on the side of the boat. The water around me is still choppy and rough, but with the boat stopped, it feels like all the events of the day have come to just as much of a sudden halt. My brain can hardly keep up. I cast one last look at the general area where I last saw Jake, and when it really hits home that he’s gone, I turn my back on it and go back to the boat’s controls.
As I’m turning the boat around and looking back toward the house where my girls are, I see the two of them stepping outside and waving desperately. I feel a pang of worry, but then I realize they aren’t waving at me. They’re waving at the other sound I’ve been hearing from that direction.
A Coast Guard helicopter has made it out to the house, and it’s circling, looking for a safe spot to land in the front yard of the house while we have a break in the eye of the storm. I feel relief wash over me, and I can’t help but feel a smile on my face.
It’s over.
We’re safe.
And more importantly, my girls are safe.
Crystal
“Mommy, look! It’s landing!” Dakota shouts, wriggling in my arms and pointing up at the Coast Guard helicopter as it lowers to the soggy ground in the front yard of the Nag’s Head home. The chopper sends a whirlwind spinning around it, kicking up dirt and debris. I turn and shield myself and Kota with my free arm.
I glance out toward the water, seeing Duncan still standing in the boat. Jake is nowhere in sight. I watched him topple out of the boat, and I can only imagine he’s long drowned by now. It’s a strange feeling, knowing that a man I was good friends with once upon a time is dead. I don’t know how I am supposed to feel about this.
On the one hand, it saddens me to think of the Jake I used to know, but on the other hand, he’s the same villain who tried to assault me, who kidnapped my precious daughter. Who tried to kill Duncan, the love of my life and father of my child.
I can’t say I’m happy he’s dead, of course, but I am relieved to have him out of the world. At least, my little world is better off
without him.
The helicopter lands and two uniformed Coast Guards come jumping out. First, they rush over to Kota and me to drape a big blanket over my shoulders. There’s a man and a woman, the latter of whom has a motherly, concerned look on her face. She leans in close to ask me a question, putting a hand on my shoulder, while the man keeps moving toward the lake.
“Are you alright, ma’am? Any injuries that you know of?” she questions.
I shake my head. “No. I don’t think so. We’re okay. It’s Duncan I’m worried about. He’s my— my boyfriend?” I say, almost asking myself. The woman smiles and nods.
“You mean the man in the boat out there? Don’t worry. My team are bringing him in. You’re all going to be okay. We’ll get y’all out of here in no time,” she assures me. “Come on, let’s get you two into the chopper.”
I look back over my shoulder toward the lake, relieved to see that she’s right. There are two male members of the Coast Guard rushing to help Duncan. Satisfied with this, I dutifully get into the helicopter with Kota.
“Molly and Davey Neptune are in a bad way, too. Have you heard from them, yet?”
The woman nods to me, “Yes, we have people headed out that way now. We need to take advantage of the break in the storm,” she says confidently before giving Dakota a warm smile.
“How are you feeling, sweetie? Thirsty? Hungry? Cold?” she asks in a gentle voice.
Dakota shrugs, still clearly in some degree of shock from the events of the day and night. “Little thirsty,” she murmurs. “And I wet.”
“Oh no,” coos the woman. “Don’t you worry, honey. I’ll get you warmed up.”
She hands me another blanket. I scoop up Kota and wrap her up in the blanket like a burrito, then sit her on my lap. She leans into me hard, almost clinging to me. I am so overjoyed to have her back with me again. When she was gone, it felt like a huge part of my heart was missing. I stroke her hair, feeling the curls start to dry out in the warm air of the helicopter cabin.
Sweetheart for the SEAL Page 14
