by Lisa Bilbrey
Elle screamed, her cane slipping from her hand as she felt the prick of a needle sliding into her neck. Moments later, felt her body sliding to the floor. As her eyes opened and closed, she saw the bigger of the two assailants carrying Samuel’s unconscious body out of the elevator.
“Time to sleep, whore.”
The voice that had haunted her dreams for six years spoke with malicious and as Elle gave into the sleep that pulled her away from reality, she had no doubts that Trixie Maxwell was going to kill her.
Fifteen
Callum nervously tapped his fingers against the steering wheel as he sped his down the interstate toward the exit that would take him to Grover Hills Elementary school. The phone call he’d received ten minutes beforehand echoed inside his head. The girls were missing. His girls, his daughters, were missing.
Elle had worried about them, insisted more than once that they weren’t safe at school. He had told her she was being silly, that she needed to relax and stop fretting about every second of the day. He had been an idiot.
“Fucking move already!” he roared at the car in front of him just moments before he swerved around them, making sure to give the little old lady driving ten miles under the speed limit the finger. “Stupid bitch shouldn’t even be behind the wheel if she can’t fucking drive.”
Callum was taking his anger out on her, of course, but all he could think about were the girls. Flora and Willow and what was happening to them right then. Thomas had been dragged through hell. Would the same happen to Flora and Willow?
“Oh, God, why them?” Callum whimpered, pressing his foot down on the gas petal as he changed lanes to the far right.
He took the exit too fast and almost hit another car, but three minutes later, he came to a sudden stop outside of Grover Hills, parking his car right behind Derek’s truck. Callum scrambled out and rushed inside, his heart racing with each step he took.
When he threw the door to the office open, however, he saw, to his relief, Flora and Willow seated on Sadie’s lap. Based on the wetness on her cheeks, she had been just as worried as him.
“Where were they?” Callum asked, not bothering to hide how upset he was.
“It would appear that your daughters somehow locked themselves in one of the storage closest across the hall from the library,” Mrs. Morrow explained with a frown. “When they didn’t return, and the librarian hadn’t seen them, I’m afraid I panicked.”
“Mr. Flynn told us we had to hide, Daddy!” Willow insisted, scrambling off her mother’s lap and rushing over to Callum, who scooped her into his arms. “He said there was a bad lady looking for us and that we had to hide until he came back.”
“A bad lady?” Sadie asked, drawing everyone’s attention to her. “Did he say who she was?”
Flora and Willow shook their heads.
“He just said she was very dangerous and if we didn’t hide, she’d hurt us,” Flora whimpered.
“He made us promise to be as quiet as mice,” Willow cried softly. “We tried as hard as we could, Daddy!”
“I know you did,” Callum murmured, rubbing her back as she wept.
“Where’s Andrew Flynn now?” Derek asked, addressing the principal, a younger man with dull, brown hair. This was the first school Sean Harrison had been in charge of, and though they hadn’t had any qualms with him, the fact that their daughters had been locked in a closet didn’t make Callum too happy.
“We can’t find him,” Sean said after clearing his throat. “One of the groundskeepers thought he saw a woman matching the description of the woman you warned us about fleeing the building about nine o’clock this morning. He alerted the office, but it turned out to be the aunt of one our fifth grade students. Just to be cautious, we checked Mrs. Morrow’s class first, but she told us Mr. Flynn had taken the girls to the library, but Mrs. Kenley hadn’t seen them. We started searching the school. That’s when we found them in the closet.”
“And you don’t know where Andrew is?” Callum asked, his forehead crinkling as he frowned.
“I’m afraid not,” Sean said.
“We should take them home,” Sadie said, standing up with Flora in her arms, but Derek reached out and snatched the girl away. “I’ll call Elle and let her know, but I really think we should just take them home. They’ve been through enough for one day.” She paused and looked at Sean. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”
“Under these circumstances, I think that’s probably for the best.”
As they gathered the girls’ backpacks and loaded them into his car, making sure their seatbelts were firmly around their booster seats, Callum couldn’t shake the feeling that everything had changed.
—FA—
Derek paced nervously in front of the large picture window inside their living room, stopping every few minutes to peer outside. Every time he did, he expected to see Elle pull up in Sadie’s car, but she never did.
They had spent all afternoon calling her, only to get her voicemail every time. Greta confirmed Elle and Samuel had left just after nine o’clock that morning, which correlated with the time the school had called each of them about the girls. So, where was she?
“Dude, stop pacing already,” Callum groused, tossing a pillow from the couch at him. It struck him in the back of the head and bounced onto the floor.
“I should go look for her,” Derek said, shaking his head and turning toward him and Sadie, who was curled up against their husband.
The girls were upstairs in their room, where they had been playing since they were brought home from school. They were thrilled to get the extra day off school. Poor things didn’t understand anything that was going on.
The school had called after lunch to check in. They still hadn’t located Andrew Flynn and had called the police, who said there was nothing they could do seeing as he was a grown man, who wasn’t technically an employee of the school district. And since the girls were fine, despite the school swearing they told the police how Andrew had locked them in the closet because he’d seen Trixie Maxwell, there wasn’t really a case. Derek had never felt so frustrated.
“Where would you look?” Callum asked.
“Everywhere,” he said, but truth be told, he didn’t know where to start. They’d already called Ivy and Helina — neither of them had heard from Elle in almost a week. Nor had Lucia, Nick, Aaron, Carlos, Felicia, Lydia, and the list went on and on. Nobody knew where Elle or Samuel were. Just that they weren’t where they were supposed to be: with them.
“Maybe she’s at the Le souffle De l’Ange,” Callum suggested.
“Why would she have gone there after getting the call about the girls?” Sadie asked. “And Greta said that both my car and Samuel’s car were still in the garage.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Silence settled on the three of them, an uncomfortable silence that Derek hated. Something horrible had happened, something they had been dreading since they were standing in the airport four months ago.
“We should call the police again,” Sadie said, sitting up and reaching for her cell, which had sat on the coffee table since they got home six hours ago.
“They said they’d look around,” Callum argued, pulling her back against him.
“Yeah, just like how they kept telling us they’d find that bitch again.”
Derek turned back to the window. Sadie wasn’t wrong. Detectives’ O’Reilly and Benson had sworn time and time again that they’d find Trixie Maxwell. After Thomas gave them a positive identification, they seemed to believe Elle when she told them she hadn’t had anything to do with his abduction.
“He wanted her to leave,” Derek murmured.
“Who did?” Callum asked.
Sighing, Derek turned and looked at him. “Thomas said she wasn’t safe here, and you know what? He was right. We should have left a month ago instead of staying here with fucking targets on our back.”
The sound of a car coming to a stop outside the house had Derek’s heart racing. He jerked back
the curtain, only to be disappointed when he saw Lydia, Helina, James, Ivy, and Elliot climbing out.
“Looks like your mom got tired of waiting at home, Cal.”
“Not surprised,” he said, standing up and heading to the front door. Moments later, the door opened, and the house was filled by four different voices asking if they’d heard from Elle or Samuel.
“Elliot, why don’t you go upstairs and play with the girls?” Callum suggested.
Though he groaned, Elliot nodded and ran upstairs. Callum waited until he was up there before he turned back to his mother and their in laws. “Still no word from Elle. Dad hasn’t called you, either?”
Lydia shook her head. “I’ve tried calling him a hundred times, I swear. Keeps going to his voicemail. I’ve left message after message, but his box is now full. His texts messages aren’t being read, either. Where could they be, Callum?”
“I don’t know, Mom.” Callum pulled her into his arms and leaned his head against hers as his eyes caught Derek’s.
He wanted to say something reassuring or clever, but there wasn’t anything he could say. Derek, like everyone else in the room, understood exactly what was going on. Samuel and Elle had been taken by Trixie Maxwell and whoever she was working with.
—FA—
Even more hours passed as Sadie waited with her lovers and their family for word from Elle and Samuel. Her parents had arrived an hour after Lydia, Ivy, Helina, and James showed up on their doorstep. Derek’s parents were trying to catch the first flight out of Arizona, and Lucia, Aaron, and Nick were determined to make it back before morning, even if that meant canceling the rest of their tour and breeching their contract with Sin Records.
Sadie sat in the middle of the couch with Flora stretched out to her left, while Willow mirrored her position on the right. Both girls were laying their heads on Sadie’s lap and she was running her fingers through their hair. It was almost ten o’clock at night, well past their bedtime. They kept asking where Mommy was, when Mommy was going to get home, why Mommy was taking so long. Sadie didn’t have the answers to their questions.
“Someone’s coming up the drive,” Ivy said. She’d taken Derek’s place in front of the window.
“Is it Elle?” Helina asked. The hope filling her tone crushed Sadie’s heart.
“No,” Ivy replied with a sigh. “Look like cop cars.”
Derek and Callum shared a look before rushing out of the living room, to the front door. Sadie could hear them talking, wondering what this meant. Nothing good, of course.
“Come on, kids,” Bruce said, standing up. “Let’s get a glass of milk. Maybe a cookie, too.”
“We’re not allowed to eat cookies this late,” Flora said, her eyes wide as she and Willow sat up. “Mommy says it’s not healthy.”
“It’s okay,” Sadie told her, trying to keep her voice calm and even, though on the inside, she was freaking out. Cops meant bad news. “Just this once, though.”
“Okay,” Willow fretted and followed Flora, Elliot, and Bruce into the kitchen.
Sadie made a mental note to thank her father later for distracting the kids. They were worried enough as it was.
Callum and Derek led Detectives Benson and O’Reilly into the living room, giving Sadie a look before settling on either side of her. Yep, this was going to be bad.
“There’s no easy way to say this,” Detective O’Reilly said after clearing his throat. “We’ve found evidence that Elle Davis and Samuel Davis have been abducted.”
“What?” Lydia cried, wrapping her arms around her torso.
“How could this happen?” Helina wept, turning into James’ arms, who sat looking stunned.
“What evidence?” Sadie asked, drawing everyone’s attention to her. “What evidence do you have?”
“Video footage from the security cameras inside the parking garage,” Detective Benson explained. “It shows two people in masks pushing their way into the elevator. Moments later, Elle and Samuel are seen being carried out and loaded into the trunk of a large, black sedan.”
“I want to see it,” Sadie demanded.
“Honey, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Derek fretted, rushing over to her as she stood and wrapping his arm around her.
“I want to see it,” she said again and shifted her eyes back to the two police detectives. “You have it on you, don’t you? You have that fancy technology where you can upload the feed to tablets or whatever.”
“We do,” Benson said. “But I really don’t think you want to see it, ma’am.”
“You don’t really think at all, do you?” Sadie snarled. “For months, she told you that someone was after her. For months! And now, they have her, and only God knows what they’re doing to her.”
“Show us,” Callum said, moving so that he was standing on Sadie’s other side. “Now.”
“Fine, if you insist,” O’Reilly groused.
Callum looked at Lydia, who was sobbing quietly. “Mom?”
“I can’t,” she whimpered. “I’m sorry, but I don’t want to see it.”
“It’s okay, Mom. You don’t have to,” he said, before turning his attention back to the detectives.
Benson pulled up the feed and held it out to Sadie. Her heart was racing as she pressed play. For a solid ten seconds, the feed looked completely normal. Like every other day. But then, out of the shadows, came two figures. The first, Trixie Maxwell no doubt, was much smaller than her partner. Even though she was covered from head to toe in black, Sadie had little doubt that she was the woman beneath the mask.
Her partner was much bigger than she. Broader through the shoulders, tall as well. There was something about the way he moved that reminded Sadie of someone; she just couldn’t place a name to them. Someone familiar, though.
The two figures wove around the cars and stopped outside of the elevators. Seconds later, maybe ten, the doors opened. The two sprang into action as they rushed inside. Sadie could barely see what was happening inside the elevator and cursed Elle for being too cheap to install cameras in there, as well.
Sadie gasped when the larger of the two stepped out of the elevator just moments later with Samuel slung over his shoulder. He used a remote to open the trunk of the black sedan and practically threw Samuel inside. The woman came running out of the elevator with Elle’s cane in her hands, and stayed next to the car while her partner rushed back into the elevator and carried Elle out, adding her to the trunk as well.
The two in black then climbed into the front of the car, pulled out of the parking space, and out of the garage. All of that transpired in less than two minutes.
Sixteen
When Elle awoke from the sedative that had knocked her out, she was laying on a cold, dirt floor. One of her arms felt numb from the angle in which she had been carelessly thrown into her new prison. Her head throbbed, and her eyes were heavy from the drugs Trixie had used to incapacitate her.
“Elle?” Samuel’s groggy voice trickled from the other side of the room. “Are you awake?”
“Yes,” she cried. The only light came from a window high on the wall and covered in bars. “Where are you? I can’t see you.”
“Over here,” he said, and when she squinted, she could barely make him out. He was leaning against the wall opposite of her. “There’s a metal cuff and chain attached from the wall to my ankle.”
She looked down to her own feet and saw the same. “Mine, too. Where are we?”
“I don’t know,” he said, softly. “In a basement based on the smell.”
The stench of mold and rot filled the air. The room, from what she could make out from the dim light, was fairly large. Probably twice the size of her office. A dingy mattress had been laid on the floor, and pushed against one of the walls. There was a metal cabinet that had a thick lock on it, and on the opposite side of the room was a wooden staircase.
“Do you know how long we’ve been here?” she asked, shifting so that she was leaning against the wall with her knees bent
in front of her. The chain latching her to the wall was short, wouldn’t give her more than a foot radiance to move around.
“If I had to guess, I’d say several hours. When I woke up, the sun was coming through the window, but it’s been dark for a while.”
“Oh.”
Silence settled between the two of them. Elle knew it was her fault that he had been locked away with her, though she couldn’t understand why they took him, too. But then again, Samuel was important to her. That was why they kidnapped Thomas, wasn’t it? Because he was important to her? That’s why Derek had been nearly killed in that ‘accident’. Anything to hurt her.
“Do you think they even noticed that we’re gone?” Elle asked, straining to see him in the dark.
“I hope so,” Samuel said. “I always called Lydia before I left the office to see if she needed me to stop and pick her up something. Usually chocolates or wine. Often both.”
Elle whimpered. “I should have seen them coming. I let my guard down for two seconds, and look what happened. They went after the girls just to get to me.”
“You think they really took them?” Samuel asked.
“Probably have them locked away somewhere like they did Thomas. And why? Because they’re mine.”
“Assholes.”
Their conversation was interrupted when the sound of a door being unlocked pulled their attention toward the staircase. Light flooded the room when the door at the top of the stairs opened, and two sets of legs began to descend. Their faces were hidden in the shadows, though Elle knew one of them to be Trixie Maxwell. That crazy bitch made sure she knew she’d once again gotten the best of Elle.
“Oh, look, honey, they’re awake,” Trixie cackled as she stepped out of the darkness and into the light.
She hadn’t changed much in the last six years. She had lost some weight, and grown her hair out. It was still the dark brown that eerily matched Elle’s. Her eyes were filled with crazy and her smile screamed insanity.
