by Ciana Stone
After Grady left there, he wandered around for hours, thinking about Johnny, about the child who would never know her father, and about himself and what he wanted out of life.
For years he’d told himself and anyone who would listen that he wasn’t interested in settling down. Marriage wasn’t for him. He came up with a hundred and one excuses, maybe more, and never once uttered the truth of why he wouldn’t let himself care.
The reason for that lay beyond the entrance of the graveyard. Grady hadn’t been able to cross that threshold in almost twenty years. Not since the day he walked out of the place, broken and alone.
Now it was time because now he realized it hadn’t mattered if he was ready or not, it had just happened. Charli Sampson had touched him in a way no one else had since he was eighteen.
He sucked in his breath, told himself to man the fuck up, and took the first step. Every subsequent step brought a flash of memory.
Emma’s hair, that glorious strawberry blonde hair that cascaded down her back in a riot of soft lazy curls. Those soft, silken strands that he loved to tangle his fingers in, bury his face in, and smell the scent of honeysuckle that always rose from her tresses.
Emma. Green eyes and skin like cream with a shy smile that could melt the coldest heart. Emma.
He fell in love with her the day they met. He was a month away from graduating high school and she had just moved to town and entered school as a junior.
Grady could still remember the day he saw her, that blue skirt she wore with the flat little shoes with the strap across the foot and the pristine white blouse with the lace on the collar.
She looked like a doll, a living doll, so perfect that it took his breath.
He fell in love with Emma that day and the day after she graduated high school he married her.
He’d just started SEAL training. She planned on working at her mother’s beauty salon in town, doing nails, and as soon as he was officially a SEAL, they’d buy a little house and talk about starting a family.
Grady stopped at the double headstones beneath the sheltering oak. Emma’s folks had kept the gravesite tidy all these years. There were flowers planted around the tree, wind chimes that hung from the branches, and even a little bench to sit on.
Emma White Judd, beloved daughter, wife and mother. That’s what was on her tombstone. Grady thought it a shame that there wasn’t a way to convey more—to give someone who might stop and look a way of knowing how much she was loved, or how much she loved others. Or maybe how her laugh was infectious, or how she could hold up her finger and get dragonflies and butterflies to light on it.
Why wasn’t there a way to let people know that if ever a person had deserved to live a long and happy life, it was Emma. His beautiful Emma. Even now, his chest and throat felt constricted with grief and loss.
“I love you, Emma. I always will. But I—the truth is I found another love. Not like you, honey. Nothing could ever be like you.”
Grady knelt and lowered his forehead to the cool surface of the tombstone. He’d resisted this moment for two decades, but he couldn’t any more. “Emma. I know you’re not in the in-between, but I need to see you, or hear your voice. I need to know that you and Emilia are okay. That it’s okay for me to be okay.”
He closed his eyes and listened to the sound of his heart, willing himself into that place of nothingness. When the transition happened, he jolted. This wasn’t where he was supposed to be.
“Sure it is.”
Grady turned and tears spilled from his eyes. There stood Emma, glowing and whole and more beautiful than the first day he saw her. And with her was another female, equally as beautiful but with hair less red and quite a bit taller.
“Is that−“
“It’s me, Daddy. Emilia.”
Grady couldn’t take it. He sank to his knees and covered his face with his hands, letting all that he’d held in these past twenty years spill free. He cried for what he’d lost, for all the things he’d missed—growing old with his wife, watching his daughter grow. He cried for all they missed and for not being able to prevent them from dying.
“I’m so sorry, honey.” He looked up when he felt Emma’s hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here, that I couldn’t save you. You and Emilia.”
“It’s okay, Daddy.” Emilia knelt beside him, as did Emma. “We’re alive.”
“But where?”
“Where isn’t important, Daddy. Being happy, giving and receiving love—that’s what matters.”
“I’ll always love you, baby. Till the day I die and beyond.”
“I know, Daddy. We both do.” She looked at her mother and Emma nodded.
“What we had was beautiful and we created something beautiful together, Grady—our child and a love that transcends all. Stop blaming yourself for something you couldn’t have prevented. We all have our paths. This was ours.
“Yours lies in Texas. It’s time to hang up your guns. Time again to be a husband and a father. This is your second chance, sweetheart. Make the most of it. Be happy. Love and laugh and celebrate all the moments allotted to you.”
“How can I do that when you—“
“When I am doing the same? You know this isn’t me, Grady? It’s…it’s the energy of me, of what we were and what we’ve become and what we will be. But me? I’m carrying you with me, in my heart, and I’m alive. I love and laugh and cherish it all and so should you. Don’t devalue it with grief. Celebrate it. Please. For me. For Emilia and for our love.”
“I will always love you, Emma. You and Emilia.”
“As we will you. Now, it’s time to go. Go home, Grady. Go claim your life and your love.”
Grady suddenly jerked, feeling a hand on his shoulder, shaking gently and a soft voice. “Sir? The cemetery is closing. It’s time to go.”
He looked up at the face of a man he’d never met until this moment, and saw compassion and strength. “I’m sorry. I’ll leave.”
“Don’t you fret about it, son. No harm done.”
“Thank you.” Grady rose, took one last look at the twin gravestones, then turned and walked away. Away from the past and toward the future.
Chapter Seventeen
Charli knew without being told that the blond man across the street with a street hooker who went by the name of Candy was a Ranger. Not that he stood out. She just recognized the way he looked around, scanning the area when he was confident he wasn’t being watched.
Antony walked outside carrying a beer in each hand and offered her one. “I thought you were going to shack up with your ex until eleven?”
She took the beer. “Thanks. And I was, but he ran out of steam and another opportunity presented itself.”
“Girl, you and me are gonna get along real good.”
She knew Antony was pleased. She’d shown up with seven hundred dollars for him, which was about five hundred more than most of his girls brought in each night. She raised her beer and clicked it against his. “You do know that I held back my cut, right?”
“Your cut?”
“You don’t expect me to work for free, do you?”
Charli could see that moment of indecision in Antony’s eyes. He was a greedy little bastard and had she been five foot nothing and a hundred pounds, he’d probably have already slapped her silly and taken her money.
“Just how much is your cut?”
“Fifty percent.”
“You mean you already made—“He shook his head. “Fuck. Can you do that every night?”
“I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”
“I think fifty percent is too much.”
“Well, I could give you less.”
“I meant for you.”
“Oh really? ‘Cuz you’re gonna make a grand a night without me? Forget it, Antony. You’ll have a fifth of your investment recouped by the end of the night and the rest before the end of the week—everything after that is clear profit.”
“You got a point.”
“Don’t I?” She took a drink from the beer and looked around. “There’s not much action here. I think I’ll take a walk.”
He pulled out an old cell phone and handed it to her. “If I have a john, I’ll call you on this.”
“Sounds like a plan.” She slid the phone into her shoulder bag and handed him the unfinished beer. “Thanks, boss. You’re a real peach.”
With that, she turned and sauntered away. She wandered the streets for twenty minutes. There weren’t a lot of people out tonight, but then all the girls in the zone were nervous because every ten days for the last month a woman had vanished. Today was the tenth day since the last disappearance, and no one wanted to be the unlucky one who was abducted.
What girls were out were in pairs. Charli was about to turn around and head back the way she’d come when she saw the rear end of an old white sedan sticking out from behind a Dumpster at the end of a dead-end street.
A split second later a young woman came hauling ass from behind the Dumpster, nearly falling on her face in her hurry to get away. She spotted Charli and literally ran into Charli’s arms.
“That guy has Cherry! You gotta help her.”
Charli didn’t wait to learn more. “Go. Run. Find the Dude. Go!”
The moment the girl took off running, so did Charli, in the direction of the Dumpster. Sure enough, there was a big man on the other side of the car, struggling to pick up the woman who was fighting like her life depended on it.
Charli grabbed the man’s arm from behind. “Get off her!”
What shocked her was that not that he released the girl and turned toward her, but that when he did, he had a Taser in his hand. In the split second before he shoved the Taser against the side of her throat, she realized two things. The first was that the woman he had been fighting didn’t look like she’d been in a struggle at all. The second thing was that the woman was smiling.
The last thought that flew through her head before electricity sizzled its way along her nerves was that she’d been set up. Then all she could do was soundlessly scream as her body went rigid with pain and fell to the ground. When the man knelt beside her and pulled a plastic bag from his pocket, she watched as he opened it and took out a cloth.
When he pressed it over her face, she realized what it was and held her breath. Chloroform would knock her out for who knows how long, during which time she’d be completely helpless.
Charli wanted to fight, to scream and kick and tear his hands from her throat, but all she could do was hold her breath until the need to suck in air overrode everything else and she inhaled.
Then she was left with nothing but watching the darkness close in as the drug took effect. Would she die at this man’s hands before she regained consciousness, or would he wait for her to waken before he showed her what he had in store for her suffering? Would he kill her quickly, or draw it out? Could she find a way to escape?
And then everything went black and all thought ceased.
*****
“She did what?” Zeb was as furious as he’d ever been in his life. Antony had gotten one of his men to search Zeb out an hour ago when one of his girls, Cherry, used what she’d made that night on meth and spilled the story of how she made a hundred bucks without having to pull down her pants.
“That’s what she said, man.” Antony replied.
“I want to talk to her and the other one. Now.”
“Okay, Dude, don’t have a fucking stroke.” Antony got up and walked to the door. “Yo, Cliff. Bring Cherry and Leanne in here.”
A couple of minutes later, two young women were unceremoniously shoved into the room.
“We didn’t do nothing,” Cherry said immediately. “I told you everything we know.”
“Except why you set Delilah up.” Zeb rose to cross the room and stand in front of Cherry.
“He offered us each a hundred bucks.”
“And that was worth her life?”
“How you know he’s gonna hurt her? Maybe he just wanted to fuck.”
“Then where is he, and where is she?”
“How the fuck should we know? We ain’t her—“
The rest of her sentence was cut off. As swift as the strike of a snake, Zeb had one hand around her throat and the gun he had tucked into the waistband of his pants pressed against the side of her head.
“I’d suggest that no one in this room move.” He looked around at everyone and then at Cherry. “And you? Don’t move a fucking muscle. You hear me?”
“I— I— yeah.”
Zeb moved his hand from her throat, but kept the gun against her head as he pulled out his phone and placed a call. “Move in.”
The moment he put his phone back in his pocket, he shoved Cherry across the room. “Okay, folks, listen up. Here’s what’s going to happen. In a few minutes, this entire zone is going to be crawling with law enforcement. Now, I can either tell them you’re working for me and giving me every bit of information you can bribe, buy, threaten, suck, or fuck out of everybody who’s been here tonight, or I can let them throw you in jail. What will it be?”
“We’ll do whatever we can,” Antony immediately answered and then asked. “So, they won’t, you know, like be searching our shit or nothing like that?”
“That depends entirely on you. I’m giving you one hour to find out everything there is to be found about who took Delilah and get back to me with that information.”
Antony started for the door, but after only one step, stopped. “So, can we like, you know, go?”
“Go.” Zeb replied and looked at the others. “All of you. I want your whole crew on the street now.”
“You got it.” Antony made it to the door, then stopped again. “So, you ain’t just some drifter, right?”
“Zeb Childress, Texas Rangers.”
“Fuck.” Antony’s face paled a bit. “Everybody get out there. Spread it the word. We need the dirt on who took Delilah like yesterday.”
Zeb followed them outside, watching as they scattered like rats. With luck, they were scared enough of going to jail to do as he ordered. If so, maybe they’d catch a break and get a lead.
If not, then Charli was on her own. Zeb hoped that whatever training she’d had in the past served her well, and that the next time he saw her was not on a slab in the morgue.
*****
Grady waited for dawn before heading into town. He’d been home for less than twelve hours and had spent most of them trying to locate Charli. The deputy on duty at the police station told him he’d have to talk with Chief Greene, who would be in at seven the next morning.
So here it was, dawn of the next morning and Grady was headed in to see Tom in person. Something in his gut told him that Charli wasn’t just MIA. As he drove along, he thought about his intention when he’d arrived home.
His plan was to find Charli, tell her the truth about himself and his life, and ask if there was a chance for them to have a future because that’s what he wanted. That plan had been put on hold until he could find her and he hoped that would be soon.
He arrived at the station a good half hour ahead of Tom and was parked in the lot behind the building where the deputies parked when Tom pulled in. Grady got out of his truck and met Tom as he climbed out of his cruiser.
“Before you jump in my shit, I didn’t order her to do it and we’ve got every officer in three counties—“
Grady stopped hearing the words that came from Tom’s mouth. All he could hear was the thought in his own head. Something had happened to Charli. “I think you better tell me what you mean.”
Tom bit down on his lip and regarded Grady for a long moment. “You want to go inside?”
“Do I need to?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Then let’s go.”
He followed Tom inside to his office and waited as Tom closed the door and took a seat behind his desk. “Have a seat, Grady.”
“I’m good, thanks. Tell me.”
“There’s been a lot
of women go missing and the FBI got involved by one of the Governor’s supporters or friends, I guess. His daughter is missing. Anyway, things got all stirred up and eventually when the dust settled, the Rangers were in charge with the Feds as backup and Charli volunteered to go undercover.”
“Undercover for what?”
“As a hooker over in what they call ‘the zone’ in the next town over. She and Zeb Childress, a Ranger, went in. Him as her pimp.”
“And?”
“And last night two hookers took a hundred bucks each from a man in an old white sedan to set Charli up. One of them ran to her, claiming that the other was being beaten by a man and Charli went to help.
“The girls split and no one has seen Charli since.”
Grady felt rage bubbling up like bile inside him, hot and bitter. “And you’re doing what?”
“Ranger Childress has been on the streets all night, gathering what intel is available and we have a statewide manhunt for Charli and any white 70s model sedan with no license plate.”
Grady noticed the way Tom’s eyes skirted to one side and it made his gut tighten. “What are you not telling me?”
Tom shook his head and stood. “A farmer in Texarkana bought two hogs at auction. When he butchered one of them, he found human fingers. They belonged to one of the missing women. We’re not sure, but whoever is taking these women may be killing them and disposing of the bodies at a hog farm.”
Grady didn’t need to hear any more. Charli was out there, somewhere, and doing all she could to survive. But sometimes even an Operator needed a team and that’s what he was. Her team.
And her team was going to find her.
“I need to talk to Ranger Childress. Where can I find him?”
“I’ll call and set it up. He’s got a command post in the old liquor store.”
“I’ll find it.”
“Grady, you can’t—“
“I think we both know I can. Thanks Tom. I won’t get in your way. Please, don’t get in mine.”
