by Cindi Myers
Lonnie rolled his eyes.
Jude perked up. “Can I go get him?” He was already turning in the direction of the school’s front doors. “Is he in his office?”
Rachel nodded but held up her index finger.
“Go straight there,” she warned. Jude gave her a wide smile and was off. Lonnie looked after him, scowl back in full force.
Now it was time to try to distract someone other than herself. “I think the mural looks really good, don’t you?” She pulled out her cell phone. “I’m going to take a picture. Maybe I can post it on the school’s website the week of Halloween.”
“Whatever,” Lonnie muttered. He turned on his heel. Goodness forbid he act interested. Rachel pulled up the camera app and was readying to take the picture when he spoke up again. His tone had changed. It was like night and day. Immediately she knew something was wrong.
“Who are they?”
Rachel heard the car doors shut before she turned to see a van at the front of the parking lot a few hundred yards from them. A tall, broad-shouldered man met her stare with a smile. Sandy hair, cut short, and broad, broad shoulders. She didn’t recognize him. Nor the man who had gotten out of the vehicle behind him. He wore a full set of overalls. He didn’t meet her eyes.
A cold feeling of worry began to swish around in Rachel’s stomach. It should have been the warning that sent her inside. However she held her spot, only instinctively taking a step forward so Lonnie was just behind her elbow. Whoever was driving the van didn’t get out or cut its engine. She couldn’t see the driver’s face through the tint from this distance.
“Hi there,” she called out to the man in front when it was clear he only had eyes for them. “Can I help you?”
The man, who she guessed was a few years older than her thirty-one, didn’t lessen his stride over the curb and onto the grass. He was coming straight for them, his friend at his back.
“Yes, ma’am, you can,” he answered, voice carrying through the air with ease. “I’m looking for someone.” His eyes moved to Lonnie for the briefest of moments. “Maybe you two can help me out.”
That cold in Rachel’s stomach began to expand to the rest of her. She tightened her grip on the phone. Her gut with it.
“Maybe you’d like to talk to the people inside,” she responded. Her voice had climbed to an octave that would let anyone who knew her well enough realize something was off. She was trying to tamp down the growing sense of vulnerability, even around her lie. “They’d probably know better than anyone who’s around. We’ve been outside all morning.”
The only people inside the school were Gaven and Jude, but at the moment, all Rachel wanted to do was to curb the men’s attention. Darby Middle was nestled between one of the small town’s main roads, a wide stretch of trees that hid an outlet of houses and an open field for sale that had once been used for farming. This being Saturday morning or not, there were rarely people out and about who could see the front lawn of the school. The two men continuing, unperturbed, was a reminder of just how quiet the world around them was.
Who were the men?
Why were they at a middle school on a Saturday morning?
Was she overreacting?
Sandy Hair’s smile twisted into a grin. Like she’d just told a joke that only he knew the punch line to. He kept an even pace but was getting close enough to make her stomach knot.
Something isn’t right.
The thought pulsed through her mind so quickly that it physically moved her another step over. This time cutting Lonnie off from the men’s view altogether.
“Nah,” Sandy Hair answered. “I think you will do just fine.”
In that moment Rachel knew two things.
One, something was about to happen and it wasn’t going to be good. She wasn’t a pro at reading people, but there were some nuances that were easy to pick up. The way the man in the overalls looked between her and Lonnie and then back to the building behind them. The way he tilted his body ever so slightly forward as if he was getting ready to move. The way his partner’s eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared. The men were about to do something.
Which was how, two, she knew her gut had been right to worry. She should have listened sooner. While there was an unwritten law of Southern hospitality her parents had taught her from the moment she could walk and talk, Rachel wasn’t about to give the men the benefit of the doubt. Not any longer. She’d learned the hard way that there were bad people in the world who did bad things.
They’d taken David from her.
She wasn’t going to let another set of them take her or the child at her side.
And with a shock of adrenaline, Rachel realized that was what they were about to try to do.
There was about to be running.
There was about to be chasing.
So Rachel decided she wanted her and Lonnie to have the head start. Holding on to her cell phone like the lifeline it might become, Rachel spun on her heel and grabbed Lonnie’s hand. “Run!”
Copyright © 2018 by Tyler Anne Snell
ISBN-13: 9781488033537
Deputy Defender
Copyright © 2018 by Cynthia Myers
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