Dark Secret

by Avelyn Paige

  Kevin’s face drains of all color. “Do it,” I mouth at him.

  “I’ll do it,” he relents, his head hanging low.

  “That’s my boy. I’ll pick you both up tomorrow evening at the park. Six o’clock. Don’t be late. Oh, and Kevin? You don’t show up with the girl, you might as well not show up at all, because what I did to you last time is nothing compared to what I’ll do to Natalie.”

  His uncle hangs up, leaving Kevin staring at the phone.

  “I can’t do what he wants.”

  I place my hand on his shoulder and grip it tightly. “Leave it to us. Why don’t you go on back out there with Shelby.” He does as he’s asked with no protest. When the door closes behind him, the room erupts.

  “You aren’t seriously considering grabbing some girl and handing her over, Judge,” Twat Knot argues.

  “How the fuck are we going to get a girl to agree to be bait?” Karma adds. “No hang-around is going to willingly get kidnapped for us. They’re here for fun, not shit like this.”

  “I think I have a suggestion!” Judge yells out over the noise.

  “Floor is yours, Prez.”

  He shoves up from his seat and stands at the head of the table.

  “We ask Lindsey to be the bait.”

  “You’ve got to be out of your mind, old man. She hasn’t been out of the hospital for more than a couple of weeks, and you want her to voluntarily be kidnapped? No fucking way!” Karma roars from his seat. “Over my dead body will she be bait.”

  If you didn’t know the guy or his wandering cock, you’d think he had feelings for her, but he hasn’t paid a lick of attention to her since she came back. In fact, he’s given her a wide berth the few times she’s been around. His reaction is a bit of a shock.

  “I don’t like it any more than you do, but she’s the best option we have. My niece will pique this Randall’s interest. She looks younger than she is, and has a good head on her shoulders. With her psychology background, she can use it to her advantage.”

  “I think Judge has a point. Hashtag could put a tracker on her. If things go south, she can talk her way out.”

  Karma turns on him. “You think so, GP? How about you send in Blair? She fits the bill too.”

  “Fuck you, man.”

  “It’s an honest question. If Lindsey fits, so does Red. It’s only fair we put both of their names into the hat.”

  GP comes flying out of his chair, stopping shy of slamming into Karma. Judge swiftly shifts, shoving his large frame between the two raging beasts and the lit powder keg.

  “Enough!” Judge shouts. “The two of you need to park your asses, now. Move!”

  Both GP and Karma do as they’re ordered, begrudgingly.

  “I know this club asks a lot of the women around us, but Lindsey is my blood. I’d never suggest her for this if I thought she’d be in danger.”

  Karma snarls out loud at Judge’s decision and storms out of the room.

  “What are we going to do about him?” I ask Judge.

  “Leave him be. He’ll come around. You go get shit rolling with the tracker, and I’ll call Lindsey.”

  Shelby

  “I don’t exactly look like a twelve-year-old,” Lindsey huffs, looking at herself in the mirror.

  “You look great,” I assure her. “You look young, and I’m pretty sure that’s all this asshole cares about.”

  Lindsey wrinkles her nose in disgust, pulling the brush through her hair a few more times. I come up behind her and place a hand on her arm. “Thank you for doing this. Truly.”

  She meets my gaze in the mirror. “This is going to work, Shelby. Guys like this make mistakes, and I know exactly what to watch for. We’re going to get your girl back.”

  “Knock-knock,” Judge calls from the other side of the door. “Let’s roll, ladies.”

  A knot forms in my belly as I watch Lindsey take a deep breath. If she feels any fear at all about what she’s about to do, she doesn’t show it on the outside. She walks out that door with her head held high.

  Two identical dark blue vans sit outside the clubhouse with their sliding doors propped open. Every member of the club has shown up for this. Wyatt had said the Black Hoods were his family, and for the first time, I see it. They’re here for Wyatt. They’re here to save our daughter, and they don’t even know her.

  “All right,” Wyatt calls out, walking into an open space in the center of the group. “This is how tonight’s gonna play out. We’re gonna drop Kevin and Lindsey off at the park where his uncle said to meet him. We’re gonna stay in our vehicles and be discreet.”

  Karma shuffles from foot to foot, his jaw ticking like crazy as Wyatt talks, looking as antsy as I feel.

  “When the uncle shows, we follow them home. Kevin will go inside, and if the girls are there, he’s gonna hang a shirt or towel, or something, out the bedroom or bathroom window. That’ll be our signal. Until we get that signal, we don’t step in.”

  “What if that bastard does something to Lindsey?” Karma snarls.

  “He won’t have time,” Wyatt replies. “We aren’t going to be waiting around for hours. And Lindsey’s smart. She can talk to him.”

  Karma curses and walks to the back of the group. Wyatt answers a couple more questions, and then they’re all piling into the vans. Just before they slide the door shut on the closest one, I jump inside.

  “I don’t fucking think so,” Wyatt snaps, reaching over my shoulder to open the door.

  Fucking men. “If you think I’m sitting here while all of you go off trying to save my daughter, you’re delusional. I’m coming.”

  “It’s not safe,” he insists.

  “I’m coming.”

  Our noses are practically touching as we glare at each other, neither of us willing to budge. Finally, Judge has to step in.

  “Move aside, Hash. Let the lady come along.”

  Wyatt shakes his head, but finally moves, allowing me to crawl the rest of the way into the open van.

  It’s an odd experience driving to the park. There are no seats in the van, and there are six of us back here, but none of us say a word, the air heavy with anticipation. My feelings are confusing. I’m worried about Lindsey, and about what could go wrong. I’m excited at the chance to get Hayden back tonight, and can only pray that she’s still untouched.

  “Okay, kid.” Wyatt pulls into a space amongst the trees. Handing Kevin a burner phone, he taps it. “My number is one on speed dial. It’s the only one you should be calling.”

  Kevin tucks it into his pocket, sounding terrified when he asks, “What do I say to him?”

  Judge leans over and grasps his face in his hands, looking him straight in the eyes. “You tell him you didn’t say shit about him. You don’t tell him about the club. You present Lindsey like a fucking prized pig, and you signal us as fast as you fucking can so we can get all your asses out of there. You got that?”

  Kevin gulps before jumping out of the van, with Lindsey following behind him.

  Together, they walk through the park and over to the bench to the left. I can barely see them from back here, but GP’s in the front, and he can see everything.

  “They’re sitting on the bench,” he says, peering through a pair of binoculars. “They’re chatting. They look like a pair of teenagers off on a date.”

  Karma shifts next to me, but he doesn’t speak.

  GP leans forward in his seat. “And there he is. He’s talking to the kid. The kid just handed over the phone we gave him. Uncle Pedophile threw it on the ground, and now he’s stomping on it.”

  The play-by-play GreenPeace is giving sounds totally ridiculous, but I listen intently nonetheless.

  “Now they’re walking.”

  I think of poor Kevin and the ocean of tears he’d cried last night, and my heart hurts for him. He had come to us for help, and we’d sent him right back into the lion’s den.

  “He just shoved Lindsey into his van. I can’t tell from here, but I think he hit
her, maybe knocked her out. She’s not moving.”

  A few more minutes pass, and then GP throws the van in drive, turning around to follow Kevin and his uncle’s van. They pass just as we come to the stop sign in front of us. As they go by, Kevin’s bruised and swollen face peers back at us from the passenger’s side window, looking absolutely terrified.

  Me too, buddy. Me too.

  Hashtag

  We drive for nearly three hours until the van takes an exit off of I-35, just north of Laredo. The area is remote. There’s nothing here—no businesses, no homes. Not even a fucking tumbleweed. It’s the perfect place to hide, and the worst place possible for us not to be spotted. I hadn’t planned for that.

  “Isn’t there a border crossing in Laredo?” Shelby questions.

  “There’s one going into Juárez, but we’re a good twenty miles from that.” Too close for comfort as far as I’m concerned.

  “You don’t think he’s planning to take them across the border, do you?”

  “I think that’s exactly where he’s taking them, but he won’t get that far, Shel.” I keep my voice as even as possible, but there’s a part of me that’s just as skeptical as she is. If we fail, the chances of getting Hayden back are slim to none. She’ll be moved around until there’s no trace of her left for us to find. We can’t let that happen.

  Her eyes stay on the road ahead of us, but I can feel the tension like a storm surge on the banks of the ocean.

  “Ease up on the distance,” I say, realizing just how close we’re getting. GP slows down, adding several car lengths between our van and Kevin's uncle’s. Grabbing the radio off the dash, I call back to the rest of the club following behind us.

  “Pull off somewhere,” I order. “It’s so open out here, he’ll spot us a mile away. We’ll keep on him and radio back when he stops.”

  “Ten-four,” Priest responds. “We passed a hotel a few miles back. I’ll swing in there and await your call. Stay safe, brother.”

  I put the radio back into place and keep my eyes trained on the piece of shit van. Desert flatlands surround us, and even though he’s not close, the plumes of dust behind him give him away.

  About twenty minutes later, he suddenly turns off onto a dirt road and floors it, kicking up dust behind him.

  “Do you want me to follow him?” GP asks.

  I consider it. Even with the dust, he’ll see us, taking away the element of surprise. I don’t want any more distance between us and the van, but it’s too risky. We have to hang back. I peer down to the tracker’s signal on my satellite laptop. The signal is still going strong.

  “He’s slowing down. Pull off over there by that line of trees. There looks to be some kind of house out there, which might be his hidey-hole.”

  GP maneuvers our van as I ask, and nestles us close behind the trees, obscuring us from view. Checking the mirrors, I see no one around us and exit the vehicle, leaving the door open wide. I shift the laptop to the van seat with the tracking software and a map of the area side by side on the screen.

  “Hop out of there, and bring the radio and binoculars with you,” I tell Shelby. “You stay in the van, GP, in case we need to make a clean getaway.”

  I push through some of the thicker parts of the brush until I find a good spot. Shelby slips in behind me and shoves the binoculars over my shoulder. Bringing them up to my eyes, I look for the van through the thick dust. It takes a few minutes before I can spot it. The van comes to a stop near the house I’d seen from the road, and Randall comes around to the side door.

  Kevin jumps from the passenger seat and stands next to him. The side door of the van opens, and he reaches inside. I don’t recognize the first girl he pulls out, but her body is nearly limp as she falls against him. Kevin helps the girl inside the house while Randall waits outside. Reaching in a second time, he drags Lindsey out, and just like the first girl, she’s unsteady on her feet. He’s drugged them.

  “Give me the radio.” She hands it to me, and I press it up close to my mouth.

  “Got eyes on Lindsey. She’s okay, but she’s clearly out of it.”

  Karma mutters a string of curses in the background.

  “Calm your ass down, K, I’m trying to hear,” Judge growls. “Any sign of Hayden?”

  “Not yet, but he just took Lindsey inside. He’s got a little house out here in the boonies.”

  Kevin comes back out, and Hayden steps out of the van. She’s steadier on her feet, but she looks exhausted, covered in dirt from head to toe.

  “She’s there,” I relay back to Judge. Shelby shoves me over and snatches the binoculars from me. “She was the last girl out of the van. He’s got another girl with them.”

  “Oh, my baby,” Shelby cries when she sees her. “That’s the same outfit she had on the day she disappeared. She looks like she’s lost weight.”

  Grabbing the binoculars back, I take another look. It’s hard to make out from this distance, but she looks unharmed outside of the filth. I watch until she disappears from view, and the door slams shut behind her. Stepping out from the trees, I hand the binoculars to Shelby and head back to the van to watch the tracker. The beacon flashes. He hasn’t found it yet.

  “What’s going on?” Karma demands over the radio.

  “Everyone’s inside the house. Tracker is still active.”

  “So we go in. It’s one guy against ten of us. There’s no need to wait.”

  “No,” I snap. “Kevin will signal us when the time is right. If we bum-rush our way in there, he’ll kill the girls before we can even get close.”

  Karma growls into the radio, “I don’t fucking like this, man. We’re putting too much faith in this kid.”

  “I’ve got eyes on the place. He makes a move, I’ll see him. I’m sending Priest our location now. The sun’s going down fast, so it’ll be dark by the time you get here.” Pulling my phone from my pocket, I fire off the text with our coordinates.

  “How the fuck are you going to see in the dark? He could move them and you’d never know,” Karma argues back.

  “Night vision, dumbass. I had Priest pick up some new toys for us. They’re in the van.”

  Silence comes from the other end.

  “We’re on our way.”

  Laying the radio on the ground next to my laptop, I turn to Shelby, who still stands in the brush with her gaze locked on the house that holds our daughter. She leans against me when I move behind her.

  “She’s alive,” she whispers. “I thought…” A sob snatches her breath away.

  “Shh, Shel. I told you I’d find her. Just a little longer until she’s back and safe with us.”

  “What if they’ve done something to her?”

  “Then we deal with it as a family.” I wrap my arms around her neck, holding her tight. We stand like that, watching together, for thirty minutes before the rumble of another vehicle pulls up behind our van.

  “Stay here, and keep watch,” I whisper to her. With my hand on the gun, I step out of the tree line and sigh in relief. The cavalry is here.

  Karma charges headlong into the trees with Shelby, leaving the rest of us outside.

  “Any movement?” Priest asks as he exits the van, dressed all in black.

  “None. It’s been quiet.”

  “Quiet is good.” Reaching back into the van, he tosses me a bag. I unzip it, and find my own set of dark clothing. Pulling out the long-sleeved T-shirt, I take the one I have on off and slip it over my head.

  “You weren’t kidding about being out in the open here,” Burnt remarks when he joins us. “The only thing we have going for us is the darkness.”

  “There’s been no traffic since we’ve been out here. It’s just us and them. The odds are in our favor.”

  “Let’s keep it that way.”

  Karma stomps out of the tree line and beelines for the back of the van.

  “He still pissed?”

  “Pissed ain’t the word I would use to describe his mood,” Twat Knot declares. “He
bitched the entire drive down here. Thank fuck for headphones, man, or I’d have thrown his ass out on the interstate.”

  A laugh escapes my lips, but lasts only seconds when my laptop begins to beep, and I feel as if the ground has been yanked out from under me.

  “The fuck is that?” Karma questions.

  “The tracker’s offline!” I yell, rushing toward my laptop. A red bar flashes above the screen. Disconnected. He’s found it. The fucker found it on Lindsey. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

  “He’s outside,” Shelby calls out to us. I burst into a run and fly into the brush, snatching the binoculars from her.

  The uncle is outside the house, gun in hand. He knows we’re here. There’s no time to waste now. We have to move in.

  Shelby

  “What do we do, Prez?” Karma asks, his gun at the ready.

  “Let me fucking think!” Judge snaps, running forward and snatching the binoculars from Hashtag’s hands. “Fuck!”

  He watches for a few more moments, his jaw clenched tight. “Okay, he’s gone back inside. Shelby, you get your ass back in the van. The rest of you, we’re going to move in. We don’t know for sure if that motherfucker is onto us or not. He could just be paranoid.”

  “There are no windows on the south side of the house, which means we go in low and fast. We reach the building and we head in, SWAT style—everyone armed, everyone alert. You got it?”

  The men around me all nod, or call out their affirmations, ready to go. “Get your guns, boys,” Judge orders. “It’s time to take out a fucking pervert.”

  Watching them all strap on holsters and bulletproof vests is surreal. It’s like watching a Hollywood movie, but this time, there’s no guarantee that the good guys will win in the end.

  “Get in the van, baby.” Wyatt, approaching from the side, pulls me into his chest. “We’ve got this.”

  I look up at him with tears burning in my eyes. “Be careful, handsome.”

  He grins. It’s what I used to call him when we were young. “Ah, you do love me,” he teases, placing a kiss on the tip of my nose. “I’m getting our girl back. This family is long overdue for a fucking reunion.”