Chapter 11
T aryn settled in the tree, hugging the little girl who still dozed in her arms. There was a chill in the air, even though it was a summer night. Once the sun left, and the winds picked up, it would be hard to keep the body heat in. The fact that she was in a tree waiting for Alex to come get them completely threw her. Meanwhile, here she was, cuddling Bruce’s niece, and that was worth everything.
She kissed the top of Cassie’s head, causing her to snuggle in closer. Smiling, Taryn gently cradled the child in her arms and whispered, “Alex is coming soon.”
The little girl didn’t respond, but why would she? The name Alex didn’t mean anything to Cassie anyway. As Taryn sat in the tree, she watched as headlights came toward them. She smiled, only to see the headlights turn into the driveway and head up the road to Jeff’s house.
Her heart slammed against her chest as frantic thoughts assaulted her mind.
Was that Uncle Jeff? Had he dumped the little boys somewhere and come back home?
But that’s not a truck parking in front of the house. Even in the dark, she could tell that much.
If that were the case, somehow both Riff and Alex might have missed Jeff; and it also meant that he would soon be looking for Cassie. Which meant Jeff could be coming after them in a major fury any second now. Not that he knew Taryn was here, but she couldn’t help but remember that he’d somehow known she and Alex were at the creek, one mile away. Maybe Jeff knew where Taryn was right now too. She shifted restlessly, sending out as many telepathic messages as she could.
When her phone vibrated, she snatched it, trying to not wake up Cassie. It was Terkel. “Hey,” she whispered. “A vehicle just drove to Jeff’s house, and I can’t tell who it is because it’s dark out there. The uncle had driven away, so I don’t know if it’s him or what.”
“Riff’s still following the uncle’s truck,” Terk replied, his voice calm.
“Well, somebody else then has shown up here,” she snapped. “And I don’t like it.”
“Take it easy,” Terk said. “Alex is on his way back to you, and you’re still in the tree, right?”
“I am, along with Cassie,” she confirmed, “and we’re just high enough that I can see the house, the driveway, and the vehicle parking there. I can’t see much about it, except that the headlights have now stopped at the front of the house. So, I know the vehicle is still there, but I don’t know what it’s doing.”
“It’s possible Jeff was expecting somebody to show up there,” he muttered.
Then Taryn froze. “Oh, good God.”
“What?”
“What if Jeff took off to dump the boys, or whatever he’s up to, and just left Cassie there to be picked up by his buyer?” The thought just destroyed her, and she held on to Cassie even tighter. “Would Jeff do something like that?” she asked in a horrified voice.
“For anybody who’s prepared to sell their own niece, this makes total sense. Jeff just gets to leave, to go pick up groceries or whatever, then never returns.”
“So are the little boys with Jeff?”
“We don’t know that for sure. We only have Cassie’s account of that, right?”
“Right, and she’s sound asleep.”
“And she needs to stay that way,” Terk noted calmly. “Things could get a little dicey coming up, and we’ll want to minimize the trauma she has to go through.”
“Too late,” Taryn quipped in a broken tone. “Cassie told me how her uncle hit Jack and John pretty hard, and they weren’t quite right afterward.”
“Well, head injuries can do that, so I’m not surprised if that was the end result of a blow,” Terkel added in a solemn tone. “Both boys can be helped, even from afar.”
“I understand that you would check on them.”
“The healers did, and they have already been working their magic on the boys. Both do have concussions, possibly head fractures too,” Terk shared, his voice deep, “which is one of the reasons we’re out there trying to pick up Jeff as fast as we can.”
“And yet Riff’s still tracking the vehicle.”
“Yes, and now the question is, if somebody drove up to the house to collect Cassie, what’ll be their reaction if she’s not there?”
“Well, if it were me, I would be furious. Then I would contact the uncle right away—looking for my purchase ,” she muttered, her tone twisting at the last word.
“Of course,” Terkel agreed. “Stay where you are. I’ll get back to you in a few minutes.” And, with that, he disconnected.
Taryn cuddled Cassie close. Taryn’s head bent against the wind that was picking up and whistling through the trees. She watched the vehicle below, but it remained in place, its headlights facing the house. She didn’t know if anybody had gotten in or out over the noise of the wind and the phone call, but it was quite possible that they were inside the house now, searching for the little girl.
When Cassie popped her head up a little later, she looked around, sleepy-eyed. “Are we still in the tree?”
“We are,” Taryn whispered, “but good people are coming to help us.”
“Are they?” she asked, with just enough doubt in her tone.
“Yes, good people are out there helping us,” Taryn murmured. “And they’re also trying to find your brothers.”
At that, tears came into the little girl’s eyes. “They didn’t even do anything,” she whispered. “Jack and John didn’t do anything bad.”
“I know. Your uncle is probably having a rough time dealing with Mommy’s death and Daddy’s disappearance.”
Cassie looked up at Taryn, with an age-old wisdom that was hard to argue with, and shook her head. “He’s changed, ever since Mommy passed away. Uncle Jeff’s different.”
“Well, death can do that to people,” Taryn replied. “Somebody drove up to your house. Do you know anything about that?”
The little girl nodded. “Uncle Jeff told me that somebody was coming tonight, coming to visit.”
“Oh.… Did he give you any details?”
She shook her head. “Just that I was supposed to be really nice to him.”
Taryn’s stomach seized and then wanted to revolt at that phrasing. “Well, the good news is, you won’t have to be nice to him at all. He’s at the house, and I imagine he’s probably looking for you and your uncle.”
Cassie stared back, chewing on her bottom lip.
“Don’t worry. You’re not going there ever again,” Taryn declared.
Cassie twisted to look up at her. “Is he a bad man?”
“I don’t know who he is, but he won’t be a good man,” she replied. “Honey, did your uncle ever touch you?” she asked.
Cassie shook her head. “No, he didn’t, but other men wanted to.”
“And that’s not right,” Taryn stated. “Nobody gets to touch you. Not that way, not in a bad way.”
Cassie’s chest rose and fell. Then she sighed and took a big, deep breath. “I don’t want to go back into that house,” she announced.
“You won’t have to, honey,” Taryn stated firmly. “We’ll stay here until my friends get here, and then we’ll leave.”
At that, Cassie looked up at her. “I don’t know your name,” she whispered.
“I’m Taryn, a friend of your uncle Bruce. You may not remember me from years ago, but you remember Uncle Bruce, don’t you?”
At that, the little girl perked up. “Yes. I do. Can I go to Uncle Bruce?”
“That’s the plan,” Taryn stated. “We’ll have to take a plane to get there though. Plus, I want to talk to Bruce first, before we head in that direction.”
“So you know him?” Cassie asked, looking for that same reassurance.
Taryn realized just how much this little girl must have gone through already. “I do know him, Cassie. We were really close friends when we were growing up. And I knew your mom back then too,” she added. “She was older than me. When I left home, where Bruce and I had been raised with your mom, I didn’t call Mary like I did Bruce. He and I stayed in touch.”
The little girl stared up at her. “You knew Mommy?”
“I did, back when we were all kids.”
Cassie relaxed against Taryn. “My mommy was the most beautiful lady in the whole world,” she whispered.
“She was. I agree.” Taryn nodded. “And, Cassie, we will keep all these ugly people away from you. You don’t need to be worried about that.”
She nodded. “She wasn’t happy.”
“Who wasn’t happy?”
“Mommy,” she said. “Mommy was not happy at all. She told me that we needed to leave before something bad happened.”
“Oh dear.” Taryn winced. “I hope nothing bad did happen.”
“Uncle Jeff hit her once,” Cassie shared. “I know it really hurt her. She cried lots, and then he got angry because she cried.”
Not a whole lot Taryn could say to that, but it reinforced what kind of a man they were dealing with. “I’m so sorry. That couldn’t have been very pleasant to see or hear or go through.”
“I just wanted Mommy safe,” Cassie stated. “I told her that we had to leave, and she agreed that we should, but she didn’t know how.”
“She could have contacted her family.”
“They didn’t like Uncle Jeff, so she couldn’t call them. She wanted to contact Uncle Bruce, but she didn’t know how.”
“Yeah, honey, that’s because Bruce was having a hard time too,” Taryn replied. “He was overseas, working in Russia, but he got captured and was a prisoner for a long time.” Cassie stared up at her in shock. Taryn nodded. “Which is one of the reasons why he hasn’t been able to come for you, but he’s getting better now. So he will see you soon, after we take you over there,” she clarified. “I don’t think he’ll travel for a while.”
Cassie seemed to accept that at face value, and she settled back again. Then she froze and asked, “What about Jack and John?”
“Jack and John are coming with us,” Taryn declared.
“Even if they are not…” Cassie hesitated and then asked in a whisper, “Even if they aren’t normal?”
“Do you really think they won’t be normal?”
“Uncle Jeff hurt them really bad,” Cassie whispered. “There was lots of blood.”
“So why would you think they are not normal?”
“John wouldn’t speak or couldn’t. When Jack talked,… his words sounded funny, and Uncle Jeff laughed at him and said that nobody would want him now, not like this.”
Taryn struggled to keep her temper reined in. The more she heard about Jeff, the more she wanted him in front of her, where she could kick the crap out of him—or worse. “Well, your uncle is not a very nice man,” she declared, “and Jack and John will be just fine. We’ll do everything we can to help them heal from their head wounds, and we’ll get all three of you over to see Uncle Bruce.”
Cassie went silent for a moment, and Taryn saw the little girl’s face in the shadows of the moon. Cassie seemed to be thinking about something, something that was bothering her. “What’s the matter, honey?”
“What if Uncle Bruce doesn’t like us?” she whispered.
Taryn’s heart broke. “Uncle Bruce absolutely adores you, always has and always will,” she stated. “He loves you all dearly, and you’re his sister’s kids. So believe me that he will do everything he can to protect you. He would be here right now if he knew about all this, but he’s been badly hurt himself. He’s only just now starting to recover. However, he will heal, and he will be fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m positive, and he’ll be so happy to see you,” she added. “Sadly he doesn’t yet know about your mommy, so I need to tell him about that as well.”
And, with that, Cassie settled back into Taryn’s arms and didn’t say any more.
*
When his phone vibrated, Alex swore, then quickly answered it, his heart sinking at the thought of more bad news reaching him.
“Somebody has driven onto the property,” Levi stated, his voice calm.
“Where are you getting that from?”
“From Terkel, who got it from Taryn. We have no idea who it is or what he’s doing there, but, according to what Cassie told Taryn, somebody was coming to visit her.”
“Jesus Christ,” Alex muttered. “That little girl has good instincts. I thought it was unwise of her to leave the house, not knowing Taryn was there. Yet, if Cassie got out of the house in the dark and ran on her own, that little girl is all kinds of brave.”
“She is, but she may have been heading toward Taryn without even realizing it.”
“Exactly, and again that’s back to good instincts,” he murmured. “It makes me feel pretty shitty that this animal is out there to hurt a little girl like Cassie. She was this quiet little ghost beside her uncle. Well trained—or more likely well beaten into submission,” he shared.
“But we won’t let it stay that way.”
“Is she doing okay?”
“She is. How far out are you?”
“About four minutes.” Alex pushed the gas pedal even flatter on the floorboard. “I’m getting there as fast as I can.”
“She’s doing fine, and they are still hidden. It would be great if we could catch the asshole who headed up to the house.”
“Yeah, that is my first priority,” Alex declared, “assuming the two of them are still safe in that tree. If Cassie and Taryn are okay, I’ll head up to the house and see if I can pick up the buyer.”
“Well, the sting that was supposed to happen tonight has been called off, since Jeff bailed early. However, the police are still on the way, even set up a roadblock or two, and remember that they will have control of the operation, once they get there.”
Alex swore at that.
“I know,” Levi replied. “It’s frustrating, but we must work with local law enforcement, and, in this case, they had the chops to go in and to make a seizure.”
“Right, I get it.” Alex groaned. “So, do I go in the house or not?”
“You can go in, but you’ll have to identify yourself when the locals show up, just to confirm they don’t include you as part of the sting.”
Alex thought about that, wincing. “ Great , that could really delay my getting to Taryn and Cassie.”
“It could, but let’s not go there. Yet I’ve warned the authorities that you’re on the way. Of course they’ve stated flat-out that you’re to stay away.”
“Yeah, I know the drill,” he muttered, “and I get it. I really do, yet… it makes me crazy.”
“Keep driving,” Levi said. “You should be coming up on the gals, if you weren’t that far away.”
“I’m really close now,” he muttered, as he slowed down, based on his GPS directions. “Jesus, it’s dark out here. No streetlights, no nothing,” he complained.
“Yeah, I’ll bet, but, according to Terk, Cassie could see by the moonlight.”
“Yeah, I’m sure she can. There’s just enough to make it a beautiful evening—under any other circumstances,” Alex noted. “Only this situation makes it suck.”
“People have a way of making everything suck or making everything great. We can’t get hung up on one or the other. We just do the best we can,” Levi shared, and, with that, Levi rang off.
Alex phoned Taryn as soon as he was off the call from Levi.
“Where are you?” she asked anxiously.
“I’m just approaching the driveway right now. The sting group has been called off, since Jeff left the property. However, the local authorities are coming, hopefully to pick up this new guy, but I want to confirm he doesn’t leave before the cops get here. So my thought was to head up to the house first.” There was silence on the other end. “Unless you need me,” he asked in an undertone. “If you need me,… I’m there. Matter of fact, I’m coming right up to you now.”
“No, we’re fine,” Taryn replied. “Go get that asshole.”
“And yet we don’t know exactly what he’s doing there.”
“No, we don’t—yet at the same time we really do.”
He agreed with her. “Fine,” he muttered. “Give me ten with him.” He saw the driveway coming up. He slowed and shut off his headlights, then turned onto the driveway. He knew that Taryn was watching. He drove most of the way up the driveway, and then, finding a good spot, he turned his rental vehicle sideways on the drive, in between several trees to try and prevent the guy from making a run for it. It also meant that anybody coming behind him wouldn’t get any closer either—like the cops—which Alex knew he would probably take flack for.
But, if they were close enough that they could run out and lend a hand, then Alex was okay with it. He stepped up to the front of the house and rather than calling out and announcing his presence, he checked the door. Finding it unlocked, he slipped inside.
The place was dark and silent. At that, he tilted his head, assessing the space. It was too silent.
It had an emptiness to it, and he frowned at that, then did a quick search of the inside of the house, but no one was here. No real furniture was here either. Frowning at that, he turned and headed back outside, checking over the vehicle out front, to see if it offered any information. It had a rental sticker on the windshield, which seemed as old as the car itself, which the guy probably picked up locally. So Alex figured there would also be a fake name used on the application to rent it,… paying for it with somebody else’s credit card.
He quickly texted Levi the information that he’d found so far to run a title check, then headed back inside for another search. What would have made the new guy book it, and why now? Would he have left the vehicle on purpose? That didn’t make a whole lot of sense, unless the rental was somehow linked to him. Maybe the guy got very suspicious and was spooked. Guys that worked in this illegal field, especially if a pro, or anybody who had done this before, he would be very knowledgeable about keeping himself hidden from the authorities. Alex slipped out the back of the house, looking to see if anything would lead him to finding this new guy.
But he had absolutely nothing. Not a thing. He quickly sent a text to Levi. Nothing is here. The vehicle is parked, but it’s empty.
Levi replied with a text. Could be a trap.
Alex nodded and texted back. I know it. And, with that, he slowly retraced his steps to the vehicle and moved away from the front of the house. If the new guy had been watching him, Alex had no feeling of it. His senses hadn’t picked up anything, just a sense of emptiness, as if nobody were here. Frowning at that and not liking anything about the situation, Alex got back in his vehicle and headed to the gals. He drove down the road a bit, parked off on the shoulder far enough away that nobody would know that he was going to the creek, then raced to where the two females were in a tree.
As he got closer, he sent Taryn a text. I’m here.
When no answer came, his heart froze. He sent another text and still got nothing in reply. Frantic, he looked around, hoping against hope that nothing had gone wrong. When yet another text got no answer still, he quickly phoned Levi. “Taryn and Cassie, they’re gone,” he cried out. “They’re not here.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Tell me what happened.”
He was frantically looking up and down, as he wandered under the trees. “I’ve called her phone, texted her. She’s not answering, and I’ve called out several times too,” he shared, feeling the panic crushing his chest.
“Jesus Christ. When I mentioned how it could be a trap, this decoy effort was the farthest thing from my mind. I wasn’t thinking about a trap like that. Seen any other vehicle at all?”
“No, I drove past the creek and parked farther down the road. So there’s a chance that the kidnapping could have happened while I searched the house, then drove here. After all we’re talking about a fifteen-minute window here.”
“And yet you and I both know that fifteen minutes is time enough for all kinds of hell.”
“Jesus Christ,” he whispered, staring up around the trees. “Taryn didn’t contact me. She didn’t say anything.”
“No, me neither. What are the chances that she couldn’t have?”
“I would say pretty damn high, if that’s the case,” Alex muttered.
“Do the best you can. I need to contact Terkel.” With that, Levi disconnected.
Alex stared around, his gaze catching something pink. He raced over. It was a strand of yarn from a sweater. He sent out as many telepathic alerts as he could, hoping that Taryn was out there and could hear him or that the little girl was paying attention. When a voice crept into his mind, faint and teary-eyed, he whispered, “Cassie?”
Yes .
“Where are you?”
I don’t know , she cried out.
“Is Taryn with you?”
Yes , she whispered, but she’s sleeping .
Alex winced at that because sleeping could mean so many different things. “Are you in a vehicle?”
Yes , she whispered again.
“Did you see who it was?”
No, something hit her, and she cried out, told me to hang on to a branch. Then she collapsed .
“ Great ,” he muttered. “Is she bleeding?”
I don’t think so, but I can’t really see anything , Cassie said, sobbing now. I’m really scared .
“I know you are, honey, and we’ll find you. Did you see where the man came from?”
No. I don’t know , she replied, starting to get hysterical.
“It’s all right. You’re okay. Now, if you’re in a vehicle, do you know anything about it, like what color it is?”
It was dark outside. I couldn’t see .
“Okay.” Alex thought as fast as he could on his feet. “Did you see anything about the man?”
No .
“Did you see anything about which direction he went? Are you in the trunk?”
It’s a van . A dark one, and we’re going down the road .
“Okay, I’m heading to my vehicle. I’ll be at my car in seconds.”
Hurry . I don’t like this man .
“Did he say anything to you?”
Just that I shouldn’t have left the house . Then she started to sob.
“Great,” Alex muttered. At that, he turned on the ignition and raced down the highway, sending out a telepathic message to Terkel. We’re looking for a dark van up ahead, probably fifteen minutes out. Our guy shot Taryn with something, and it sounds as if she fell from the tree. Whether this new guy caught her or not, I don’t know. He might have just let her drop. He scolded Cassie for leaving the house. I’ll let you update Levi, since I’m on the road in pursuit. Since I didn’t cross paths with a vehicle getting here, I’m heading out in the same direction. It’s a risk that I’m going the wrong way, but I’m taking it.
Terk muttered, ever calm, What the hell is the kidnapper up to?
Not only that but how did he find them so quickly?
The only thing that comes to mind is that Cassie’s got a tracker on her.
And that tracker would be courtesy of her asshole uncle.
Yep, that would be my take on it , Terk agreed, his voice grim.
And given the complexity and the security behind these kinds of sales , Alex began, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a tracker isn’t something that’s standard practice. Jeff had to leave Cassie home alone, and maybe this is the reason he felt comfortable doing that because she has a tracker on her .