Chapter 7 Try Not To Drool #2
My lips tipped up at the corners. “What are you doing here, Sunshine?”
“Oh shit,” Koen muttered. “Is he smiling?”
I raised my middle finger in his direction, earning a chuckle from my agents, but my gaze never left Sloane.
“The girls came by for lunch and I mentioned how I hadn’t seen where you worked.” She fiddled with the hem of her sweater. “If you’re too busy, we can come back later.”
“Stay.” I climbed through the ropes and jumped off the platform.
Swiping a towel from the bench, I wiped the sweat from my face, then closed the distance between us.
Not giving a damn where we were or who saw, I stole a chaste kiss when I reached her.
“The team was just helping me work something out.”
“With their fists?”
Waverly joined us. “Sometimes you have to blow off a little steam.”
Sloane reached out, linking our fingers together. “What happened?” My girl was intuitive.
“Let me get changed and I’ll explain everything.” I squeezed her hand, then turned for the locker room when Lanie threw a wrench in my plan.
“So that’s it? Sloane shows up and the rest of us lose the opportunity to take down the great Duncan Palmer?”
Reversing course, I called out as I heaved myself back into the ring, “Give me ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes for what?”
Waverly answered before I could, “Just watch, my soon-to-be sister. And try not to drool.”
It took seventeen minutes instead of the projected ten because Lanie was scrappy as fuck.
Being physically smaller than the rest of the team didn’t mean she was the weakest. Quite the opposite.
She used her stature to her advantage, giving me the heftiest run for my money.
But in the end, they all failed to bring me down.
We gathered in the conference room once the five of us were showered and changed.
Everyone was seated around the large wooden table, including Nelson, Sammy, and Jett, who’d arrived after school let out.
The only two people missing from our ragtag group were Finn and Shayne, though I knew Waverly would bring them both up to speed.
“Not that we don’t enjoy an extra training session,” Noah started.
“Or getting our asses handed to us,” Keaton continued.
“But what the hell happened to bring it on?” Koen finished.
I looked around at the different faces in the room.
What started as a simple friendship between Waverly and I had grown into an unlikely family.
We expanded over the years, with each addition making our unit stronger, more cohesive.
They all meant something to me, none more than the woman by my side.
Cradling her cheek in my palm, I spoke only to her, even though everyone else was clearly listening. I gentled my words, giving her the truth, while controlling the delivery of the narrative. It was the only way to lessen the sting of what we had discovered.
“You were shot?” she whispered.
“Yeah, Sunshine. Right here.” I laid my hand over the spot.
“Who would do this?”
“That’s what we have to figure out. Nelson.”
“Sir?” He sat forward.
“When you were pulling the records, was there any mention of evidence being stored somewhere?”
“Yes. Anything having to do with the investigation was handed over to Director Ashland at his request. Well, he would have been deputy director then.”
“What are you thinking, Duncan?” Waverly eyed me from across the table.
“We need that bullet.”
“You honestly believe we’ll be able to get anything from an almost nine-year-old bullet?”
“Technology has only gotten better, RAC Mitchell,” Nelson interjected.
She dipped her head. “I’ll make the call.”
Before she could make a move, the muffled sound of a phone ringing filled the air.
“Shoot. That’s mine.” Sloane reached into her back pocket, pulling out her cell. Her eyebrows dipped as she read the screen. “It’s the kids' school.”
I went on alert, as did everyone else.
“Put it on speaker, Sloane,” Waverly instructed.
She did, then answered. “Hello?”
“Miss Beckington, it’s Jillian Shelton, the principal at Cabell Elementary. I’m so sorry, but we have a situation.”
“Principal Shelton, this is Special Agent Duncan Palmer with the FBI. I’m Rogan and Reagan’s father. What exactly is going on?”
“The children are missing.”
Sloane
Missing.
The second the principal finished, everyone around me exploded into action.
They were on their feet, shouting incomprehensible words I couldn’t make out over the ringing in my ears.
Nausea churned in my belly. There had to be a mistake, except I knew there wasn’t.
A moment later, I was running for the nearest door.
I didn’t get far when an arm circled my waist, lifting my feet off the ground.
Survival instincts took over. I kicked and flailed, trying to break free from whoever was stopping me from getting to my babies.
The sound of someone screaming cut through my panic.
Only then did I realize that someone was me.
“Noooo!”
“Easy, Sunshine. I’ve got you.”
“Duncan, we have to find them.”
He lowered me to the floor, turning me in his arms. “We will. I swear to you, we will.”
Waverly jogged to our side. “Shayne’ll meet us at the school. Finn’s on his way too.”
“All right. Let’s move out.”
He grabbed my hand, leading me out of the FBI office with his entire team on our heels.
Silent tears streamed down my face as he lifted me into the passenger’s seat of a black SUV.
He drew my seat belt across my chest, clicked it in place, then slammed the door and ran to the driver’s side.
Two others got into the back, though I couldn’t bring myself to check to see who it was.
It didn’t matter anyway. The only thing that mattered was finding my babies.
The road blurred as we raced through the center of town, sirens blaring, weaving in and out of traffic.
Duncan only slowed down at red lights long enough to ensure the other cars stopped to let us pass.
He had one hand on the steering wheel, the other was grasped tightly between both of mine and I wasn’t letting go.
I couldn’t. His touch was the only thing keeping me grounded.
My tears had dried up by the time we pulled into the parking lot of the elementary school.
Four police cars were lined up along the sidewalk with their red lights flashing.
Tires squealed as we came to an abrupt stop next to one of them.
When Duncan released me to get out, it felt like an invisible force had my chest in a vise grip.
I couldn’t breathe. The agony eased a fraction when he opened my door and recaptured my hand, but it was still there under the surface, waiting to pull me under.
Shayne met us at the entrance. “I’ve pulled the school’s security footage and all the traffic cams in the area. They hit Nelson’s inbox thirty seconds ago. I’ve also got officers canvassing the woods at the back of the building in case they wandered off.”
“Good. What else do we know?” Waverly asked, taking my other hand as her friend led us down the hallway to the main office.
“At one fifteen, their class went outside to the playground for recess. Twenty minutes later when the teacher called for them to line up, Rogan and Reagan weren’t there.”
“It’s almost two o’clock. What the fuck took them so long to call us?” Duncan’s voice vibrated with fury.
Principal Shelton was seated on a love seat in her office, comforting the twins’ teacher, Ms. Lemroy, who was in the middle of a breakdown. When her brown eyes locked on mine, they were filled with regret. I didn’t understand until she spoke.
“We followed protocol, searching the building and grounds first. No need to sound the alarm if the children were simply hiding. And please”––she glared at Duncan––“mind your language.”
Waverly brushed past us, extending her hand. “Principal Shelton? I’m Resident Agent in Charge Mitchell. My team will be assisting the local PD with the investigation into the abductions.”
“Is that what you think happened?” the administrator asked.
“What the hell would you call it?” Lanie grumbled.
My mind had been too preoccupied to notice the agents were flanking us––Keaton and Noah on one side, Koen and Lanie on the other. Their presence loosened the knot in my stomach slightly. Duncan trusted them and so did I. They’d do whatever it took to bring my babies home safely.
“I’m n-not sure,” she stuttered.
“Do kids go missing from your school often?” Noah questioned.
“Of course not.”
“We’re wasting time.” I moved, only to be yanked back into Duncan’s hard chest. “Rogan and Reagan know better than to wander off by themselves, Jillian. They were taken.”
The walls of the principal’s office were closing in on me.
It was suffocating, restricting. Duncan wasn’t faring any better.
He’d been pacing the floors ever since Waverly sidelined us.
Finn took his place holding my hand. He and Joel arrived minutes after we did.
With Joel’s background, he and Shayne were checking with the neighboring businesses to see if anyone saw something.
We should be out there with them, combing the streets, not stuck in this godforsaken room waiting for answers.
Rogan and Reagan had been gone for over an hour.
Sixty-seven minutes where I didn’t know if they were hungry or scared.
“We’ve got something.” Nelson burst into the room, then left as quickly as he’d entered.
My legs trembled when I stood, whether from fear or exhaustion, I didn’t know.
Duncan was at my side immediately, wrapping his arm around my waist to steady me.
Finn was there too, right behind us as we quickly moved the short distance to the gymnasium, where the team had a similar setup to the one they had in my house the afternoon when the kids discovered the private investigator in the woods.
Waverly was bent over Noah’s shoulder, staring at the screen of his laptop.