Chapter 3
CHAPTER
THREE
CILLIAN
She has to be okay.
She has to be.
It’s a silent mantra I keep repeating.
But I also keep hearing her frightened yelp. Her muffled cry. The sound of the phone clattering to the ground. And then her voicemail message on repeat as I called her over and over, my panic growing by the second.
My foot presses down on the gas, pushing my car well past the speed limit. I know it’s not wise, speeding like this; not when I can’t afford to be pulled over. But my body won’t listen to reason. My body is running on sheer instinct, which is telling me to get to Paige’s house as quickly as I can.
I didn’t know where she lived before, but I do now.
After two fruitless minutes of calling Paige, I knew I needed to try something different. But I didn’t know her address. I didn’t even know her last name.
I had a fleeting thought of calling her company. But just as I was racing to my computer to look up their contact information, another idea struck me.
Rather than dealing with operators and hold times and wasted minutes trying to convince whoever finally answered that I was serious and not some crazy guy looking for attention, I could call on the people who’ve always had my six.
People who would do anything for me if I asked, just as I’d do for them.
So I called my old GB teammate, Niall. He’s out in Texas now, working for an elite security company, along with two more of my former teammates, Xavier and Rhiannon. If there’s someone to be found, a person who needs help, their company is the one to call.
And I knew once I explained, Niall would find Paige’s location faster than anyone else.
Not two minutes later, I was proven right.
As I was racing to my garage, trusty Sig and Ka-Bar in hand, he called me back.
“Okay,” he told me, “we have her location. Matt hacked into the cell phone company’s records and got her address.
Paige Beaumont, 512 Woodthrush Lane, Fredericksburg.
Just west of I-95. Looks like she’s about an hour—”
“Forty-five minutes,” I interrupted. “This time of night, I can make it in forty-five minutes.”
Because, even then, I knew I was making the drive. If Paige called me back with an explanation—a sudden emergency at home, or heck, a spider that made her drop her phone and accidentally break it—I could just as easily turn around and come back home.
But if I didn’t hear from her…
I called the police, of course. The second I hung up with Niall, I called them. They said they’d send over a patrol car to do a welfare check, promising to call me back if there was a problem.
As if I’d wait for them to call me? Not when I kept hearing Paige’s frightened yelp over and over. Not when my gut was screaming that something was terribly wrong.
So I badgered the Fredericksburg police for a good thirty minutes, all the while speeding like a maniac down the highway, until an annoyed-sounding officer finally got back to me.
“There’s nothing wrong,” he reported. “Just an empty house with all the lights off. She probably just went out. If you don’t hear from her after twenty-four hours, you can file a missing persons report. ”
But that officer doesn’t know Paige. He doesn’t know that she wouldn’t just hang up on me without explanation.
He doesn’t know that she always stays home in the evenings, working on her house or watching HGTV.
And he didn’t hear the fear in her voice when she told me she thought someone was inside her house.
Shit.
Someone was in her house.
I’m sure of it.
Which means the chances of Paige being okay are nowhere near what I want them to be.
As I fly past the mile markers on the way to Fredericksburg, all the horrible stories I’ve read about—serial killers and violent offenders and human traffickers preying on the innocent—bombard me, but this time with Paige as the victim.
Shit.
I slam my palm on the steering wheel, welcoming the sting of pain. Anything to distract from the terrible images in my head.
She can’t be hurt. Can’t be taken. Can’t be—
No.
NO.
I refuse to consider it.
Not when there’s so much left to discover between us.
All the reasons for keeping Paige at a distance are gone. Swept away in this storm of fear and panic and urgency.
She wouldn’t think it was creepy; asking her out after talking for so long.
And do I really believe Paige would judge me for my scars? Or have I been letting my own insecurities control me?
If she’s okay…
I’ll ask her out. And if she agrees, I’ll take her on a date as soon as she’s willing.
We can have dinner—Italian, our favorite—and go to a movie.
Or check out one of the breweries she’s mentioned, play some darts or pool.
Talk until closing time, and maybe when I bring her home, we’ll share our first kiss.
The possibility of a future with Paige stretches out ahead of me, filled with things I’d given up hoping for until I met her. A partner. A lover. A best friend. A woman I’d do anything to make happy.
A woman I’d do anything to protect.
Not that I didn’t feel like that about Raisa once. She was my wife, after all, and I took my vows seriously.
But with Paige… It’s different. She’s different.
Now I get it; how my friends felt when the women they cared about were in danger. The fear is all-encompassing. It’s a balloon expanding inside me until there’s no room for anything else. It’s a feeling that nothing can ever be okay unless Paige is safe.
My phone chimes with an incoming text. A message appears on the dashboard, superimposed over the map already displayed there. It’s from Niall.
Do you need backup? Nolan’s in Arlington. He could be to you in an hour. Want me to send him?
I hesitate before responding.
Backup would be nice. But I’m less than ten minutes out now, and I don’t want to wait. Especially not knowing what’s in store. If it’s nothing, just a misunderstanding, I don’t want to drag my old Army buddy out to Fredericksburg when it’s nearly ten o’clock at night.
And if I get there and it’s a shitshow of epic proportions? Then I’ll need all the backup I can get.
So I quickly dictate my reply.
I’m good for now. Almost there, so I want to do a recon. If I need backup, I’ll let you know.
Message sent, I refocus on my mission. Get to Paige’s house. Look for clues. See if it’s empty, like the officer said, or if there’s a sign of someone still inside. Hiding. Hurt. In need of help.
I take the exit off the highway and reluctantly slow as I approach the next intersection. At the light, I check the map again, memorizing the remaining directions. Paige’s house is only three miles from here, maybe a five-minute drive if I don’t hit traffic.
Under other circumstances, it would be exciting—finally meeting Paige after so long.
But instead, I approach her house with a growing feeling of dread.
It feels like that time in Iraq, when we were tasked to rescue an American dignitary and his wife.
The moment we saw the building they were being held in, my entire team felt it.
We knew before we even got there that we were too late.
“No,” I say out loud. Firmly. Brooking no argument. “This isn’t the same.”
This is a residential neighborhood on the outskirts of Fredericksburg, with quiet streets and softly glowing lamp posts and rows of split-levels and compact ranches.
In the dark, scattered windows flicker from the TVs behind them.
A dog barks in the distance. When I roll my window down, I can hear the familiar buzz of crickets, just as I could at my house.
It’s not a place for violence.
Or at least, that’s what I tell myself.
But my gut disagrees.
As I turn onto Paige’s street, my pulse jumps. Adrenaline surges. But even five years out, I haven’t forgotten my training. I take long, even breaths, forcing my heartbeat to slow. I tamp down my emotions as I prepare for battle.
When I’m nearly to her house, I turn off my headlights. I let up on the gas, coasting to a stop in front of a darkened house two doors down from hers. Hopefully, at this time of night, I won’t attract attention from her neighbors.
Although they clearly aren’t very observant if someone broke into her house without anyone noticing, are they?
Before I exit the car, I pull my Sig from the glove box and slide it into my belt holster. Then I pocket my Ka-Bar, feeling comforted by the weight of it against my leg. It was a gift from my old captain after I joined the team, and I’ve kept it with me ever since.
I slink from the car and hurry to the shelter of a nearby tree, hiding myself in its shadows. From there, I rush to another tree, and another, until I reach Paige’s yard. Like the officer said, all her windows are dark. The garage door is shut, so I can’t tell if her car is inside.
But like that building in Iraq, there’s just something about it that seems off. It’s too dark. Too quiet.
If Paige was going to go out, she wouldn’t turn off all the lights. She’d leave at least one on, so she didn’t have to come back to a pitch-black house.
Something’s wrong. I’m sure of it.
From the shadows of the tree, I study her house as I run through my options.
The practical, civilian-life choice is to knock on the front door. See if Paige answers it. Not do anything that could result in a neighbor calling the police on me, and potentially being questioned for attempted burglary.
Or I can follow my gut.
And my gut is telling me to sneak around the perimeter, searching for possible points of entry. Something I have a strong feeling the officer who came here didn’t do. And if I see any evidence of an intruder, I’ll get inside, through legal methods or not.
Could I end up totally screwing things up with Paige if it turns out I’m wrong? Yes. But I really don’t think I am.