Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“We’ll go in the back through the elementary school,” Jonas said, looking at the map on his phone. “The turn in will be on your left in half a mile.”
“Smith and I will come in through the front,” Easton added from the back seat. “Let us out as soon as you turn in. The house is around the corner, less than a half a mile. By the time you cut through the field and the woods behind the house, we’ll be there.”
The thick woods on either side of the two-lane highway opened up, giving way to more farmland. Jonas and Easton’s directions registered but my mind was locked in a battle between anger and fear.
“Cash—”
“Copy,” I bit out, cutting off whatever else Jonas was going to say.
“Listen—” He tried again but I was in no mood to listen to anyone.
“Less than thirty miles,” I sneered. “I thought she was doing what she does best, gallivanting around the world causing Lore-style mayhem, and turns out she’s thirty fucking miles away. What the fuck?”
No one answered, so I continued my rant. “And a little girl? What the actual fuck?”
It was the little girl, Cara, who was the cause of my fear. The only thing that was cutting through my anger. Obviously, Lore had been taking care of her in some capacity, or she wouldn’t have instructed her to call me.
“Cash are you still there?” Cara’s trembling voice over my truck’s speakers reminded me I hadn’t responded to the end of the story she’d been telling me.
I reached for the screen and unmuted the call. “Yes, sweetheart, I was just thinking about those cupcakes you said Lolo made,” I lied. “That was nice of you to share them with your friends at school.”
“Lolo made me,” Cara reminded me.
Lore coaching a little girl on how to be nice didn’t compute.
“Yup.” Jonas warned me the entrance to the school was up ahead.
“I’m here, sweetheart. But I’m going to look around the house before I have you come out of your special room. Do you remember the code word?”
“Cash is King,” she whispered.
Christ, that sounded wrong coming from a place of innocence when I’d uttered those words countless times before kicking in a door and dispatching evil.
I pulled into the elementary school’s entrance and rolled to a stop. Easton and Smith quickly exited the truck.
“I’m gonna hang up now, sweetheart, but I’ll see you soon.”
“Okay, Cash.”
A twinge of something I couldn’t place banded around my chest.
“Okay, Cara, be there soon,” I repeated.
I stabbed the screen to disconnect the call and that band tightened.
“Stay left,” Jonas instructed.
I followed his directions and parked where he pointed.
I grabbed my phone but didn’t bother with the fob.
Jonas guided us around the side of the school—a long building to the right, a chain link fence to our left. A dense woods was directly on the other side of that. Finally, Jonas stopped jogging and jerked his head toward the trees.
“Her backyard is through there.”
I made short work of the fence that was meant to keep small children contained, not grown men out. Jonas followed with the same ease with his phone to his ear.
“We’re coming in the back now.” I heard him report.
Thankfully, we only had the underbrush and thistles a couple of hundred feet before the wooden area opened up to a neatly kept backyard.
My gut clenched at the sight of a swing set, complete with a mini climbing board and rope platform. As hard as I tried to visualize Lore sitting on one of the chairs on the back patio keeping watch as a little girl played on the swings, I couldn’t call up the picture.
Nothing made sense.
Lore didn’t want children.
How in the hell did she come to be in care of a child?
One that she would hide away in a secret room and give her a phone with my number programmed into it with instructions to call me if something happened to her.
Thankfully, Jonas had taken point, or I would’ve just walked up to the house without bothering to make sure we were clear for entry.
What the hell was wrong with me?
Cash is King, in a sweet, scared voice was seriously fucking with my head.
“Easton said there’s no sign anyone’s in the living room, but from what he can see the place has been tossed,” Jonas whispered as he made short work of the side door’s lock.
“That was too easy,” I pointed out.
Lore wouldn’t have cheap locks on her exterior door.
I pulled my Glock out of my concealed holster. The familiar weight that normally settled something in me, that over the years I’d refused to give precious headspace as to why a weapon in my hand made me comfortable, did nothing to calm my heart.
“Dude, have you forgotten who she is?” Jonas muttered, while sending a text to Easton. “I’m shocked she has locks on her door at all. An intruder would be an excuse to shoot someone.”
He had a point.
But there was a child in the house she obviously cared about. I would think that would quell her thirst for blood.
Apparently not.
Jonas pocketed his phone, stepped to the side, and dipped his chin.
My hand went to the knob, and I barely stifled my verbal, Cash is King as I entered.
I did a quick scan of the kitchen—cabinets opened, shards of crockery littered the countertops and floor. Adding to the mess I needed to step over was baking paraphernalia and a crockpot.
I felt Jonas tap me on my left shoulder.
He peeled off left as I went right down a hallway.
The first door I came to was open, towels, sheets, blankets, toilet paper, and a vacuum spilled out blocking my path.
I maneuvered around the vacuum. The rock that had lodged itself in my gut on the drive grew. Passed a bathroom—totally destroyed.
A door was opened inward. With a quick glance in and not seeing anyone, I stepped in and scanned the wreckage.
A little girl’s room. The white bedframe was all that was left of the bed Cara had slept in. The mattress was on its side sliced open. Stuffed animals torn apart. Clothes everywhere. Broken toys. Pink and purple bedding with hearts and flowers haphazardly tossed to the side.
Fuck.
I checked the closet then backed out of the room, not wanting to spend more time than necessary with the once-cherished remains.
The last door had to be Lore’s room.
I walked in without checking if there were hostiles in the room. I almost hoped there were. I wouldn’t lose sleep putting two in the skull of whoever dared to destroy a little girl’s sanctuary.
Her peace.
Lore’s room looked like Cara’s. Drawers ripped from the dresser. Clothes and shoes everywhere. Mattress decimated. Nightstands tipped over, lamps broken.
Someone was looking for something and didn’t care about making a mess.
The master bathroom was not spared. Neither was the closet.
I glanced around the room, and that something I couldn’t identify was back, wrapping around my chest, squeezing until I couldn’t breathe.
“House is clear,” Jonas said as he walked into the room.
No Lore.
The relief we didn’t find a corpse was quickly drowned out with an uneasiness that rocked me.
I needed to find Cara. I needed to get her back to Nebraska and drop her off. Then I needed to find Lore.
“Saferoom?” I asked.
“Didn’t find one.”
What the fuck?
I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and called the number Cara had called me from.
“Hello?”
“Hi sweetheart. I’m here in the house but I can’t find your special room.”
“Did you look in the kitchen?”
Kitchen?
I rushed past Jonas, down the hall, and looked around, seeing nothing but a room full of broken shit.
“I’m in the kitchen, sweetheart. I still don’t—”
“Where the food goes.”
I assumed she was talking about the pantry. The door was open, the shelves were bare, the contents strewed everywhere.
“All I see are shelves, Cara. How do I get to the door?”
“I don’t know. Lolo just pulls them out.”
I reached for the middle shelf, and nothing moved. I repeated the process with all five and still nothing.
“Are you still coming, Cash?” she meekly asked.
Oh, yeah, fuck yeah, I’d sleep like a baby after putting two in the face of the motherfucker who scared this little girl.
“Yeah, I’m just trying to…” I trailed off when the shelf I was holding onto while I knelt pushed inward. Once I regained my balance I answered her, “almost there.”
I kicked the debris out of the way and swiveled the pantry insert sideways, the opening just enough room to slip though if you were Lore or a child.
“Holy fuck,” Easton muttered behind me.
I tossed him a dirty look and held out my phone reminding him not to cuss just in case Cara could hear him.
“Okay, Cara, you can come out now.”
“What’s the password?”
Despite the shit situation, I smiled. “Cash is King.”
“How do I know you’re really out there?”
Smart girl.
But fuck…
“I promise I’m right outside.”
“Knock on the door three times,” she demanded.
“I can’t. I need you to come out and slip through the opening.”
“No.”
“I’m too big to fit—”
“Lolo said not to come out until you were at the door.”
Fucking shit.
“Okay. Hold tight, Cara.”
I moved to the opening in an attempt to shove myself through the small space.
“Are you seriously going to try to fit?” Easton asked. “Dude, you’re gonna get stuck.”
He probably wasn’t wrong.
It was by a miracle I managed to get through the tight space. It was also a miracle I kept all the four-letter words in my mind instead of grunting them and cursing Lore’s name for this shit. Only she would leave a foot of space to wedge through to get to her safe room.
The light back here was muted. It was also just enough for me to basically stand in front of the door.
“I’m gonna knock now,” I told Cara and rapped my knuckles on the metal door.
“Okay. I’m waiting.”
“I already knocked, sweetheart.”
“No you didn’t.”
For fuck sake, the room had to be soundproof.
“Cara, sweetheart, I did. I’ll knock again but I’m sure the room is soundproof.”
I knocked again.
“What’s that mean?”
“It means that I can’t hear you and you can’t hear me. But I’m right here. My hand’s on the door. I’m right in front of it.”
There was a stretch of silence before Cara spoke again.
“I’m really scared, Cash.”
No question, I was popping the motherfucker who made this sweet girl’s voice wobble in the face.
“I know you are. But I’m right here. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“Promise?”
“Promise,” I vowed.
I had no business vowing anything to anyone, especially a little girl. Yet, for whatever reason not only couldn’t I stop myself, I knew I meant it.
“Come on, Cara, open the door, sweetheart.”
I stared at the door waiting for her to open it.
Finally it cracked open a sliver and in the dull light a child’s face came into view.
I quickly crouched, bringing us eye level.
Scared, sad blue eyes set in a dainty little face stared back at me.
And although I’d never experience it, the punch to my sternum felt something like—no, a lot like—love at first sight.
What in the Sam fuck was that?
Before I could begin to scrub the idiotic notion from my head, Cara pulled open the door and launched herself at me.
With more strength than I thought possible, tiny arms wrapped around my neck promising to choke the life out of me.
I stood taking her with me, as soon as I was on my feet and her legs wrapped around my waist, I hitched her higher, loosening her death-grip and giving me much needed oxygen.
Though with her little body holding on to me like I could protect her from the world my lungs wouldn’t fill because that band was tighter than ever.
“I got you, sweetheart.”
“You came.”
Always, was on the tip of my tongue but I refrained. I’d already made one promise today I shouldn’t’ve.
I was not a man who made commitments. Yet without thought, I’d promised to never let anything happen to her.