52. Audrey
AUDREY
For the first time in a long time, I was looking forward to Tuesday night.
Not because I wouldn’t have Ella but because it meant I got to be alone with the Bulls again.
I watched the clock at work in a way that wasn’t like me at all, counting down the hours, imagining how good it would feel to leave Carlton and the hospital behind. How good it would feel to walk into the main house, one of the Bulls cooking in the kitchen, the others sprawled in the living room.
They’d ask about my day and care about the answers, hand me a beer, maybe even rub my feet. We’d sit at the dining table or outside, would go to bed together, maybe even with Graham.
I was giddy on the way home.
No, not home, I reminded myself.
On the way back to the ranch.
I flew past the fields surrounding the Calloway property, driving a little too fast as dusk settled over the landscape.
I pulled through the gate, under the Calloway logo and parked between Graham and Ridge’s truck, and headed up the walkway and onto the porch, then let myself the house.
Ridge was sitting on one of the chairs in the living room while Holden stirred something in a pot on the stove.
They both turned to look at me as I entered the room and kicked off my shoes.
Holden’s face lit up with a smile. “Welcome home, doc.”
“Thanks. That smells— ”
My phone rang and I fumbled for it in my bag, then froze.
It was Dean.
Adrenaline flooded my body, every cell in fight or flight mode even before I heard his voice.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
“Where the fuck is she?” he shouted.
“What… Wait… Where is who?”
Holden came around the kitchen island, and Ridge got to his feet in the living room, worry written all over his face.
“Ella!” Dean screamed.
“She’s…she’s with you.” My brain fumbled for an explanation, trying to figure out what he was saying around the shock already dropping like a lead blanket over my shoulders. “Isn’t she? I dropped her at school this morning.”
“And my mom picked her up,” Dean said. “She took Ella to the park and now Ella is gone.”
Dean’s voice was cold.
“What… what are you talking about, Dean? Are you saying Ella is missing?”
“Yes, that’s what I’m fucking saying, Audrey!” Dean’s voice was a roar. “And I’m guessing it’s no coincidence that someone saw her get into a truck just like one of those guys you’re fucking.”
My gaze flickered to Ridge and Holden. “What?”
“That’s right,” he said. “Ella got into a truck with one of those assholes and now she’s missing.”
“That’s not right,” I said. “That can’t be… that can’t be right.”
Everything in my brain screamed that this was all wrong, that this was a mistake.
“It’s right, Audrey.” His voice was suddenly eerily calm, his words spoken softly, like he didn’t want anyone else to hear. "And now you’re going to know what pain really is.”
He hung up on me and I stuffed my feet back into my shoes.
“What’s going— ”
Ridge didn’t have time to finish his sentence.
I was out the door, flying down the porch steps and toward my car, Ella’s face swimming in my mind.
But I didn’t get that far.
Because halfway to my car I heard the sirens.
They got louder and louder, freezing me to my spot on the ground.
Ridge and Holden stepped onto the porch as Graham emerged from the barn, his face creased with concern.
Then the police were driving through the gate, their sirens deafening as three cars pulled up to the house with their lights flashing.
Six officers got out and approached Graham. “Graham Calloway?”
“That’s right.” A look of calm had descended over Graham’s features.
Like he knew what was coming and was resigned to it.
Two of the officers approached him while the other four walked toward Ridge and Holden on the porch.
One of the officers, an older guy with black hair, held out an official-looking document and indicated the horse barn, the workshop, the tractor barn. “We have a search warrant for your vehicles, the main house, and these three buildings.”
“What cause?” Graham asked.
“Suspicion of kidnapping,” the same officer said.
Two police vans pulled up behind the cars, and a handful of men and women exited the van.
“What… what’s happening?” My brain — trained to handle other people’s emergencies — was misfiring in the face of my own, the horror of Dean’s phone call mingling with the horror of the scene unfolding in front of me until I couldn’t separate the two, couldn’t even wade through my shock to process either catastrophe.
“You the mother of Ella Ashcroft?” the black-haired officer asked.
I nodded.
“I suggest you go down to the station to make a statement, give them any pictures you might have of your little girl,” he said.
“You sit tight while we do our work and we won’t have any problem,” one of the female officers said to Graham as the men and women from the van fanned out to search the trucks lined up next to the motorcycles at the front of the house.
“This isn’t right,” I said.
A shout went up around Holden’s truck, and my heart practically stopped beating when one of the officers who was conducting the search held something up.
It was Bun-Bun.
Ella’s stuffed bunny.
Except it had been in Ella’s backpack that morning. I’d packed it myself.
My blood ran cold.
And now you’re going to know what pain really is.
It was Dean. Dean had done this.
I didn’t know how, but I knew he was behind it.
Three officers approached Graham, Ridge, and Holden — still separated — while the other officers continued searching.
“You’re under arrest for suspicion of the kidnapping of Ella Ashcroft.”
I stood there, horrified as all three Bulls — my Bulls — were read their rights as they were led to the waiting police cars.
Then I ran.
For my car. For Ella.
For whatever truth would free us from this nightmare.
Thanks so much for reading Down to Ride.