Chapter 22 #2
Just as I push through the door to the parking lot, I hear my name called and running footsteps behind me.
“Hold up,” Mancuso pants as he catches up with me by my cruiser. “That call was from my contact in Seattle; they’ve lost Shane Lee. Nothing since last night.”
I don’t like that. I don’t like that at all.
“I need to get home to Bess.”
I’m about to climb behind the wheel when my phone starts ringing. It’s Battaglia.
“Yeah.”
“We’ve got trouble at your place. I’m on my way there now,” he rattles off.
“Bess is there by herself.”
His curt, “I know. We’re on it,” is followed by a sharp click.
“What’s going on?” Mancuso asks as I jump in the cruiser.
“Something’s going down at my place,” I snap as I jam my keys in the ignition.
“I’m coming with you,” he announces, jogging around to jump in on the passenger side.
No sooner does his ass hit the seat when I tear out of the parking lot, hitting the sirens when I turn onto the street.
I’m about to grab my radio, when a call comes in dispatching all available units to my address for a suspected home invasion.
Jesus. They’re inside my fucking house.
“We’re no use to her dead,” Mancuso comments when I turn a corner too fast and the back end of my SUV slides sideways, wheel squealing.
I see Roy’s vehicle and one patrol car parked in front of the house when I turn onto my street. Swinging around them, I pull into the driveway. I slam the SUV in park with the wheels still turning, bringing it to an abrupt stop. Mancuso swears under his breath, but I ignore him as I jump out.
The front door is open and I run inside.
“Bess!”
Nobody is in the living room or the kitchen, but there’s glass everywhere from the broken sliding door. Someone crashed through there. Out in the backyard I see the bobbing beam of a flashlight.
“Bess!” I call out again.
“Alexander,” Mancuso’s voice sounds behind me.
When I turn, he points up the stairs and I rush toward him.
She looks so small, standing at the top of the stairs with that crazy fucking dog in her arms. I take the steps two at a time and sweep her and the dog up in my hold.
“Are you okay? Tell me you’re all right,” I mumble as I carry her into my bedroom and set her down next to the bed.
Ragnar immediately tries to scamper off, so I quickly close the door to make sure he can’t get out. Then I return to Bess and gently run my hands over her body to look for any injuries,
“I’m okay,” she whispers, her voice as shaky as mine.
Her teeth are chattering. “I hid in the bathroom. I was stupid, I let the dog out because he’d been cooped up so long.
He’d had an accident in the kitchen already and he needed to go.
I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry,” she rambles as I stroke the hair back out of her face.
“Then Ragnar went crazy, and I saw someone coming over the fence. I got us inside, locked the door, and hid in the bathroom.”
“Good,” I try to soothe her with a calm voice, even though my heart feels far from calm, it’s beating out of my fucking chest. “You did good.”
She drops her forehead to my chest and I cup a hand on the back of her head, keeping her right there, against my heart.
Fuck, that was close. Too close. We can’t stay here.
A soft knock sounds before Roy pokes his head around the door.
“Everything okay in here?”
“Yeah. What’s happening out there?”
“My boys just got here and were suspicious of a vehicle sitting in front of that little park down the road. It’s dark out, they figured; why would anyone be hanging around a park at this time of night?
Anyway, one of them went to check on it, the other kept an eye out, and then suddenly your dog started going crazy in the backyard.
It alerted my crew, they came running, heard a crash at the back of the house and one stayed at the front, banging on the door and calling me.
The other went around back, just in time to see two guys in your backyard, scrambling to get over the fence. ”
“Descriptions?”
“Dressed in black, average build, one around five nine, five ten, the other maybe six feet.”
“And?” I prompt him for more, all the while keeping Bess sheltered in my arms.
“He was on their tail to the edge of that small ravine and then they split up. He says he followed the shorter of the two, but lost him in the dense brush.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. Your deputy is checking out that vehicle by the park. It’s still there, so either it wasn’t theirs or they abandoned it.”
“How the hell did they find her here?” I voice my thoughts out loud.
Roy shrugs. “I bet you they had eyes on the hospital, saw Bess leaving and followed. Waited here at the park until they saw KC’s patrol car leave, not knowing we had a security team monitoring from across the street.”
That makes sense, but it brings me back to my earlier thought that we cannot stay here. That means I need to draw back from the investigation completely and pack our bags. Next, I need to get us out of here unseen.
“Have you met Special Agent Mancuso?” I ask Roy.
“He came out and introduced himself.”
“Can you ask him to come up here?”
Roy nods and backs out, closing the door.
Then I put my hands on Bess’s shoulders and set her back a step.
“We can’t stay here.”
Her eyes are wide, but she nods her understanding. I’m sure she’d come to that conclusion on her own.
“I know a place, but we can’t take any chances we’re being followed. I’m pretty sure whoever was trying to get at you had or has eyes on the house, which means we have to create a diversion and move quickly.”
She nods again, a little firmer this time. “I’ll start packing.”
There she is, a spine of steel.