Chapter Two
Kala thought about going home and then turned the opposite way because going home would mean telling her sisters what happened. And then it would be real. Then she would have to admit to everyone Cooper was exactly like the others.
Fuck him. It’s what her dad would say. At least she hoped he would. The last thing she wanted was her dad to sit down and give her a dad talk about how she didn’t need Cooper.
Because she was pretty sure she did.
The truth was she would have to admit there wasn’t one magical person out there for her. She wasn’t going to have the kind of life her parents had. This was her truth, and she needed time to face it.
She considered getting an Uber out to Lou’s, but her parents would get a notification she’d used the card they’d given her and Kenzie explicitly for emergencies. She hadn’t figured a way around it yet. Somehow she doubted they would call needing to see her bestie a real emergency.
Of course then she would have to tell Lou. Lou would definitely look at her with nauseating sympathy.
She walked up the hill leading out of Cooper’s neighborhood. A couple of blocks over and she would be in the shopping center with the boba tea shop. How late was it? She was pretty sure they were open until midnight on Saturdays.
How pathetic was it to sit and drink tea by herself on a Saturday night when everyone else was being normal?
Her feet moved out of habit, but her internal storm raged on.
Did she drag him down? Did she drag Kenzie down? Would Kenz be like head cheerleader with the entire class worshipping at her feet if she wasn’t saddled down with a dark and broody and bitchy twin?
What would life look like for her siblings and parents and friends if she wasn’t around? Her mom wouldn’t worry. Her dad wouldn’t have to explain her antics to people. Tash wouldn’t be embarrassed.
Cooper was embarrassed by her. Such a fucking harsh truth to have to face. He might care about her, might be willing to be with her in the shadows, but he would never walk hand in hand with her out in the open.
The idea of being around people held little appeal, so when she realized there was a park up ahead, she changed her plans. She found a bench and sat, glancing down at her phone.
Maybe she shouldn’t have blocked him. Maybe he wanted another chance.
She sniffled. She wasn’t giving him another chance to make a fool of her. Nope. She was going to cut him out of her heart.
“Are you okay, honey?”
a feminine voice asked.
Okay? No. She was emotionally ravaged, and now she’d nearly jumped out of her skin because she’d thought she was alone. She saw a woman walking down the trail leading to the playground equipment and the bench she currently occupied. She was probably late twenties/early thirties and was jogging. She’d pulled her earbuds out.
Kala nodded the woman’s way. It was late, but it wasn’t crazy late. There were a lot of people who worked out at night. It was Texas, and even the fall felt like summer during the day. “I’m good. Just chilling.”
The woman stopped. “Sweetie, no one chills in a park this late at night. Not unless they’re either selling drugs or buying drugs or nursing a broken heart. Guy trouble?”
The woman sat down on the end of the bench leaving plenty of space between them. “I’m sorry. I’m being way too traditional. It could be girl trouble.”
Kala sat back, kicking one combat-booted foot over the opposite knee. “Guys are assholes.”
The woman nodded. “Definitely guy trouble then. They are assholes. It’s why I so rarely work with them anymore. I’m a PI. I try to avoid male clients.”
Private investigator? A cool profession. Something to distract her from the heartaches of the evening. “You’re an investigator?”
She had dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. “Yeah. I usually do things like track down dudes who are cheating or dudes who skip out on child support. It’s not all fun murders and stuff. Sometimes the job sucks, but the pay is so good you can’t turn it down.”
“Really? Like what?”
Kala asked, still wanting to put off the moment when she had to make the long walk home. She was going to have to face him on Monday. She would have to walk into American History and sit in the chair next to Cooper’s and pretend he didn’t exist because Mrs. Jenkins had told them to pick their seats well on the first day since they wouldn’t be changing. Well, everyone knew she made poor choices.
The woman sighed and glanced down at her cell phone, one handedly replying to something she read. “So many things. It’s hard to be on your own. The whole spy thing feels like it’s going to be super fun, but it’s actually kind of lonely and the good jobs don’t pay well. And when you’re independent the clients range from dudes I don’t like to scary motherfuckers I can’t cross no matter how much I want to.”
Something changed. Something about the way the woman looked at her with almost sympathy. Like she knew.
A cold chill—far colder than the early fall air—swept across Kala’s skin. She stood, realizing what she should have before. Situational awareness. Her father preached it, but she’d been all in her feelings and now she was alone with someone she didn’t know in a park no one could see from the roadway. What had seemed like a sanctuary moments before now felt a bit like a trap.
“I should go. Good luck with the scary people thing.”
She would go home and face the freaking music. Hell, Tash might feel so bad for her she made cookies or something and she could eat all her feelings, and she wouldn’t think about how she’d put herself in this position.
The one with the weird chick in the dark of night. Not the one with Cooper. She’d be thinking about Cooper for a long time.
The woman stood, stepping on the paved trail and suddenly blocking Kala’s way.
“Kala, I’m sorry. When I took the job, I didn’t realize you were a kid,”
she said with a long sigh. “She’s crazy, by the way, but I really do believe she’s not going to hurt you if you comply.”
Fuck. What the hell was going on? How did this chick know her name? Why was she looking at her like she felt bad about what she was about to go through?
What was she about to go through?
Someone had been watching her family. Someone had been looking for a weak spot and it turned out she was it. There was only one real threat she could think of right now. “How long has Julia Ennis had you following me? And by the way, I hope the payday was worth it because my parents are going to kill you, and they won’t do it slow.”
A pinging sound sent Kala’s heart rate sky high, and then she felt a hefty dose of panic as the woman’s eyes went glassy and a hole formed on her head. It took a moment for it to register. Shot. She’d been shot.
They weren’t alone. This woman had led Julia Ennis straight to her, and now her parents wouldn’t get the chance to avenge her. Not against this chick. She was dead.
She was dead. Fucking dead.
There were times when her perpetually dark and dramatic soul questioned whether life was worth the misery, but it was obvious now her body’s answer. When she felt a hand on her shoulder, training took over and she brought her elbow up and back, hitting whoever was behind her in the gut and earning her a hearty woof.
She immediately brought her boot down where the guy’s foot should be and managed to twist enough she could see her attacker.
The panic was so hard to control. She was fifteen. She was going to die and she was only fifteen, and Cooper hated her and no one would miss her. She punched out as another man dressed all in black moved from the trees, prowling toward her like death on two legs.
She didn’t want to die. She didn’t. She would miss Lou and her sisters and her mom and dad. She would miss her brothers and Bud.
She would miss Cooper so much.
“She’s a tiny fucking girl. Someone take her down,”
a deep voice said.
The words did something magical. She wasn’t actually tiny. She was way too tall according to a lot of insecure guys. The only thing Cooper seemed to like about her were her already generous breasts and hips.
Sometimes you let the crazy flow. Sometimes it’s the only thing that can save you.
Her mother’s words. She might not be tiny. She might be a girl. She might be weak compared to these… How many? Five at least…assholes, but what she was—her superpower lay in her darkness, and she let it flow.
She let go of the panic. She could do this. She didn’t have to go down. The guy she’d punched pulled up his balaclava, and she realized she’d drawn blood.
He cursed and held up his weapon, pointing it her way.
“Hey,”
one of the guys to her left shouted. “No killing the target.”
So Julia wanted her alive. Likely to make Kyle come to her without too much of a fight. Or to get MaeBe to turn herself over. She wasn’t going to allow it to happen. She could do this. She was a freaking Taggart, and she wasn’t about to be the weak link.
Years of martial arts training came back, muscle memory proving an efficient barrier to panic. She couldn’t panic if she was busy kicking ass. The guy she’d drawn blood from reached out and grabbed her wrist.
She twisted and got a good hold on his forearm. He was heavy, but she could use his weight against him. She’d flipped her dad before, and he tended to not allow her to win when they sparred. A thrill went through her when she managed to get that asshole on his back, hitting the ground hard enough the air whooshed out of his lungs.
“Dimitry, are you going to let the little bitch take you down like that?”
a deep voice asked.
“Hey,”
another voice said. “We should move this along. The boss wants us all on the plane in less than an hour.”
She wasn’t getting on a damn plane.
She put her boot on “Dimitry’s”
chest. “I would stay down if I was you, big guy.”
If she could reach into her bag, she could come up with the pepper spray she carried. Or the Taser her mom had no idea she slipped into her bag on nights like this. But it was sitting on the stupid bench.
Everything she needed was just out of reach.
“Ya ubyu tebya, suka,”
he hissed as he grabbed her ankle and sent her flying back.
She hit the dirt and groaned because he’d thrown her hard. She landed face down, her hips hitting the edge of the sidewalk hard. An ache went through her, but she could handle it. She thought about running. There was a time and a place to run, and these guys, despite their beefy bodies, probably weren’t as fast as she was.
But that was the moment she realized she was surrounded.
And at least one of them was Russian since he’d told her he was going to kill her. And he’d called her a bitch. There was a lot of name calling going around tonight.
She flipped herself up and went into a defensive stance.
Five. She could handle five.
She could. She had to.
“Come on, kid,”
the tallest of the guys said, pulling off his balaclava, too. Military cut. Fit. His face was all planes and harsh angles. “We don’t have a lot of time here. If you’re a good girl, I’ll let you have a snack on the plane. If you’re not, I’ll let Dimitry here give you a snack you weren’t expecting.”
Maybe darkness wasn’t the right word. Maybe her superpower was her rage.
“Fuck you.”
She ran at the one she’d injured the first time. He was blocking her way. It was time to get the fuck out. She could make it back to Coop’s house. Or not. No. She couldn’t risk Vivi and Hunter. She would run for the street. She’d made the mistake of wanting to be alone. They wouldn’t have been able to corner her if she’d stuck to the streets.
She punched with all her might, trying to break the guy’s nose. If she did it right, she could force the cartilage up into his brain. At least in theory.
The man cursed and pulled back enough he didn’t take the full force. He slapped out, catching the side of her head and sending her banging into the bench she’d been sitting on. So close to the dead body. “Dimitry, fucking take her out. You’re the one with the sedative.”
One of the others chuckled. “She’s a hell cat. She’s a pretty thing, too.”
A meaty arm went around her waist, hauling her into the air.
A new kind of anger thrummed through her as she brought her head up and back, ignoring the pain in her skull. She thrashed as the big Russian held her.
And then she felt a sharp pain in her shoulder.
“Go get the car and bring it around the back. We need to take the PI with us,”
a deep voice said as Kala felt her body start to slow.
Sedative. They’d given her a sedative.
Now there was nothing that could stop the panic.
Things were happening around her, but she couldn’t move. She slumped to the ground and felt something heavy on her chest.
She looked up and through the haze beginning in her eyes, saw the Russian, putting his boot on her chest. He spat blood on the ground next to her before kneeling down.
“I know who you are, little bitch,”
he said, each word snaking through her with malicious intent. “I know your cousin.”
Her second cousin. Her mom’s. Dusan. He was the head of the Denisovitch syndicate. If they were friends, he might…
“Ya skazhu emu, kak zdorovo my razvlekaemsya s toboy.”
Not friends. She could feel the world slowing down. She wished she didn’t speak Russian. Didn’t know what he’d said.
I will let him know how much fun we have with you.
She didn’t think they were going to dress her up. No. She knew what the fucker was promising.
It was all starting to go dark.
Cooper. She was supposed to be with Cooper, and it was supposed to be a beautiful night. Not this. Please not this. Not when she couldn’t fight. Couldn’t defend herself.
But then had she ever really had a shot?
Dimitry’s scarred face was the last thing she saw before the world went dark and she entered Hell.
* * * *
Cooper was pretty sure he’d never seen his father as angry as he was in this moment. He watched as Kyle Hawthorne walked toward the office. He kind of wished he could go with him.
“How long?”
Alex McKay asked. He wore some kind of leather pants and the T-shirt he’d left the house in earlier.
When he couldn’t find Kala, he’d panicked and called Tasha again. It didn’t matter how much trouble they were going to be in. He had to find her. He couldn’t leave her alone. Despite Kenzie’s protestations, Tasha had driven him to all Kala’s haunts and when they found nothing, they’d come here to the club their parents spent so much time in. Sanctum.
He knew what happened here. He understood the lifestyle his parents were involved in. They were open about it. But this wasn’t how he’d thought he would see the club for the first time.
“She’s been gone about three hours, Uncle Alex,”
Tasha said.
Tash and Kenzie and all the other kids called his dad Uncle Alex. All of them except Kala. Years before she’d insisted on calling him Mr. McKay until his dad had given in and told her to call him Alex.
It had taken him a long time to figure out why she’d done it. Because they weren’t cousins. They weren’t related at all. Their feelings were not familial.
But she’d known long before he did.
Sometimes he felt like he was nothing more than the himbo who’d caught her eye, the dumb pretty boy who could never match her intelligence or ambition.
His father’s eyes never left his. “I meant how long has she been sneaking in the house and how far did this go? You want to play adult games, son, you can answer adult questions. I need to know how far you took this so I know if Ian’s about to murder you.”
It took him a moment to realize what his dad was asking. “Dad, we didn’t… I mean we kissed and stuff but…”
“That fucking better be all you did,”
a deep voice said.
It took everything Cooper had to turn and face the one freaking man in the world he wanted to face less than his dad. Hers. He’d kind of hoped his dad would handle this part. “It never went past a make-out session, Mr. Taggart. That’s what we were fighting about tonight.”
Ian Taggart stood at six foot five. Cooper himself was almost six two and wasn’t done growing, but right now the three inches between them felt like the highest mountain. “Fighting? Do I want to know?”
Tasha moved beside him, standing with him. “Nope. You don’t.”
Ian’s face flushed a deep red, and his jaw tightened. “She is fifteen fucking years old.”
“You know she can be stubborn when she thinks she’s ready for something,”
Tasha said.
Cooper realized what was happening. He hadn’t meant to bring any of this up. He hadn’t thought about anything but the fact that she was out there and she was alone. She would be horrified if her parents knew what happened. He was going to hurt his parents, but maybe it was better than hurting her this way. “It was me. I wanted to go all the way, and she said no.”
Tasha’s eyes actually rolled. “Dude, she stole condoms.”
Alex groaned and slumped down to the chair. The infamous club Cooper had been so curious about looked a lot like a conference room. At least this room did. “Teenagers. We’re not going to survive them.”
Ian paced, looking like a caged lion. “All right, let me get this straight. My fifteen-year-old daughter tried to sleep with you, you turned her down and she walked out in the middle of the night alone and you let her.”
“She wasn’t serious,”
Cooper tried. “She was joking.”
Ian turned like he was scenting pray. “If she was joking, she would still be at your house, and I wouldn’t know a whole lot of things I don’t want to know. So if she was joking, Cooper, then what was the fight about?”
He felt queasy. He fucked everything up, and the truth of the matter was she was probably going to be home at any minute. Kala could be a little on the vengeful side. She was probably hiding out.
“Cooper,”
his father sent him a stern stare.
This. This is what he’d always feared. He was letting his dad down. He had to be honest, had to take accountability. “She wanted me to be her boyfriend, and I don’t think I want that right now. I like her. I like her a lot. She’s my friend but…”
“You don’t kiss your friends, Cooper.”
Ian bit out every word. “You don’t have make-out sessions with your friends.”
“Dad,”
Tasha began.
Ian shook his head, his fingers coming down on the conference table. He held himself there, looking like he would attack at any moment. “No. I understand Kala can be stubborn. I understand she’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but he led her on. What was the play, Coop? Did you think you could see her in private? Did you think you could get your hands on her and no one would have to know you thought the freak was hot?”
“It wasn’t like that,”
Cooper replied. But he worried. Maybe it was. He did want to get his hands on her. He didn’t want to deal with the ramifications of being her boyfriend. He loved her. He wasn’t sure he could handle her.
He was so fucking selfish.
“Then what way was it?”
Ian asked, the question a landmine.
“Hey, remember he’s fifteen, too,”
his dad said, standing up and moving closer to him. Like he had to protect him.
“Ah, but he’s not the one who’s out in the middle of the night.”
Ian’s voice was smooth, but there was no mistaking the threat beneath every silky word. “He’s not the one who constantly gets told he’s too much. Cooper is the athlete golden boy everyone loves, and Kala is the weirdo everyone thinks will go psycho one day. Do you have any idea how hard it is to be the kid no one understands? You don’t have enough, Cooper? It’s not enough to be the most popular kid in school? You have to have her, too? But on your terms.”
Every word hit him like a bullet to the heart. Was that what he’d done? It wasn’t what he thought he’d done.
“Ian, I think you should go find your wife.”
His dad sounded colder than he could remember, and he knew he was the reason his dad was fighting with his best friend. “I know the trouble with Kyle and MaeBe has you in a mood but…”
Ian pointed a finger his way. “Don’t blame this on something it has nothing to do with. You wait, Alex. You wait until your daughter, the one who looks so much like Eve, gets her heart ripped out of her chest by the only boy she’s ever cared about and you come back here and tell me I should be reasonable. You think I don’t remember changing his fucking diaper? But I’m not capable of seeing the kid I love right now. All I can see is the little shit who told my daughter she wasn’t good enough and let her walk out into the freaking night on her own.”
“She wouldn’t let me walk her home,”
he protested. And he had to watch his brother and sister. He was the oldest. He didn’t have a Tasha and Kenzie to back him up. He’d had to wake his brother and freak him out by making him promise he wouldn’t open the door to anyone.
He’d let his parents down that way, too.
“And don’t tell him he should have called.”
Tasha was a well of calm. She handled the whole thing so much better than he ever could have. “No phones allowed on the floor.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
Ian pushed off the table and started for the door. “I don’t think your mom and I will be back for a while. Not now that I know I can’t trust any of you.”
Tasha went quiet.
“I’ll go get Derek,”
his dad said, seeming to try to bring down the intensity in the room. Cooper recognized the name. Derek Brighton. He was a big deal with the Dallas Police Department. They were bringing in the police. “And I’ll let your mom know she needs to get home because Hunter is eleven and he’s not old enough to be alone. Hopefully Vivi slept through all of it.”
So much guilt. So much drama.
“I’m going to call Chelsea,”
Ian said. “She’s at home tonight so she can pull up the security cameras between your house and mine. You two need to go and sit in the lobby.”
Tasha followed her dad out, but Cooper’s dad put a hand on his shoulder.
“Stay for a minute.”
Cooper braced for another blow. His father knew what a shit he was now. He felt like one. He felt like the worst piece of crap who ever walked the earth.
He could still see the minute she understood he wasn’t going to say yes. He could see the split second when her heart had broken.
He stood there, unable to respond.
“Cooper, what you did tonight was wrong, but Ian’s wrong, too.”
His father moved in front of him so his face was all Coop could see. “I know you didn’t mean to hurt her feelings. I know she can push you. I’ve always been worried she would push you too hard and you would end up doing something you weren’t ready for. You were right to tell her no. You have every single right to decide what you do with your body and when. And I also understand how complex your feelings are. You were wrong to go behind our backs. You weren’t supposed to have visitors, and you’re going to be grounded for that. The rest of it? Cooper, it comes with being a teenager, and you navigated it as well as you could.”
He felt something wet on his cheek. He was crying. He hated it. His mom would tell him boys needed to cry as much as girls, but he also knew how everyone who wasn’t a therapist would see him. Weak. Emotional. Still, the tears came. “I’m sorry.”
He didn’t have anything else to say.
His dad sighed and drew him in for a hug. “It’s going to be okay. I would bet she’s on her way to Lou’s.”
He didn’t think so. Lou promised she hadn’t heard anything. Lou had been the one to tell him if he didn’t get the parents involved, she would. Lou had been so worried. But he wasn’t going to argue with his dad. He’d fucked up enough for one night. “Sure.”
His dad stopped. “Cooper, it’s going to be okay. Kala is actually quite capable. She wouldn’t do something stupid.”
Oh, but she could. She was capable of burning down everything around them when she was angry. Was this her way of taking him down with her?
He hated he’d even had the thought. Why had he thought she was dragging him down?
Because his friends told him so. Because his athlete friends thought she was weird. Because the cheerleaders who were also flirting with him told him he could do better.
Ian was right. He was playing a role. Golden boy. He wanted to be the big man on campus, and he wasn’t going to let a little thing like love get in the way.
How many times had she heard his friends make fun of her? How many times had she seen him wave it off and move on?
“Go out and stay in the lobby. Your mom will follow Tasha back to her place and take you home.”
His dad sounded tired.
Cooper did as he was asked, wiping his eyes and trying not to look like the snot-nosed kid he apparently still was. When he got to the lobby, Tasha was talking to her cousin. Kyle Hawthorne definitely wouldn’t cry. Hell, he’d killed someone and probably hadn’t cried. He’d been a badass. Kyle wasn’t a Taggart by blood, but he fit in. Like Tash did.
“Remember what I said about staying inside,”
Kyle reminded her. He nodded Cooper’s way as he moved down the hall. He was walking opposite the conference room.
Kala wasn’t the only drama playing out tonight. What was happening to Kyle and MaeBe was serious and could end in someone dying.
He sat his ass down.
Tasha sat beside him. “It’s going to be okay. She’ll turn up and I’ll have pissed off all my siblings for nothing. I’m pretty sure we’re all getting grounded, and they’ll blame me.”
He didn’t care about the grounding. He had a lot of thinking to do. He didn’t like the person he saw in the mirror right now. “Are you not worried?”
“About Kala? Of course I am.”
Not the question he was asking. Tash might be the only one who understood. “I mean…aren’t you worried you disappointed them?”
“My parents?”
She huffed. “Weirdly I will have disappointed them and they’ll be proud because I covered for her. They’ll ground us all, but at some point I’ll hear my dad talk about how I remind him of him at this age. He would have covered for Uncle Sean. He’ll say his kids are a team and he and Mom made us that way, so they can’t be too pissed.”
“My dad won’t say anything like that. I left Hunter and Vivi alone.”
Guilt was a pit in his gut. He’d talked to his brother, and from what he understood his sister slept through the whole thing. They were fine, but he’d left them.
Tasha put a hand on his arm. “They’re fine, and don’t take my dad’s words to heart. He’s scared, and he kind of processes fear as anger since he understands anger better. At least that’s what my mom says. Trust me, my wayward sister is going to get a full-on dose of my dad’s fear as anger response.”
Tasha sat back with a long sigh. “She’s going to be utterly impossible to live with.”
She turned his way, her gaze oddly both sympathetic and a bit steely. “You need to let her go. You need to break it off with her in a way that doesn’t keep her dangling on a string. You and TJ are being cruel.”
“TJ loves Lou.”
And he loved Kala.
“But he doesn’t want to be with her,”
Tasha pointed out. “Any more than you really want to be with Kala. I don’t blame you. You’re obviously not a good match.”
Oddly, her words bugged him. Even though he’d heard them a million times before, wondered about it himself. “I think we’ve always been good friends.”
“She’s always chasing you, and you like to be chased,”
Tasha replied. “It doesn’t make you a bad guy, but after this if you don’t let her go, you’re moving into bad-guy territory.”
He couldn’t actually imagine his life without Kala. It somehow didn’t compute in his brain. Like he needed both his golden boy athlete life and the moments he had with her.
Was he hurting her?
His mom didn’t think he should be with her either. Not because she didn’t love Kala. Because they were… What word had she used? Volatile. He’d had to look it up. Incendiary. Unstable. Like a bomb waiting to go off.
His mom would be upset if he didn’t take her advice. What would she think of him? Would she wish she had a kid who listened? Maybe there was something in his DNA that made him this way, something buried deep inside that neither of his parents could recognize in themselves the way Tasha had talked about.
But Tasha wasn’t a Taggart by blood either.
Maybe Tash was better than he was. Better at fitting in. Better at being the child her parents hoped for.
He sat for a moment, feeling heavier than he’d ever felt before. He wasn’t sure how much time passed. Very little. An eternity. Tasha sat beside him, texting. Probably keeping Kenzie and Lou up to date.
He didn’t have anyone to text. Not about her. His friends would say good riddance.
TJ was asleep.
He was alone.
He missed her.
Kyle walked in from the back rooms, a phone in his hand. Not his cell though. It was small. Like a burner. Why did Kyle have a burner phone?
“Proof of life,”
Kyle said, not bothering to look over as he walked out the door and into the night.
It was weird.
Tasha stood. “Where is he going? There’s a car out there. I don’t think there’s supposed to be a car out there.”
Something cool snaked along Cooper’s spine, some instinct he’d never felt before but had been buried deep. Was it too much of a coincidence that Kala disappeared on the night everyone was freaked out about Kyle’s evil ex? From what he’d gathered, this Julia Ennis person was trying anything she could to get Kyle back in her clutches.
Wouldn’t taking Kala be a good reason for Kyle to walk into a trap?
They watched as Kyle got into the car and pulled away, tires screeching.
“We should tell someone,”
Tasha said.
Was Kala in the car, too?
MaeBe Vaughn was suddenly in the lobby, and she wasn’t alone. His dad was there along with Ian and Charlotte Taggart, and all had grim expressions on their faces. Something had changed. Something big.
Tasha seemed way more capable of rational thought than he was. She pointed toward the parking lot. “He left. He went out the door and got in a car. I don’t think he knew them.”
MaeBe’s face went pale. “Who?”
“Kyle,”
Tasha replied. “He didn’t even say good-bye. He was talking to someone on the phone and he left. Why would he leave when Kala’s missing?”
Cooper was terrified that he knew the answer to Tasha’s question.
He stared out into the night as they spoke and worried he might never see her again.