4. Rhodes
4
RHODES
I make it to the garage and slide to a hard stop after descending the three steps to the concrete floor. What I see sends a chill down my spine and I run a hand through my hair. I can’t be seeing what I’m seeing. I shake my head and clench my eyes to clear the vision.
Opening my eyes, I walk closer and my brain still fights understanding, but it’s not like it’s a picture or something made-up the internet. It’s not AI. It’s reality.
All the cables to the power bank have been torn out, like dozens of electrical tentacles splaying in the air. It’s not like they’re repairable. They’re shredded. Whoever did this knew what they were doing to make it a very dire situation.
My family doesn’t have enemies, that I know of.
Maybe a disgruntled employee of my father’s law firm?
Maybe a past client?
Maybe random violence?
Maybe…
The guy in the window.
I swallow hard, thinking of Jazzy and how terrified she was. That little girl saw something that has me wondering if I should take both of them to my cabin, but seeing as the drive would probably be too dangerous, it’s best to stay here.
But what is dangerous here?
I really don’t know and I’m not going to think about it too much.
Collecting supplies, like candles, flashlights, and lighters from bins, I prepare for us to hunker down for the night. Thankfully, Dad always said that gas fireplaces were a waste when wood ones were what our ancestors did on this land. They’ll keep us warm, or at least comfortable.
I head back inside and find Leesa and Jazzy in the kitchen and they’re mixing up something by the light on Leesa’s phone and it looks tasty.
I grab a spoon and when Leesa’s back is turned, I scoop out a taste, shoving it into my mouth before she turns back and rolling my eyes in the light of the flashlight. Jazzy giggles.
“That’s amazing,” I moan and Leesa spins with a gasp to face me, her eyes wide.
“Oh, thanks. It’s my world-famous chocolate chip recipe.”
“You get the oven started?”
“I did. Not so shabby in the woods.”
Internally, I cringe a little. Being inside this house isn’t the least of my worries. The woods have their own dangers of animals and space and disorientation during a storm. As long as we can stay inside, we should be fine.
I hand over a flashlight. “Jazzy, I think there’s some coloring books and colors?—”
She jumps off the counter and runs into the living room to the cabinet. Obviously, she has insider information.
Exactly how close are these people to Shane?
I lean back against the counter while Leesa continues to put scoops of cookie dough on a baking sheet.
“Hey, we need to talk,” I say.
“Problem with the power bank?” she licks her finger after the final plopping of dough and my gut tightens watching her finger pop from her rosy-pink lips.
“Yeah. Like a big one.”
“Did it blow up?” she giggles a little like it’s a joke. But it’s not funny.
“No, someone tore it up. It’s not operational permanently.”
She stills and her head turns slowly to me. “Like someone was in here?” she lowers her voice, “Vandalism?”
“Looks like it. I don’t think an animal could’ve done what’s been done.”
She slides the sheet into the oven and then leans back against the counter across from me. A smattering of flour dots her nose and the urge to reach out and brush it off is almost overwhelming. “Do you think we’re in danger?”
And this is where I have to decide if I’m going to be honest with this woman about what Jazzy said to me or if I keep it to myself and just allow whatever happens to play out with her being blissfully unaware.
But that’s what happened to me in Kuwait. The superiors knew there was cause for alarm before we went on our final scouting round of the night. They heard information through our inside intelligence, but they didn’t relay it because they thought it was too farfetched to be true.
It was all too true.
And six of my buddies lost their lives. It was an ambush of the worst kind… using children as cover. We couldn’t fire back. We wouldn’t. And then when they were done, they turned the guns on the youngest victims of the war.
It was savage. It was barbaric. And it was over in a matter of three minutes. I was alive because I was the tail and took shelter while my friends were out in the open.
I hate myself some days for surviving.
“Jazzy told me there was a man outside the window when the lights when off.”
Her mouth opens and then closes. “She say if she recognized them?”
“I didn’t ask. She was really shaken up.”
“You have any enemies?”
“Not me. My family might with Dad and Shane being in litigation, but I doubt it. This house is in a trust, and no one knows who it belongs to.”
“That’s not true. It just appeared in Colorado Homes and it said who it belonged to.”
“Fuck. Money complicates living sometimes.”
“And not having it complicates living, too.”
“Touché.”
“Could be my ex, Cary. I have a restraining order against him, but how would he have known we were up here?” Her eyes start to get glossy in the sparkling light of her phone. She turns away and shakes her head. “I hate thinking he could do it, but… I have to stop thinking of him as okay and not anything other than a monster.”
“It’s going to be okay.” I step closer and rub her back.
She inhales a cleansing breath and I can tell she’s faced some shit. Only people who have had to wipe away feelings and events do that move.
“Can I see your phone?”
“Why?”
“I just want to check a couple things.”
“Ummm… you know, that’s what my ex did. He’d insist that he had to make—” her face pales. “Oh God, he would come over and I would leave the room to get Jazzy ready. Do you think he could have?—”
“I think anything is possible.”
Leesa
I hand over my phone. Rhodes’s fingers brush mine and a chill raises the hair on my arms. For how gruff he started out, he’s remarkably caring and understanding. I can see he’s had a lot of training when it comes to situations like this and it makes me feel just a little more at ease.
He does some finagling of the system, and his eyes clench closed. “It’s right here. He’s put a tracking app in the background. It doesn’t appear on the main screens.”
“Should I destroy the phone?”
He stares at the phone and I’m about to ask again when he says, “No. Keep it as?—”
“But—”
“I might be able to reverse engineer the program to track him.” He moves in close and sighs. “Plus, Leesa, you’re going to need it for evidence and so might my family to get those power banks fixed.”
“Shit. He’s not a bad guy.”
He tips his head. “You just want to believe that because you have a child with him, and I’m assuming you have to relinquish her into his custody occasionally, but what if he is and what if this is the straw that can get his bad guy back to crack?”
I almost can’t think. There’s so much going on and then the buzzer goes off and I jump.
Distractedly, I pull the pan from the oven and even before I have them off the sheet, he’s sliding one into his hand and then bouncing it back and forth.
“Those are hot!”
“Perfect.” He takes a bite. “That’s so damn good. Okay, let’s just check all the windows and doors to makes sure they’re locked. Not that he can’t break in, but let’s not give him any advantages.” He grabs another one in his other hand.
My heart hurts. I hope and pray that it’s not Cary. Let it be someone else. Anyone else.
But inside of me, there’s a fear and a truth I just won’t let myself comprehend. There’s what Caia said, Creepy Cary in the back of my mind. I thought he was safe when we first started dating. I thought he was extra caring about me, but he wasn’t. He was controlling. And I didn’t see because I was in too deep. He was charming and unarming in a way I’d never experienced. But in his need to be the only one I could see in his life, he wanted to be the one to see me hurting as well as happy, too. It was a sick game, and I can see that this might be one of those situations.
“I’ll take the rooms within two doors of the kitchen, so I don’t burn my cookies,” I say over my shoulder.
“We definitely don’t want that to happen. Those are some damn delicious cookies.”
“Appreciate it.”
He scoops another spoonful of dough with the spoon and I growl at him to only hear a light chuckle.
I turn and push on his chest to get him out of the kitchen. “Go! You’re going to eat all of the dough.”
“Would be a damn shame…” He slips the spoon into his mouth and pulls it out with a pop.
“You owe three dollars to the swear jar!” Jazzy yells from the other room and we both smile.
He leans in close, the scent of his body wash enveloping me in the myriad of pines in this elevation and snowy cleanness. “She’s a hard ass.”
“That’s another dollar,” Jazzy says with a giggle.
Rhodes walks away with a smile. “Totally worth it.”
And I wonder if he might be.