Chapter 11
Becca heard the explosions, the sound jolting her enough that she squeaked in alarm. Then gunfire erupted, sounding a thousand times scarier than it did on TV. And then…nothing.
What the hell was going on?
She wanted to get out and see. She wanted to cower on the floor and hope that no one spotted her. She wanted to be in Australia looking at kangaroos with Theo at some nature park. Instead, she just stayed where she was and prayed.
Then her phone buzzed. She was so grateful she fumbled, flipping it around in her hand. But by the time she could see it, all she read was a short text from Carl:
The worst is over. Stay calm.
She read that a thousand times while her heart steadied to about twice its normal rate.
And while she tried to control her breathing, she decided that “stay calm” were the most useless two words ever.
If she was panicking, they wouldn’t help.
If she was calm, then they were completely unnecessary.
And if she was vacillating back and forth between the two, then “stay calm” just pissed her off.
She wanted answers, damn it! Was everyone okay? Had they found Theo? Did they need help? Why hadn’t she chosen to be a nurse or a cop? Some profession that was useful at a time like this? No, she’d gotten a business degree and baked castle cakes.
But rather than give in to her wildly shifting moods, she kept herself calm enough to respond.
She didn’t want to distract Carl with questions he couldn’t answer, and she sure as hell didn’t want him staring at his phone while bullets were flying.
So she keyed in a simple response, though it took her shaking fingers three tries to get it right.
Okay. I’ll wait for news.
And that’s what she was going to do. She was going to sit there in the cab of Carl’s truck.
His calming scent surrounded her in the leather seat and the extra-soft flannel shirt he’d loaned her, and she was going to wait for him.
And then later, when this was all over, she was going to learn first aid.
Hell, she should start right now. She could pull up any number of websites from which she could learn basic field medicine.
So she did. Reception was weak, but thankfully not dead.
And though the pictures were gory and nauseating, especially since she kept imagining Theo or Carl in them, she held it together long enough to read the same page seven times.
Retention was obviously not working well.
Then she saw Officer Tonya walking steadily to the truck, her expression grim. Though, to be fair, the woman’s expression was usually grim.
Becca jumped out of the cab, rushing forward. “Did you find Theo? Is it over? Is everyone okay?”
The woman held up her hand, and Becca slammed her jaw shut. She needed answers and would not do anything to interfere with that. The woman nodded, a flash of gratitude on her face.
“First off, everyone’s fine, as far as I’m aware. Though Carl and Alan are going to hear from me regarding that stunt. Not to mention Mark.” The woman glared in the same direction the men had gone.
So that was good. No one shot. “But did you find Theo?”
The woman took a breath. “No. We don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so? What does that mean? I’m going in there. I have to see—”
A male voice cut through her words. “Becca, wait!”
Carl.
She spun around to see him, her gaze checking everything she could think of for injuries. Face fine. No blood. Moving smoothly. Everything fine. Good. That meant she could stop worrying about him.
She tossed him his keys and turned to Officer Tonya. “Show me.”
The damned woman didn’t move. Instead, she waited while Carl made it to her side.
Becca glared at them both. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Tell me about the clothing Theo had on,” Officer Tonya said in a crisp tone. “You said he was wearing a University of Michigan sweatshirt, is that right?”
“Yes.” Oh God.
“Was there anything distinguishing about it? A rip or a stain? A lot of kids wear U of M stuff.”
“No, no. It was just a sweatshirt.”
“What about his jeans or shoes? Do you remember the brand?”
“No! I already told you—”
“But would you recognize them? If you saw them?”
Becca took a deep breath and leveled the woman with her steadiest expression. “You need to take me to those things right now.”
Carl answered instead. “It’s not a place you should see. It’s not a nice basement.”
She swallowed. “Was Theo in there?”
“We don’t know,” Carl answered.
“But you suspect.”
Officer Tonya exhaled slowly. “It’s an active crime scene. I can get pictures—”
“A picture isn’t going to do it. And what you’re doing right now?
It’s making me insane. Look, I may not look as strong as Officer Tough as Nails here, but Theo’s my son.
For his sake, I’d walk into hell itself.
” When that didn’t seem the sway them, she tried a different tack.
“Theo and I have a shorthand between us. Symbols and stuff that wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else, but I’d recognize it if I saw it.
If you think Theo might have been in there, you have to let me look. ”
Becca froze her body into the most coldly determined stance she could manage.
Her chin was lifted, her brows lowered, and her hands were clenched at her sides.
And while she kept her expression fierce, she looked at Carl.
He was the Max, so he was the one she had to convince.
“I’ve dragged my sister’s drunken ass out of bars at two a.m. I took care of Theo every time he had the flu.
And I’ve nursed my mother through lung cancer.
I’m not going to freak at a scary basement. ”
Carl sighed. “It’s not the same thing.”
“I don’t care. If Theo was there, I need to see it.”
He had to agree. He just had to. And in the end, he huffed out a breath. “I’m going to be with you every step of the way.”
“And you’re both going to do exactly what I say,” Tonya snapped. Then she touched Becca’s hand. “And call me Tonya. This kind of thing is easier with a friend.”
Becca nodded and tried to smile. No point in letting her nerves show as Carl helped her into the truck.
They drove to the front gate of the Moss compound.
It looked all rather normal to Becca for a large Michigan ranch.
Except for the barbed-wire fencing. And the squad cars and ATF vehicles everywhere.
It took forever to get past all the people checking IDs and the like.
Tonya got them through while Becca gripped Carl’s hand and tried not to panic.
She didn’t even know when she’d grabbed hold, but their fingers were intertwined, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to let go until this was over.
Plus, no matter how hard she squeezed, she was pretty sure his hand could take it.
So she held on and kept moving steadily forward.
Until she came to the basement.
A set of stairs descended into a huge concrete nightmare, complete with bloodstains on the floor and four large animal cages.
“Don’t you dare puke on my crime scene,” Tonya snapped.
“I won’t,” she said, willing it to be true.
“I was talking to Mr. Max.”
It was a lie. That had definitely been directed at her, but she liked Tonya all the better for pretending otherwise. Meanwhile, Carl pulled her tighter against his side.
“If this gets too hard, you just say the word. I’ll have you outside in a second, okay?”
“Okay.”
She couldn’t see much. Tonya was blocking her view, which was just as well.
The glimpses she’d gotten were bad enough.
And the smell was worse. A foul, nauseating scent of bodily fluids and antiseptic.
She glanced at Carl’s hard expression and wondered what his grizzly senses were telling him. Nothing good, by the look on his face.
Then Tonya moved, gesturing to a pile of clothing in the corner near the stairs. Not just a University of Michigan sweatshirt, but jeans and shoes. A bloody tee and…
A body. Not in the pile of clothes, but just to the side.
Oh God.
A boy misshapen beyond belief. His face was distorted into a kind of muzzle and there was fur on his arms. But the body was a boy’s, and one leg was human, the other a distorted thing that was part animal. She choked back a cry as she slammed a hand on her mouth.
She would not be sick. She would not be sick.
It helped that she knew immediately that it wasn’t Theo. Awful to be grateful when she was looking at some boy’s death, but she was so relieved that somehow she was able to cope.
“That’s not Theo,” she managed.
“Good,” Tonya said. “Now look at the clothes. What can you tell me about them?”
Becca leaned down, but Carl stopped her with a quick squeeze on her arm. “You can’t touch them.”
Right. Trace evidence. She straightened as she studied the pile.
She didn’t have to keep looking, but she wanted to be sure.
She wanted to pretend for just a moment longer that what she was seeing couldn’t possibly be true.
But in the end, reality pressed hard against her mind and she needed a second breath before she could speak.
“The Nikes are Theo’s. As is the U of M sweatshirt and those jeans.”
“You’re sure?”
Yes. “Not a hundred percent, but that stain on the sleeve there? That’s ketchup. He did that…” She thought back. “Thursday. I didn’t get a chance to wash it, and he didn’t care.”
Amazing that her voice didn’t break on that. It wobbled a bit, but she squeezed Carl’s hand and managed to steady herself.
“Okay, that’s all we need,” Tonya said, but Becca turned back.
“No. Not yet.” It was time for her to see the entire basement. And that meant each cage. And anything else that was in this place of horrors.
“You sure?” Carl asked.
She didn’t bother to answer, but clenched her jaw and stepped around Tonya. She looked at a row of smaller cages, recoiling when she saw a couple with dead monkeys in them. What the hell? She averted her gaze from them. She doubted Theo had anything to do with that. She had to look at the larger—
“There,” she said, and this time her voice did choke. There in the dirt by one of the cages was a dark, circular smudge. She went closer, her eyes tearing up as she recognized a lovingly drawn sunflower with a smiley face in the middle of it.
“What is it?” Tonya asked.
“It’s the sunflower from Plants vs. Zombies,” she said as she turned into Carl’s arms. She couldn’t look anymore.
She’d seen too much already. “We used to joke that everything would be better as soon as there was more sun,” she said, her voice strong as long as she kept her eyes closed and only breathed Carl. “He gave me the mug for Christmas.”
That last bit took away her control. Her voice broke, and she shuddered. Carl held her tight, cocooning her in his arms. “That’s good news, Becca. I know it doesn’t feel like it, but it shows he’s alive.”
He was right. Theo was alive. She had to hold on to that.
So she took a moment to gather her strength.
To wipe away her tears and breathe the power that was all Carl.
And from that place, she forced herself to turn around.
She would see, damn it. And she would help them figure out what had happened to Theo.
Except she wasn’t more help. No matter how much she looked, no matter what horrible thing she imagined, there wasn’t more information she could reveal.
Tonya insisted that she’d already given them a lot.
They now knew that Theo had been here and that the bad guys were invested in keeping him alive.
That last part was a guess, but Becca held on to it. It was all she had.