Defending Van (Prey Security: Undercover Team #3)

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

In the seven or so years since Makayla Adair had become a social worker, she’d done a whole lot of home visits. She’d been yelled at, spat on, and physically attacked on more than one occasion, but she’d never walked up to a house and had this eerie sense of foreboding.

Something felt wrong this afternoon, but she had no idea what it could be.

This was supposed to be a quick check on a six-year-old boy who had recently been returned to his biological parents.

She’d fought against it happening, she was one hundred percent positive that the child wasn't safe here.

The little boy had suffered basically every kind of abuse there was, neglect, verbal, emotional, psychological, physical, and even sexual.

More often than not, the child went to school dirty and without anything to eat.

He never had any money put in his account for lunch, and the bruises constantly littering his skin, plus the obvious neglect, were what had prompted his teachers to file the initial report.

What she’d found when she was assigned the case was so much worse.

The poor baby was hit daily from what he’d told her when she finally gained his trust enough to get him talking.

If he cried, he’d either be locked out of the house and forced to sleep in the yard, or he’d be locked in a closet in the kitchen, possibly left there for days at a time.

Given the boy’s age and his inability to accurately judge time, she wasn't sure that it was actually days, but it didn't matter.

Even a minute was too long to lock a child out of a house, and definitely in a closet.

Due to the father’s anger issues, he couldn’t hold down a job, throw in some gambling addictions and a love of alcohol, and she wasn’t surprised to see the house they lived in was more falling down than standing up.

The mother seemed to be operating on autopilot.

She hadn't spoken a word any of the times Makayla had interviewed the family, and the blank look in her eyes said she’d checked out.

Likely she’d been the target of abuse before her husband turned his attention to their son, and she’d just shut down.

What sealed the deal in removing the little boy was the fact that his father pimped him out for extra money when he couldn’t pay the bills. That was also why she’d fought as hard as she could to make sure the child wasn't returned to this house of hell.

It wasn't what she learned from her studies, or from her years on the job that told her this little boy would never be safe here, it was what she knew from her own personal experience. She’d been a foster kid and had a father just like the man who lived here.

So many times she’d been removed from her home, sent to some horror story foster family, and then returned to her parents.

Each time she was sent back home, it got worse.

Eventually, she’d be taken again, but the cycle continued, and she didn't want that for this child. Especially since he’d actually been placed with a wonderful foster family and had begun to thrive.

Now he was back here thanks to the system prioritizing reunification over what was best for children. Makayla hated that and fought as hard as she could for the children placed in her care, but she was only one person, and she couldn’t change an entire system.

Standing before the dilapidated farmhouse, she felt sick to her stomach, wondering what she was going to find here. Maybe …

No.

She didn't want to acknowledge that possibility.

Yet …

As far as she was concerned, it wasn't outside the realms of possibility that the father had lost it, and wound up killing his son, his wife, and then himself.

There had been several guns in the house, and she could easily imagine, in a fit of fury, the man grabbing one, turning it on his family before ending his own life so he wouldn't have to face the consequences of his actions.

Hurrying up the porch steps, she bypassed the boards that had broken all the way through, and even the ones that weren't broken yet creaked under her weight. Hammering her fist on the door, she shivered as the eerie feeling continued to grow. Maybe she should have brought a cop with her. While this was one of the most volatile fathers she’d ever dealt with, she hadn't expected any problems today.

Stupid.

She should always predict problems. It saved a lot of trouble in the long run.

“Mr. Smith? Mrs. Smith? It’s Makayla Adair with Child Protective Services. I'm here for our scheduled meeting,” she called out. There was no answer, and she hadn't expected one. The house felt empty.

Over the years, she’d gotten pretty good at honing her instincts.

It was the only way to survive in the system when you kept getting sent to home after home where abuse and neglect were rampant.

Even in the best home she’d ever lived in, her foster parents had provided only the bare minimum.

Clothes that fit, a bed to sleep in, food to eat, and that was it.

She’d had to do almost all the housekeeping, as well as cook the meals, and been locked in her room on Christmas Day, because it wasn't their responsibility to give her holiday treats.

If she could save some of her kids from having to grow up like she did, feeling unwanted, unseen, and uncared about, then her life would mean something, and all the suffering she’d been through would mean something.

She worked a ton of overtime, gave all of herself to her kids, and was their safe place to talk if they needed it.

Unlike her own social worker when she was a kid, who was overworked, underpaid, and tapped out.

Two decades in the job had desensitized her, and she hadn't really cared about the children in her care.

Makayla never wanted to become like that.

Another knock, another no answer.

Knocking again, harder this time, the door swung open.

Immediately, Makayla sniffed the air, seeking out the heavy scent of blood. But there was none, and she let out a breath. There was no scent of decay either, so maybe she wasn't about to step into the scene of a murder suicide.

Going inside was probably stupid, but if there was any chance that her little charge was in danger—well, immediate danger—then she wasn't standing out here and waiting for back up.

Pulling out her phone, she sent a quick text to her boss, asking him to send out a patrol car, then she took a step inside.

Quiet.

Too quiet.

The eerie kind of quiet.

Makayla shivered as she made a quick tour of the house.

It was just as dirty as it had been the last time she was here.

It was obvious the parents had done the bare minimum to get their son back.

She’d always wondered why some parents went to such lengths to have their children returned when they obviously hated them to begin with.

Her parents despised her, and yet time after time, they would make attempts to pretend to clean up just to get her back, and then go right back to abusing her.

Room after room turned up empty.

There was no sign of any of the three people who lived here, and she was beginning to wonder if they’d packed up and disappeared.

She had no idea where they would have gone, or where they could have afforded to go.

There was no extended family in the picture, which was why the little boy had wound up at a foster home.

Heading outside, she made her way across the rickety porch, in only slightly better condition than the front porch, and over the overgrown yard toward the barn.

There were no longer any animals kept in it, no farming equipment either.

While this had been a working farm half a century ago, it had since fallen derelict.

“Hello?” she called out as she stepped inside.

Maybe Mr. Smith thought he could hide out in here, and she’d just leave without looking for him.

Too bad for him she took this job way too seriously to ever just walk away without confirming one of the children in her care was okay.

Well, at least as okay as she could get them when she sometimes had to fight against a system that was supposed to protect them and often failed so dramatically.

There was no answer, but as she stepped inside the dark space punctuated only by small streams of light where the wooden board framing the building had fallen apart or disintegrated, Makayla realized what a mistake she’d made.

She had been so focused on finding the family that she hadn't been watching her back, checking her surroundings. She knew better, but sometimes she got so focused on her job that she forgot about everything else.

Movement over her shoulder caught her attention.

It was too late to do anything about it.

Although she spun around and tried to determine whether fight or flight was the better option, the man was already on her.

At first, she thought it was just Mr. Smith thinking he could physically make her back off, but the hands that grabbed her were bigger, and the shadowy figure beside her was huge.

Self-defense training kicking in, she lifted a knee and slammed it into the groin of the man, digging his fingertips into her biceps, making him grunt and loosen his hold. She followed up by slamming her foot into his knee, and he went down with a surprised oof.

Turning around, she ran back out the door and toward her car. If she could make it to it, she could lock herself inside and then drive away. Or the cops should show up soon. It had probably taken her fifteen minutes to thoroughly search the house.

But she made it only halfway across the overgrown grass filled with waist-high weeds before the man was on her. He tackled her from behind, taking them both to the ground. Pain spiraled up her wrist, which took the brunt of the landing, and she hoped it wasn't broken.