Chapter 40 #2
“Will you find her?” Meredith asked.
Before anyone else could answer, I stepped forward. “Of course they will.”
Because if my mother had another daughter, that would make her my sister. And I would be damned if I’d let Martin Calloway do to her what that bastard did to me.
And it dawned on me that this changed everything. I couldn’t wait for Travis or Gage to help me exact vengeance on that bastard. We needed to do this the right way. At least until we found Cicily Rose.
I turned to the one man I trusted to find her before anyone else could. “Please, Brantley,” I pleaded.
He nodded, then looked at my mother and the man. “Yeah. We’ll help.”
I didn’t realize I was holding my breath, but I released it in a rush. When Gage twined his fingers with mine, I gripped him firmly, grateful for his strength and support.
Travis
“Let’s take this back to our house,” Gage said from behind me.
I stepped back, turning to look at him. I noticed he was holding Kylie’s hand, their fingers twined. She looked as though a stiff wind could knock her down. Probably had something to do with her mother’s miraculous reappearance after so damn long.
My first instinct was to argue, but Gage was right. At least about finding another place for this conversation. We couldn’t hash this out here because there were too many rugrats around. The last thing they needed was to overhear things that wouldn’t make sense to them.
“Not our house,” I said. “We’ll go to Brantley’s.”
“Works for me,” Brantley said.
Reese nodded in agreement.
I looked at Kylie again. “I’ll talk to Mom and Pop. Have them keep an eye on the kids for a bit.”
“I’ll do it,” Joe said.
Kylie peered up at her father. “You sure?”
He nodded. “We’ll take them back to your house, get them ready for bed, and wait for y’all to get back.”
Kylie peered back at me and nodded, her eyes bright with what I could only assume was vengeance.
I knew how much she hated Martin Calloway, knew how much she wanted to pay him back for the hell he’d put her through.
But at this point, we had to put that on the back burner because Calloway had gotten his hands on another of Meredith’s daughters, and it was clear as day what his intentions were now.
Brantley turned to Decker and Meredith. “Get over to HQ and sit tight.”
I didn’t know Decker Bromwell, but I’d heard he was a cocky SOB. At the moment, it appeared that cockiness was buried beneath an onslaught of pure terror. I understood all too well how that felt.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked Kylie as I pulled the SUV down the long dirt drive in front of Brantley and Reese’s house half an hour later.
“I’m sure,” she said without an ounce of hesitation.
I had expected her to say that.
I kept going past the structure to the area that served as a parking lot for the members of the Off the Books Task Force. I pulled in at an angle and shut off the engine. There was no preamble as the three of us got out and met up at the front of the vehicle.
“They still work out of the barn?” Kylie asked when we started walking.
“They do.”
“Who was the guy with Meredith?” she asked.
“Decker Bromwell.”
Kylie stopped suddenly, turning to look at me. The confusion and distaste on her face were impossible to miss. “He has a kid with my mother?”
“That’s my understanding.”
“I went to school with him. He’s … my age.”
Yeah, I knew the basics of what had happened.
After Brantley’s revelation that my wife was alive, I’d gotten a glimpse of the details of the case.
Needless to say, it wasn’t something I cared to share with her.
The last thing she needed to hear was that her mother had been getting down and dirty with her student back in the day. Nor was it something I cared to repeat.
“I thought he was lying,” Kylie muttered as she turned toward the barn.
“Who?” Gage prompted.
“Martin. He liked to talk shit about my mother, but I thought—hoped, really—that he was tryin’ to get a rise out of me.”
Her tone suggested she was bewildered by the acknowledgment.
When we reached the door of the barn, I waited for someone to open it from the inside. A moment later, the lock clicked and the door was pushed open, Archer Halligan appearing.
“Hey, man,” he said, stepping back out of the way.
“Archer, this is my wife, Kylie. Kylie, meet Archer Halligan. He’s a member of the task force.”
“It’s a pleasure to officially meet you,” Archer said without holding out his hand, although his countenance was warm, friendly.
“You, too,” Kylie said, peering up at him. “You were at the house when y’all found me.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Archer turned, gesturing toward the other man approaching. “And this is my partner, Atticus James.”
Kylie glanced between them. “Partner? As in…?”
“Work partners,” Atticus said simply.
“Oh. Okay.” Kylie smiled. “Gotcha.”
While she peered around the space, likely surprised and impressed by what she saw, I turned my attention to Brantley as he came out of the kitchen, a cup of coffee in hand.
“Where’s Reese?” I asked him, shaking my head when he offered coffee by holding up his cup and lifting his eyebrows.
“At the house. Talkin’ to Z.”
“Somethin’ wrong?”
Brantley shook his head. “He’s just fillin’ Z in on the new info.”
Because Brantley’s task force was under the umbrella of Sniper 1 Security, I assumed the discussion was a formality. Zachariah Tavoularis, known to everyone as simply Z, was the man overseeing the task force from their side. At least that was my understanding.
“I’ve tasked Archer and Atticus with findin’ Calloway,” Brantley noted, gesturing toward one of the electronic boards that contained detailed information about the case. “They’re workin’ with Kieran to get as much information as they can about him.”
It took effort, but I managed to bite my tongue.
I was not in the right headspace to talk about my cousin.
The man had let me believe my wife was dead for months.
And yeah, I could admit he had done right by Kylie, getting her out of that house and taking her somewhere safe.
But that didn’t excuse the fact he’d let her nearly die and kept us in the dark.
The past two years had been hell on her family, and my own fucking cousin hadn’t bothered to give us the news that she was alive.
Again, now was not the time, and this was definitely not the place to get into that.
“That’s the room I was in,” Kylie said from across the room. She glanced back at us and pointed. “Is that the house?”
“It is,” Brantley informed her. “Kieran confirmed it.”
I moved toward her, as did Gage and Brantley. It was the first time I was seeing the photos. As I studied the dilapidated room with the filthy mattress and the blood stain near the rusted chain bolted to the floor, a haze of red clouded my vision.
Kylie continued to skim the images on the screen, flipping through them when Archer showed her how to use it.
I glanced at Brantley. He looked apologetic, likely as bothered by the idea of her finding them as I was. The last thing I wanted was for my wife to relive that hell all over again.
“Do you have any idea where Meredith’s daughter might be?” I asked, wanting to get to the real reason we were there.
Before Brantley could answer, a buzzer sounded at the door. The security camera feed on the screen showed an image of Meredith and Decker waiting patiently outside.
I ground my molars together and waited for the inevitable drama that was going to follow.