From the Embers

by Aly Martinez

  How could she have unlocked the back door?

  Why hadn’t the alarm gone off?

  But desperation didn’t allow for logical problem solving.

  Luna hadn’t been in the pool house.

  Not in her room.

  Not in Eason’s.

  Not anywhere.

  And every second that passed sent my anxiety skyrocketing.

  But just as we started back outside, hearing sirens blaring in the distance, Eason noticed a folded paper sitting on his piano bench.

  Two lines typed in black ink. Nothing special yet completely earth-shattering.

  $5 million to buy her back

  Followed by a twenty-six-digit number of some sort.

  That was it.

  No instructions or explanation.

  Just one demand and five lives that would never be the same.

  I’d seen Eason broken and shattered.

  I’d seen him bleeding and blanketed by fire.

  I’d seen him hollow and emotionally demolished.

  But as he fell to his knees, his hands shaking, the unimaginable setting in, the man I loved was obliterated.

  She was gone.

  When the police arrived, they separated me and Eason for questioning almost immediately. Anger was Eason’s next response. For over two hours, I listened to him raging in the kitchen. The absolute agony in his voice matched the pain inside my chest.

  They asked me questions, but I only had so many answers.

  We’d been asleep. The house had been locked up tight. Yet someone had walked right in and taken our little girl.

  Security footage from the camera on the front of the house showed nothing. No car pulling in or out of the driveway. No shadowy figures approaching under the shade of darkness. There was nothing on the side cameras, either. The only lead we had came from the back of the house, which showed a three-second clip of a person dressed in black, wearing a ski mask and gloves. We couldn’t even make out if it was a man or a woman before the wires were cut, disabling the camera altogether.

  Then there was Asher, who swore up and down, unwaveringly, that he’d woken up to see his dead father carrying Luna down the hall.

  After several hours of questioning us separately, we were no closer to finding Luna. Eason was a mess, completely inconsolable, and I felt like I’d done a backslide into the past where everything hurt and nothing made sense. Finally, they brought us back together in the living room. A female officer sat with the kids in the playroom, and as much as it destroyed me to hear Asher’s muffled cries, this wasn’t something he needed to be a part of.

  “My baby is out there somewhere with God only knows who. Why the fuck are you standing in my house right now talking about ifs?” Eason boomed.

  “Just breathe,” I urged, stepping into his side. His heart was beating so fast that I could feel it pounding against his ribs. “Just let him talk, okay?”

  He stabbed a hand into the top of his hair and the muscles on his neck strained, but he closed his mouth long enough to let the detective continue.

  “What I was trying to say was we have an entire team working on finding your daughter. I know Agent Garrett was here earlier from the Bureau and spoke with both of you separately about possible suspects and the hazards of paying the ransom.”

  I closed my eyes and stared down at the floor, Luna’s honey browns on the backs of my lids. For Luna, I would have paid any amount of money in the world to end the nightmare. Neither of us had five million just sitting around. But, with enough time, I had faith I could gain access to it. I could sell the house, clear out every bank account, retirement account, and investment portfolio I had. Selling Prism alone would have netted me ten times that.

  But with our chances of finding her after the twenty-four-hour mark dwindling by the second, time was the one thing we did not have.

  Even if we could come up with the money, Agent Garrett and his team were strictly against paying the ransom. They said there was no guarantee the abductors would give her back and sometimes it just made them greedy and violent, demanding even more.

  So Luna was gone.

  Someone had taken her.

  And we were at a stalemate with no way to get her back.

  I would have rather been back at the fire.

  I would have rather been back inside the fire.

  I would have rather been on fire than not knowing if we would ever see our little girl again.

  And based on the agony carved in his face, Eason would have said the same.

  “So, what do we do now?” Eason asked, his anger ebbing into helplessness.

  Detective Hoffman hitched up his navy slacks, his badge showing on his hip. “We are working closely with the FBI to bring your daughter home. But I’m going to be honest with you. We don’t have a lot of information to go on here. We have a couple theories we’re looking into though. The first being that this is something related to your newfound celebrity status. Maybe a stalker or someone of the likes. The fact that the note was left on your piano is telling. And if both girls were asleep in the same room, it would definitely explain why they only took your daughter and left the Winters girl behind.”

  “A stranger wouldn’t know which one was my daughter,” Eason snapped. “I’m not famous. I played the Grammys once and had my photo snapped a few times with Levee Williams, but my daughter’s picture isn’t slapped all over the internet. Nothing more than what the few people had dug up from when she was a baby.” He walked over to a table against the wall and snatched up a framed picture of Madison and Luna posing in front of the Christmas tree. “Look at them. Tell me in a dark room, two beds side by side, that you could pick out who is who.”

  He definitely had a point there. There was a reason we’d spent so long questioning Luna’s paternity. Roughly the same age, same size, same hair color, different shades of brown eyes, but not enough for an outsider to be able to tell them apart.

  “Okay,” the detective conceded. “That theory also doesn’t explain how this person got into your home. There is no sign of forced entry, and according to your security company, your alarm was disengaged with a preset code. Which has me thinking we’re dealing with someone who knows you.”

  “Nobody has our code though,” I argued.

  He quirked a furry, gray eyebrow. “Take a minute and really think about this. Babysitters, maids, house sitter? Nobody else has a code to your home?”

  “No,” Eason stated firmly. “You guys have already cleared our babysitter, Evelyn. She’s the only person allowed in our house and even she has her own unique code. That wasn’t what they used to disarm the alarm.”

  I didn’t want to say it. I would sound ridiculous, and it felt even worse than that, but I’d take the humiliation any day of the week if it got Luna back. “What about Rob?”

  Eason’s gaze swung down to meet mine, his mouth an angry slash, but he didn’t utter the first objection, which made it all too clear he’d been thinking about it too.

  The detective let out a throaty rumble and cut his gaze over my shoulder. “Listen, speaking from almost forty years of experience, kids aren’t the best eyewitnesses. When traumatic things happen, their minds struggle to look past the fear, so their brains fill in details in an attempt to make sense of a situation. It is not uncommon for children to—”

  I took a step toward him. “But this would make sense.”

  He slanted his head. “A dead man coming back to life to kidnap a child that is not his own? That makes sense to you?”

  “Hey,” Eason growled, all patience with the entire day gone. “Watch your fucking tone.”

  He lifted his hands in surrender. “No disrespect intended. Just trying to be real with you.”

  “None of this is fucking real!” Eason boomed.

  “Look.” I stepped in between the two men, resting my hand on Eason’s chest, which was rising and falling at a marathon pace. “It sounds insane. And impossible. But just for the sake of covering all bases, let’s
think about it. Rob knew where every single camera on this house is. He had the security company install them himself. The code on the alarm hasn’t changed since he’s been gone. And Eason swears he locked the doors, but the back door was unlocked, and the pool house was standing wide open. Someone must have had a key.” I swallowed hard and shook my head. “Rob’s keys were in his pocket the night he died, and as far as I know, they were never recovered.”

  Detective Hoffman inhaled deeply, a calm that had been evading Eason and me all day washing over him. “Again, Mrs. Winters. I mean this with the utmost respect. We are not in the business of chasing a dead man.”

  “And neither am I,” I sniped. “But my kid isn’t a liar. He’s been shaking and crying all day, thinking a ghost took his sister. I think we can all agree this was not Rob, but what if it was somebody close to him? My ex-husband was not a faithful man. We have proof he was sleeping with Eason’s wife…in my bed. What if he had someone else too? What if, before he died, he’d given someone a key to the house, a code to the security system, a pattern to avoid the security cameras—and not because they were planning to kidnap our child, but because they were trying to avoid being caught having an affair in my home?” Tears I should have long since run out of filled my eyes. “I don’t know who Asher saw, okay? But I am begging you not to rule out the idea that he could still be responsible for this.” A sob tore from my throat as I finished.

  “Come here,” Eason whispered, draping his arm around my shoulders and curling me into his chest.

  I always felt safe in Eason’s arms. But this wasn’t something that could be soothed or quelled.

  We’d already lived through hell, but there we were, our nightmares coming true faster than our dreams ever could.

  “We just need her back,” I told the detective, my cries muffled by Eason’s strong chest. “Please, just help us find her.”

  EASON

  Numb yet simultaneously frozen in a state of more pain than I had ever experienced, I spent the rest of the day on autopilot.

  My heart beat.

  My lungs expanded.

  But my mind was lost in a sea of what-ifs.

  Not the kind of what-ifs that could ever be spoken out loud for fear the universe would hear me and take them as a challenge. The world was full of sick and twisted people.

  And now, one of them had my baby girl.

  Bree had called a locksmith to change every lock in the house. The garage door had been reprogramed, and the security company was coming out the next morning to install new cameras inside and outside the house.

  But until that was done, and maybe not ever, neither of us felt safe staying in the house. We also didn’t want to go far though. I’d spent the day staring at the door as the police took pictures and examined every square inch of our home. I was hanging on the edge of a cliff, knowing that someone had taken her, but there was still a part of me that hoped she had just wandered away and at any minute would come back home.

  She wouldn’t. I knew that. But hope was my drug of choice at the moment.

  Thankfully, Evelyn lived just down the street and reached out to us that afternoon. She’d spent the day with officers combing her house, and the minute they cleared her as a potential suspect, she opened her doors to us.

  It was closer than a hotel on the off chance we needed to get back home quickly, and Asher and Madison adored her, so they would feel comfortable there as well. The police thought it was a good idea to leave for a few nights too, so with a gaping hole in my chest, we packed bags and left the last place I’d kissed my daughter goodnight.

  Bree and I wouldn’t let the kids out of our sight, but Evelyn took over cooking dinner, passing out snacks, even luring Madison, who hadn’t stopped asking for Luna all day, into a game of hide-and-seek.

  Asher wouldn’t budge though, and when it came time to tuck them into bed that night, he was no less anxious.

  “I’m not lying!” Asher cried, clinging to Bree’s neck.

  “I know.” Bree stroked the back of his dark hair.

  “Can people come back from heaven?”

  I sank down on the edge of the bed, put my elbows to my knees, and hung my head.

  “No, baby. They can’t,” Bree replied, resting her other hand on my bouncing knee.

  “Then how was he there?” His head suddenly popped up, a new round of panic showing on his face. “Oh no. What if he took Luna back to heaven with him? Maybe Aunt Jessica missed her.”

  That thought lodged a boulder in my throat, causing me to nearly suffocate, and I had to stand up and walk to the door or chance breaking down right in front of him.

  “That’s not possible, baby,” Bree whispered. “Look at me, Ash. We believe you. You saw someone, and I know you would never lie about that. But they had a mask on, right? Maybe it was just someone who looked like—”

  “It was Dad!” he shouted, frantic desperation thick in his voice. “I looked right at him before he ran away. I remember what he looked like, and I know it was him.”

  I sucked in a deep breath, holding it until my lungs ached. The pain in my chest had been so excruciating all day that the momentary burning from oxygen deprivation felt like a reprieve. Turning on a toe, I looked him straight in the eye. “I believe you, Ash.”

  I didn’t. But he needed to know we did.

  That kid.

  That kid, with a heart of gold who would forever own a piece of my own, looked me dead in the eye and then absolutely slayed me. “I’m sorry, Eason. I’m sorry I didn’t stop him. I got scared because I thought he was a ghost.”

  I had him in my arms in the very next second. Like a baby, he folded his arms around my neck and his legs around my waist, sobbing into my shoulder for something that never should have been his to bear. I knew all too well what it was like to fail someone you loved. And to carry the guilt for something completely out of your control. That kind of regret was not something I ever wanted my boy to experience.

  I held him tight, my forearms crossed over his back. “You did everything right this morning. You’re seven years old. It is not your job to stop an intruder in our house. Do you understand me? You did the right thing. You came and woke us up. Knowing that he took her as quickly as we did is really going to help the police find her. You did good, buddy. Really good.”

  He continued to cry, the sobs ravaging his small body cutting me to the quick. Bree stood across the room, tears streaming down her cheeks, but neither of us knew what to do.

  And quite honestly, the hardest part was that there wasn’t actually anything left to do at all.

  We just had to wait and pray they found her.

  After a few minutes, Bree took him from my arms, and together, they lay down on the bed. Evelyn had set up two of her guest rooms for us, and originally, I was going to bunk with Asher while Bree was going to take Madison. But he needed his mom for a little while.

  And I needed a quiet moment to remember how to breathe.

  I stopped at the other guest room and peeked inside. Madison was already out, sprawled out across the bed. She was old enough to realize her best friend was gone, but she was oblivious to the fear and panic that was circling like a vortex around us all. As I watched her sleeping, not a worry in the world, I was enormously grateful that at least one of us could rest.

  Ever so quietly, I closed the door to her room, pulled my phone from my back pocket, and then sank to the floor. I must have had a million text notifications. Word had gotten out when police had activated the Amber Alert and everyone from old bar buddies to Levee and Sam had been texting me, offering any assistance they could provide. I’d replied to none of them. I didn’t need a casserole, a beer, or, in Levee’s case, a bodyguard.

  I just needed Luna. I had no idea how I would survive the night without her.

  Clicking the green call button twice, I lifted the ringing phone to my ear. I didn’t even have to dial his number. He was the only person I’d called all day. Detective Hoffman and the members of the
APD who were hanging out at our house in case the asshole tried to come back were great. But I knew that the FBI taskforce was hard at work across town.

  “Agent Garrett,” he answered.

  “Please tell me you have something new?” I begged.

  He sighed. “How ya holding up, Eason?”

  “I’m not. You gotta give me something here. I’m falling apart.”

  After humming sympathetically, he said, “We haven’t found Luna. Let me just start by saying that.” Another rusty knife of reality stabbed me in the gut. “But I was actually just about to head your way. We got a hit on that number from the note. It’s not a banking account number. It’s to a private cryptocurrency account. Anonymous owner, virtually untraceable.”

  “Fuck,” I breathed.

  “But, while we can’t track down the owner, we did run it through some of our databases and got a lead on another cryptocurrency account who received funds from your guy’s account a while back.”

  My heart stopped and I sat up straight. It wasn’t Luna, but it was at least something. “That’s good, right?”

  “It’s a jumping-off point, that’s for sure. Do you know anyone by the name S. Barton?”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell. Why?”

  “Because less than twenty-four hours before your house exploded, the man who kidnapped your daughter sent him half a million dollars.”

  My heart stopped and a cold chill rolled over my body. “What the fuck did you just say?”

  “You heard me right. I’ve got guys on it. I’m swinging by the police department to pick up the fire inspector’s report and then I’m on my way to you. Hang tight. I’ll see you and Bree in thirty.”

  He hung up, but my mind raced faster than ever. It could have been a coincidence. People all around the world had been living their lives, making transactions, buying and selling anything and everything under the sun both before, during, and after the fire.

  But what were the chances those people would later kidnap my daughter?

  I paced the hallway for what felt like an eternity but probably measured closer to ten minutes before Bree finally came out of the bedroom.