by Ciara Shayee
Perhaps today would be a good day.
~ oOo ~
A middle-aged couple had arrived during the previous afternoon, the loud music blaring from the crackly television in their room almost drowning out the crunch of tires on gravel outside. The woman, a thin lady with lank blonde hair and hollowed cheekbones, flicked listlessly through the limited channels available while her boyfriend showered on the other side of the bathroom door. Bored, she tossed the remote control towards the holey sofa and stood, moving over to the window. As one bony finger traced the tape holding two sections of glass together, she peered out at the beaten-up car pulling in next to the rusty truck she’d seen two girls getting out of earlier in the day. Fed up with the meagre options on the TV, she discreetly watched the man who climbed out as he leaned against the grey and blue car before lighting up a cigarette. The cherry-red end glowed. Her eyes taking in his short grey ponytail, beard-covered jaw, and scruffy clothes. He looked like a tramp.
Her eyes returned to the TV screen, the bad signal making the news anchor’s voice sound jumpy. She heard his announcement that the search had begun for two missing girls in Montana, though. At first, she didn’t even think of her neighbours a couple of doors down, but then he described them. The forty-something-year-old woman may have had waning eyesight but when squinting at the screen it was obvious her neighbours were indeed the girls she was staring at.
Their curtains were drawn tight and neither girl had ventured out since that morning—now she knew why. They were on the run. The news anchor wrapped up the piece by listing a contact number for anyone with information before a redhead began outlining the weather forecast.
She hadn’t even gotten thirty seconds into it before the woman in the motel room had snatched up her boyfriend’s phone, dialling the number while it lingered in her mind. It rung a few times before a woman with an accent answered.
“Is this who I need to talk to about the missing girls? I just saw them on the news,” she breathed.
When the dispatcher answered in the affirmative and patched her through to somebody else, she sat heavily on the bed, her boyfriend emerging from the bathroom sporting a towel around his waist. He offered a questioning smile just as a man’s voice came on the line.
She pulled in a shaky breath, “I know where those two women are. The ones on the news.” A question. “At the shabby motel right outside Lewistown. The one with the light split in two bits and off on the right side, I can’t remember the name. They’re in the room just down from me. I’ve seen them.”
The couple’s distraction with the phone call meant they didn’t see the greasy-haired man moving from his spot beside the car until it was too late.
~ oOo ~
In room nineteen, Indie wandered back into the main room on freshly-socked feet. Brow knitted tight, she stared at the bed on the far side of the room where she’d left Grace not five minutes ago. She’d promised not to move.
“I-Indie…” Grace croaked.
Tangled blonde curls flopped over her slender shoulder as Indie jerked her head sideways to find the voice. Grace stood stock-still by the chipped-paint-door, white-knuckling something that looked from the other side of the room like a piece of paper. Scowling at her inability to ask what was wrong, her throat sore from throwing up so often, she moved across the carpet silently, reaching out a hand to touch Grace’s fist.
“I-it’s a no-note f-for us,” she stuttered.
Frowning, Indie squeezed in question. What does it say?
Petrified baby-blues met confused azure, swimming with panic. Her lips trembled around the whispered words imprinted already on her memory.
“You left me to die. Now it’s your turn to burn.”
As the words sank in, a glowing spear crashed through the window. It caught the curtains on its way through before igniting the carpet.
Within seconds, flames danced in the girls’ eyes, their only escape route cut off by the quickly spreading inferno.
chapter ten
Riley Lawrence slammed down his phone after ordering his agent to get the woman’s details, then threw his rental car into gear and sped out of the hotel parking lot towards Lewistown. En route, he sent a message to the other agents to let them know where the girls had been sighted, and to head to their assigned rendezvous points. He didn’t need solid proof to know that this was the real deal.
Riley’s gut told him they’d find Indie Ashby and Grace Davies within the next couple of hours.
His gut had rarely ever been wrong.
The first agents spotted the pillar of smoke spiralling up into the sky minutes before they arrived on scene. Their radios were noisy with panicked chatter. By this point, the fire had been raging for almost five minutes. It had begun to spread into the apartments either side of nineteen through the wooden frame. Everybody had been evacuated, and when Riley skidded to a stop, a few men were battling the resilient flames with buckets and hoses running from the nearby pond, the twenty or so people staying or working at the motel gathered nearby.
“What the hell happened?” Riley spat, throwing his badge in the face of the nearest motel employee.
The tie-dye clad teen loudly popped her gum. “I, like, dunno. Some dude just rolled up in, like, a really ugly car. Guess it was him ‘cause he was, like, all shifty and stuff. Ya know?”
With clenched teeth and fists so tight his bones popped, Riley growled.
“Boss?”
No sooner than Riley was informed there were two guests unaccounted for did Riley hear the voice of his resident tech whizz. Turning, he frowned.
“What the hell is he doing here?”
Jogging beside Ben was Laker, a grim look on his face.
“I’m here to help, Riley.”
“We were testing that new micro tracker…the one I’ve been working on? The call came through and I figured it would be dumb to waste time dropping this one off when he could just come with,” Ben quickly explained.
Huffing, Riley refocused his attention on the fire. “Right, I don’t care. Just keep back and let the professionals do their—”
An enormous ball of debris, smoke, and fire launched itself into the air, crashing back down on the roof of room twenty-one and collapsing the entire right side of the block in one fell swoop.
“Get back!” someone yelled, the crowd frantic in their attempts to get away from the blistering heat.
Only two men remained.
Riley and Laker cast loaded glances at each other, a decision made amidst the panic. Nodding stiffly despite knowing the shitload of paperwork he was choosing to inundate himself with, Riley grabbed a fire blanket from a passing employee and shoved it at Laker. “You ready?”
Without pausing to question Riley, Laker didn’t hesitate in running towards the burning building. Adrenaline, affection for the girls he counted as honorary siblings-slash-best friends, and loyalty to the two families who’d helped patch him up as a troubled child pushed the young man ahead of the FBI agent. Long, strong strides carried him across the grass, jade eyes fixed on the peeling door adorned with a wooden ’19.’
“Watch yourself, you hear? I’ve got enough damn paperwork without worrying about you, too!” Riley barked.
Laker yelled an ‘affirmative’ just as he reached the door. His booted foot crashed through the flimsy door with a crack which was inaudible over the sound of the fire and splintering apartment structure. Tugging the fire blanket over his head and shoulders, Laker inhaled a lungful of the relatively clean air before shoving his way inside.
Here goes nothin’, was his last wry thought before the smoke and heat swamped him.
Laker’s mind worked frantically, his body protesting the forward movement even as he moved further inside. The room was about fifteen feet long, eight wide. So far the fire had almost the entire front blocked off, only a small gap in the flames even remotely passable. Conjuring up memories of eight-year-old Indie and Grace, and remembering little Marley who’d been distracted by pancakes c
ooked by one of the agents while she watched SpongeBob, he said a quick prayer and forced himself through.
That little girl needs her mamma back, Archie needs his sister, Pete and Ray need their daughters…losing them now isn’t an option.
Thankfully, the nylon-style carpet repelled the blaze to a certain extent, leaving a path for Laker’s boots along the wall. With mint green eyes reflecting the dancing vermillion columns reaching for the ceiling, Laker searched for the girls amidst the smoke.
A rumpled, multi-coloured quilt topped a small double bed, the matching pillows burning on the floor where they’d been thrown after proving ineffective at extinguishing the fire. The dresser was alight, as was the shabby grey sofa. The girls weren’t there.
A meek voice called from within the flames.
“Help! We’re in here…” the voice coughed. Trying hard not to breathe too deeply, Laker stretched to look over and around the dancing fire.
It was then, through the thick black smoke, that he spotted them. They were curled into each other on the bathroom floor. The only reason Laker could see them at all was because the entire bottom section of the door was missing. Squashing his surprise at seeing the pair, he moved swiftly, pushing at the door only to find it was jammed.
“It’s broken,” came a whimper from the other side.
The heat began to feel as though it was scorching through the fire blanket. Laker’s breaths had grown so shallow he felt a little light-headed, panic building.
“All right.” He looked down at the hole, knowing he’d be too big to squeeze through. And they didn’t have time, anyway. The flames were creeping closer. “Can you crawl through here?”
A split second after he crouched and reached an arm through, a soft, small hand brushed his.
“I can try, but Indie—” the girl coughed. Grace, Laker deduced, grasping her hand gently before trying to peer through the haze of smoke.
“Move out of the way. I’ll kick the door down, okay?”
Grace scrambled out of the way, tugging an unresponsive Indie with her until they were sitting in the tub. The fractured plastic screen attached to the bath acted as a weak barrier between them and the door when Laker barged through, Grace jumping with a startled squeal. Just as he realised it would be impossible to carry both girls at once, Riley appeared, handing them paper masks to cover their mouths and noses before scooping Grace into his arms and backing out of the room.
A loud groan from above pressed home the point that he needed to get moving, and quickly. Laker reached for Indie. She flinched away from his touch, eyes flashing open. They shone dark blue in the shadow of his imposing form.
Those eyes…I remember those eyes.
“Hey, it’s me, Laker. You remember me from when you were little?” he murmured, trying not to look as frightened as he felt as he scooped her into his arms. The fire was encroaching on their personal space, almost at the doorway. If they gave it a chance to meet them there they’d be trapped.
Indie’s eyes flickered for a brief moment in recognition, a silent gasp falling from her lips as she cocked her head slightly to one side. The movement reminded him of Marley. It made her hair shift, the stark white of her bandaged temple looking so much worse with the heat of the flames at Laker’s back, his heart racing as his lungs burned with the need to take a deep breath.
“Yeah, you remember. It’s okay, don’t talk. Put this over your mouth, we need to be quick…that’s it. I’m gonna carry you out, all right? Just stay still and close and I’ll do the leg work.”
Indie didn’t show any sign of acknowledging his words. Shock, maybe. Nevertheless, Laker didn’t have time to wait any longer. Time was running out.
Indie curled into his chest and tucked her head into the crook of his neck, white-knuckling the edges of the blanket.
“All right, you ready?”
She nodded meekly.
“Okay.”
The ceiling overhead crackled with the strain of staying up even as the walls began to crumble, their shoddy assembly making them weak against the onslaught of the determined flames. After leaning up to inhale one quick breath from the cracked window, Laker brushed his beard-covered cheek against Indie’s tangled hair before throwing them through the doorway, into the searing frying pan the apartment had become.
What felt like an eternity later, he stumbled through the collapsing door frame onto the dirt. Riley moved to catch them, propping Laker up as he coughed and staggered away from the burning building, Indie clinging to him the same way Marley had after her nightmare last night.
Sucking in desperate breaths, Laker didn’t bother to turn when the apartment building collapsed. Indie’s whimpers resonated in his head as he coughed and choked on the smoky air, rasping his thanks to Riley when he tugged the paper mask away to toss it to the floor. Sinking to his knees a hundred feet or so away from the burning rubble, Laker carefully cradled Indie despite the pain in his chest and the prickling of his eyes.
“You okay, Indie?”
She managed a nod.
“Goo—” A horrendous coughing jag stole the breath from Laker’s chest, but all he could think about, all he could see, was the look of absolute gratefulness on Grace’s face as she darted across the grass towards them, and the numb expression on Indie’s when she pulled her face from his neck a moment later to mouth ‘I remember you.’
~ oOo ~
Driving towards Lockwood, Riley periodically glanced at the girls in the back seat. Grace was in the seat directly behind him while Indie huddled against Laker’s chest on the other side of the bench. Thanks to the paramedics that arrived on scene while he and Laker were getting the girls out, Indie’s head had been patched up properly, and they’d all been checked over and given oxygen.
Grace had explained that the only injury either of them had was Indie’s head wound, so Riley hadn’t insisted on a hospital visit once the paramedics had declared her fit. She’d also made sure to give them the paperwork Indie had stolen from the study, which Riley was eager to look through. He’d have preferred a trip to the hospital just for a thorough once-over, but with Indie as mute as her daughter and pretty much completely unresponsive even though the paramedics had deemed her fit, and Grace taking edgy to a whole new level, nobody thought it would be a good idea.
There was the added issue of their anxious fathers, too.
They’d been waiting to see their girls for far too long already. In the three hours since their rescue, the press had somehow gotten wind of bits and pieces, their curiosity already spiked by the FBI presence at the burnt-out ranch, the earlier plea for their safe return, and the police and federal agents swarming the motel after the fire there. Riley knew from experience that all hell would break loose once they realised the significance of the rescue—once they realised who the girls were. With their faces all over the news, it wouldn’t be long, which was exactly why he was rushing them back to Reagan, Peter, and of course, Marley, swallowing his insistence that they go to a hospital.
They’d waited long enough.
In the back seat of the SUV, Laker’s chest relaxed for the first time in days. His arms reflexively tightened around Indie when she shifted. A warm puff of air left her lips and caressed his Adam’s apple, sending a shiver through his body. He’d always been sensitive there. Cursing his ticklishness, Laker attempted to move so he wouldn’t shudder every time Indie breathed.
A surprised gasp stopped him in his tracks. “Hey, it’s okay. Your breath was tickling me,” he whispered, halting Indie’s attempt to scramble away. “Are you comfy?” Laker grinned at the hesitant dip of her head, tipping his own back against the headrest and sighing deeply. “You’re welcome to stay, then.”
And it seemed she wanted to, because she settled back in, only holding herself rigid for ten minutes or so until she relaxed once more.
For a long while, the anger Laker harboured for Smith was pushed back, the only emotion able to override it being the crushing relief of having Indie in his a
rms, Grace close enough to touch, with the miles separating them from their dads and Marley being rapidly eaten up by Riley’s lead foot on the accelerator.
“There are going to be a lot of agents around in a minute,” Riley eventually said, interrupting Grace’s silent contemplation. Her eyes snapped to his, seeking reassurance but still wary. She didn’t trust him yet, but she desperately wanted to believe this wasn’t all an incredibly elaborate dream; desperately wanted this to be real, especially the part where her dad was so close.
“None of them will hurt you, but there will be lots of people around. It’s for your safety, okay?”
After a pregnant pause, Grace dipped her head. Indie’s entire body stayed perfectly still against Laker’s hoodie-clad chest. Not a sound leaked from her lips, her breathing so shallow that if Laker didn’t know better he’d have thought they’d lost her.
“Where…where are we going?”
“A safe house near the city. You’ll be safe there, I give you my word. I have my finest agents guarding it.”
After another dip of her head and a quiet murmur of acknowledgement, they remained in silence for the rest of the drive to Lockwood.
Riley was just happy neither girl was gravely injured, though he was growing steadily more worried about Indie’s obviously frail state of mind. He could only hope being reunited with her dad and Marley would help.
~ oOo ~
The safe house was smaller, dirtier, and more inconspicuous than Grace expected. When the SUV pulled up outside a compact, white panelled house with a brown lawn, broken shutters on the tiny windows, and chipped paint—well, everywhere—she shuddered. More than once she and Indie had wondered what their lives would have been like if they’d been taken somewhere else. Somewhere more populated where he wouldn’t have been able to hide them so easily. Somewhere like this place.
Immediately upon arrival, two enormous, black-clad agents emerged, meeting their boss just outside the vehicle while Grace scooted closer to Laker. He offered her a small smile, slowly tucking an arm around her shoulders in a gesture of comfort she gratefully accepted after the shortest of pauses. “You’re both gonna be okay now, Grace. You’re safe.”