by T. R. Ragan
It took Lara a while to find everything except the vanilla extract. She preheated the stove and then found a mixing bowl and began measuring flour. In one of the drawers she found a metal utensil she thought might be long enough for her to reach the lock at the top of the door. She walked toward the front entry, worrying her bottom lip as she went. She eyed the top of the main entry door. If she stood on a chair, she was pretty sure she could unlatch the lock. Yes. She could do it. She was sure of it.
Excitement stirred within as she walked back into the kitchen. What if this was her best chance at escaping? What if this was her only chance?
She picked up a chair, surprised by how light it was. Slowly, quietly, she carried the chair and the utensil to the front door. She took her time setting the chair on the floor, careful not to make even one tiny sound. Her stomach lurched as she looked toward the living room, where Patrick was watching TV. She could hear TV voices but nothing else. She was scared, but she forced herself to remain calm.
The wood creaked as she placed a foot on the seat and stood tall. Standing on the chair, she raised the metal object high above her head until it touched the lock. There was no chain on this particular lock. She needed only to push the lever to the right.
Almost there. Every muscle in her arm was on fire as she strained to push the lever to the side. Her brow wrinkled. She could do this. Just a little farther. The tip of the utensil slipped off the metal latch and made a clunky noise.
Her attention was back on the living area. Her heart was beating so fast she thought he might be able to hear the pounding against her chest. She waited to see if there was any movement, any sound at all. Nothing.
She reached for the lock again, determined to make it work. Again she strained, standing on tiptoes as she made contact with the latch. When the lever moved half an inch, excitement rushed through her body. She could do this!
But then she heard movement in the other room, heard the TV volume turn down and then the rattle of his cup. She glanced that way, saw movement in the shadows near the window. He was coming!
She hopped down from the chair, picked it up, and hurried back to the kitchen. The second she put the chair back where it belonged he stepped into the kitchen and gave her a funny look. “What are you doing?”
“I was just going to come in and ask you what this is.” She held up the utensil for him to see.
He had an odd look on his face. He knew. She swallowed.
“That’s called a microplane.”
She wrinkled her brow in confusion.
He shook his head as if she were a lost cause as he crossed the room to refill his glass with ice and water. “It’s used for grating citrus or cheese. You don’t need it to bake cookies.” He looked around. “Doesn’t look like you’ve gotten very far.”
“I couldn’t find a mixer,” she said, although she hadn’t looked.
“You’ll have to mix by hand,” he told her. He was about to exit the kitchen when he angled his head and gave her a long look. “Hurry it up,” he said, “or you can forget baking cookies altogether.”
After he left, Lara put the metal gadget back in the drawer. The look in his eyes told her he was suspicious, which meant she would have to wait for another time before she attempted to unlock the door. If he caught her before she escaped, he’d never let her out of the basement again.
With a heavy heart she went back to her search for vanilla extract.
Patrick was impressed. The sugar cookies were crispy on the edges and soft and chewy in the center. The kid could actually cook.
“So who taught you to bake, your mom?”
She finished chewing and then swallowed before shaking her head. “Grandma Lilly. My mom can’t cook at all. Dad usually makes dinner, and I make dessert.”
“Now that your dad is gone, I guess your mom will have to learn to cook.”
She tossed her half-eaten cookie in the sink.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“My dad isn’t gone.”
He hadn’t realized she didn’t know. “Hate to be the one to break it to you, but he’s dead and won’t be coming back.”
“You’re all liars. Mother told us all that we weren’t loved or wanted, but I’ve seen my mom on television twice, begging for my return. Why are all you people so mean?”
He shrugged. “Not everyone grows up with a roof over their head surrounded by loving parents.”
“I want to go home. Let me go. I won’t tell anyone about you, I promise.”
“Sorry, kid. Not going to happen.”
“I hate you.”
“The feeling is mutual.”
She stormed past him, made her way to the door leading to the basement before he said, “Hold on a minute.”
She stood still.
“Turn around and face me.”
“I don’t want to.”
“I don’t care.” He grabbed hold of her shoulders and yanked her around. Then he lifted her shirt high enough so he could see the handle of a knife. He removed it. “What else do you have hidden away?”
She said nothing. A tear escaped and slid slowly down the side of her face.
“I don’t know why you’re crying,” he said as he leaned over and patted her down, making sure she was clean. “You should be happy I’m not going to use this knife to slice your throat wide-open like they did to your father.”
“You’re a liar. My dad is alive. He’s looking for me right now.”
“Yeah, whatever, kid.” He found no other weapons on her. “What were you going to do with that knife?” he asked, curiosity getting the better of him.
She lifted her chin in defiance. “I was going to pretend I was sleeping,” she told him. “And when you got close enough, I was going to stab the knife into your neck.”
Her brutal honesty took him by surprise. The serious tone of her voice and the fire in her eyes told him she meant every word. “And then what would you have done?” he asked.
“I would have locked you in the basement and run away, far, far away.”
He laughed and then backhanded her so hard the back of her head smacked against the door.
She was sobbing now, and he was glad for it. When she looked up at him with big watery eyes, he didn’t see a scared little kid. He saw his own weaknesses. It didn’t matter how old she was. He’d let his guard down. For the first time in years, he realized it had been bad choices on his part that had gotten him nowhere. Trusting the McMann kid and letting her roam around the house had been a mistake—one that wouldn’t happen again.
She sniffled and said, “You’re evil.”
He slapped her again, practically felt her teeth rattle. He liked the way hitting her felt, and it took some control to stop from pummeling her to death. His heart raced as he flexed his fingers. “And here I was beginning to think you liked me,” he said. The fact that she’d called him evil didn’t bother him. Sticks and stones and all that, but her defiance did irk him. She reeked of disrespect, and she needed to be put in her place.
He opened the door. As he watched her walk down the stairs, he said, “I wouldn’t knock on this door again if I were you. Not unless you want to see how I punish people much bigger than you for disobeying my orders.” With that said, he shut the door and locked it tight.
The kid had gumption. Like her mother.
He felt deceived. Hoodwinked. Betrayed. And that bothered him because he’d never been one for emotions and feelings. The notion that the little brat could unnerve him made him want to march down those stairs and beat her to a pulp, finish her off, and be done with it. At the very least he wanted to teach her a lesson she wouldn’t soon forget. But harming the girl more than he had might leave a permanent mark, which would bring the price down when he found a buyer.
He continued to flex his fingers as he walked back to the living room. From here on out, he needed to stay disciplined and focused.
TEN
Russell Gray was inside the command post in his backya
rd, taking inventory of guns and ammunition, when he felt a spasm. He reached for his lower back and rubbed the kinks out as best he could. His journey up the mountains to find his grandson had been a tough reminder that his old bones could take only so much. Stress wasn’t helping, either. He was worried about Faith. Hell, he was worried about Colton and Jana, too. The stress had taken a toll on all of them. And yet he knew it would be impossible for any of them to give up on looking for Lara.
He’d always had a special spot in his heart for his granddaughter. She was the sweetest little girl he’d ever had the pleasure of being around. Lara was a cloud watcher, a flower picker, a seeker of answers. She’d always been quiet, but you could almost see her brain working overtime inside that head of hers if you watched her long enough.
A noise outside the door caused a jolt within, waking him from his meandering thoughts. He grabbed a pistol, made sure it was loaded, then took careful steps that way.
“Russell. Are you in there?”
His shoulders relaxed. It was his wife. He opened the door to let Lilly in. She stepped inside, no easy feat considering the damage done by her attackers. He looked around outside, past acres of grassy fields and trees, before locking the door behind her.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked. “It’s late.”
“I was going to ask you the same thing.” She swung her arms wide, then winced from the pain it caused her. He stepped toward her, but she raised a hand, stopping him from getting too close. “Everything hurts right now.”
He nodded in understanding.
“You can’t disappear like that in the middle of the night. Even if you’re just coming out here to”—she looked about—“what are you doing out here?” She walked toward the two folding tables covered with guns and ammunition.
“I’m taking inventory.”
“It looks like you’re getting ready to go to war.”
“In a way, I guess you could say I am.”
She turned back to face her husband. “Russell. I couldn’t bear to lose you. There’s no possible way I could go on if something happened to you.”
He set his gun down, rested a gentle hand on her good shoulder. Then he kissed her forehead. “You’re not going to lose me. Everything’s going to be all right. I promise.”
“You can’t make those kinds of promises, especially at a time like this—we both know that.”
There was nothing he could say to appease her.
She walked to the door. “I need to get back to Hudson. I wanted to see if Faith was here with you since she isn’t in her room. I don’t know where she went this time, but it’s a miracle she hasn’t dropped dead from exhaustion.”
Russell glanced at the clock. It was one in the morning. “Come on,” he said. “I’m finished here. Let’s go inside.”
The command post was two hundred feet from the house. As Lilly walked ahead, Russell focused on the darker areas of their property, every part of him on alert. A cool breeze rattled brittle leaves overhead. A squirrel or some other critter skittered off to his right.
A loud crack sounded in the distance. Lilly stopped walking. “What was that?”
“Sounded like a branch breaking free. Come on.” With his hand on her back, he nudged her onward, careful not to hurry her so much that she tripped and lost her balance. Her attackers had left her bruised and battered, body and mind. Her gait was off-kilter, would be for a while, maybe forever. She had a long way to go before she’d get to her new normal, whatever that might be.
It killed him to think of her being alone and scared, fighting for her life. The thought always took him back to the day he’d found out Faith and her family had been attacked. He’d always sworn to protect his loved ones, and once again he’d failed.
He’d fought in wars, been captured by the enemy, escaped, and made it home to his family. He thought he’d done a decent job of putting the horrors of that time behind him. But the fighting and violence weren’t over, after all. Knowing the enemy was right here on his home turf caused all the little fragments of fury he’d spent years burying to claw their way back to life.
By the time they stepped into the house, every muscle in his body felt tight. His hands had curled into fists at his sides. Something niggled at him, and he rushed up the stairs, forgetting all about his bad hip as he went.
The door to Hudson’s room was ajar.
He was about to flick on the light switch when he saw movement in the bed. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw Hudson tucked away for the night. Everything was fine.
Russell checked the entire house, made sure nobody was hiding in a closet or under a bed. When he was finished, he went downstairs, where Lilly found him looking out the window, staring into the night.
“What is it?” she asked in a concerned voice.
He said nothing.
“Talk to me, Russell.”
“I promised to love and protect you, and look where it’s gotten us.”
“You’re the reason we’re still a family. You used your contacts to help Faith get out of jail, and you’ve stuck by her side every step of the way.”
He looked at her. She was still as beautiful as the day he’d spotted her at a dance hall and asked her to dance.
“You found Hudson and brought him home,” she continued. “Colton told me you saved his life up there in the mountains.” Her eyes watered. “Most important, you came home to me. So stop this nonsense.”
She was right. He’d always prided himself on his ability to remain calm under fire. By letting his emotions get the better of him, he’d forgotten some of the most important lessons he’d learned during his years in the military. Gather a trusted group of people. Stay focused on the long-term goal. Stay positive, and never give up. “I love you,” he said.
“I love you, too. I’m going to bed. I suggest you do the same because tomorrow will be another long day.”
“Why? What’s happening tomorrow?”
She had turned to walk away, but she stopped at the door and glanced over her shoulder at him. “They’re all long days. Haven’t you noticed?”
Peanut shells crunched beneath Faith’s shoes as she stepped into the bar. The place was a dive—dark, seedy, and small. The air, filled with smoke and sweat, stuck to her lungs. The wood tables were scarred. Music played in the background: “Crazy Train,” by Ozzy Osbourne, bringing to mind the 1980s and the singer who bit the head off a bat.
The three of them, Faith, Rage, and Beast, walked single file through the bar until they found an empty table next to a graffiti-covered wall.
Beast sat facing the bar. Rage sat to his right, and Faith took a seat across from her, which gave her a view of a man and woman dancing in a dark corner. Not really dancing but hanging on to each other and swaying back and forth.
Beast, Faith noticed, was on the prowl, taking it all in, sizing up everybody in the place. The couple in the corner was oblivious to everyone else. Beast seemed uncharacteristically anxious, as if looking for a fight.
The guy standing at the bar waiting for his drink looked like a younger version of Willie Nelson. His beard was long, the lines in his face beginning to deepen. Faith glanced over her shoulder to see who or what Beast was looking at. Three rough-looking men and a redheaded female sat at a table nearby. The woman sported a welt along with a string of bruises around her throat. When she laughed, a loud, cringeworthy cackle, it was easy to see she was missing a few teeth.
“That’s Eddie Harlan behind the counter serving that guy a beer,” Rage said.
Faith looked that way. There was only one person behind the counter. He was tall and thin as a pole. His eyes were round and glossy like marbles. He looked familiar. She’d looked at so many people over the past few days it was sometimes difficult to put names with faces. The ringleaders, johns, and pimps were quickly becoming a blur swirling around inside her mind. Faith trusted no one outside her family and a few friends. She was becoming paranoid to the point that it seemed everyone was i
nvolved in human trafficking.
Despite the bone-chilling cold, Eddie wore a sleeveless shirt, revealing long, skinny arms covered with colorful tattoos.
“What was the deal with Eddie?” Faith asked, her voice low, knowing Rage would have the answer. “Are he and his cousin pimps?”
Rage nodded. “According to Richard Price’s notes, these two started out as recruiters. They made enough money to buy this bar, making it easier for them to find a steady flow of clientele.”
“What do you think?” Faith asked Beast.
“About what?”
“Any ideas about what to do with these guys?”
“I have lots of ideas.”
“Want to share?” Rage asked.
“Not really.”
“The place closes in another hour,” Faith said. “Maybe we should wait until some of these people clear out before we approach Eddie and question him.”
But Beast was pushing himself to his feet. “I’ll be right back.”
They watched him walk toward the bathrooms and disappear.
“He’s in one of his moods,” Rage said.
“Why? What happened?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes he wakes up like this—all moody and pissy for no apparent reason. It’s annoying as hell.”
“How’s Little Vinnie doing?” Faith asked since she wasn’t around him 24-7 like Rage and Beast. “Is he still forgetful?”
“Not too bad,” Rage said. “His short-term memory seems to come and go.”
It was quiet for a moment before Faith said, “Remember what I told you about the Cecelia woman who Miranda and I talked to in San Francisco?”
“The woman who worked at the hotel?”