Worth Dying For (A Slaughter Creek Novel)

by Herron, Rita

  She lost her breath and gulped back a sob. Another push, and a baby’s cry echoed through the room.

  Her baby’s cry.

  Machines beeped. Footsteps pounded. Hushed voices spoke.

  “It’s a boy,” someone said through the chaotic haze.

  Tears blinded Amelia, but she blinked them back, then reached out her arms. “Let me hold him . . .”

  But another pair of hands shoved her down on the bed. They were tying her down again.

  Amelia struggled, kicking wildly. “Please, give him to me! Let me hold him!”

  The lights dimmed. Something sharp stung her arm. The baby’s cry grew more distant. Hushed voices drifted in the silence.

  Then there was another voice . . . one she recognized.

  The man she hated and feared most was here. The Commander.

  Then her baby was gone.

  And the room went black.

  Amelia pressed her hands over her ears, forcing the voices and images away as she paced the room. But the painting she’d done the night before disturbed her.

  A man’s face. The man from her dreams. The one she’d loved. The father of her child.

  She paused and studied his features. He was tall, muscular, broad-shouldered. A soldier’s body. Square jaw. Beard stubble.

  Dark, stormy, mesmerizing eyes.

  She’d been dreaming of him for weeks now. Had sketches of him all over her studio. For some reason she couldn’t get him out of her mind.

  But he wasn’t real . . .

  Just like the baby in her dream wasn’t real. She’d never given birth.

  So why was she having these nightmares? Were they delusions?

  Maybe it was some kind of twin jealousy because Sadie was pregnant?

  That had to be the reason. She’d always had a connection with Sadie.

  Was something wrong with Sadie’s baby?

  Or was another alter trying to emerge in her own mind?

  Her phone trilled, and she raced to answer it. When Sadie’s name appeared on the caller ID, her hand began to shake.

  “Hello.”

  “Amelia, it’s Jake. Sadie and I are at the hospital. The baby’s coming now.”

  Cold fear swept over Amelia. She had to get to the hospital and make sure Sadie’s baby was okay.

  There were too many damn missing kids in the United States.

  Special Agent John Strong held his gun at the ready as he crept toward the clapboard house deep in the mountains.

  Hell, a lot of the missing persons cases involved parental disputes/kidnappings. There were hundreds of runaway teens. Kidnappings for ransom. Abductions by mentally disturbed individuals desperate for a child of their own.

  The reasons went on and on.

  Many of the lost children were already dead. Some they’d never find or learn what happened to them. Others were locked somewhere, being abused or tormented.

  Worse were the child traffickers. Bunch of sick fucks.

  And then there were the pedophiles . . .

  Even sicker fucks.

  His partner, Special Agent Scott Coulter, gave a quick nod from the opposite side of the house from his vantage point inside the front window, indicating that he had visual confirmation that the man they were looking for was inside.

  John prayed the kid was, too. Six-year-old Darby Wesley. He’d been missing less than twenty-four hours.

  Every hour that passed decreased the chances of finding the boy alive.

  But they’d caught a break when the clerk at a gas station had heard a noise coming from the back of a white utility van.

  A noise that sounded like a little boy’s scream for help.

  The clerk had played it cool, but scribbled down the van’s tag number and then called 911 as soon as the driver peeled out of the parking lot and headed into the foothills.

  A helicopter search had narrowed down the location.

  John inched around to the left, checking the side windows, then the back door. “No visual on the child,” he said into his mic.

  “Suspect is passed out on the couch,” Coulter replied.

  “I’m going in the back.”

  “Copy that. I’ll take the front.”

  John jiggled the doorknob. Unlocked. Either they had the wrong man, or the bastard was so cocky, he thought he’d already gotten away with his crime. That he was so far off the grid that no one would find him.

  Then he could rest up before he did whatever heinous thing he had planned with the child.

  That wasn’t going to happen on John’s watch.

  Unless he already had hurt the boy . . .

  They’d lost the suspect for two hours after that 911 call. He could have killed the child and ditched him someplace in the woods or thrown him off a ridge, and no one would know. It might take days for them to recover his body.

  And in that time no telling what the animals might do to him.

  Nausea gripped his belly into a knot.

  Days that would be torture for his mother and father, who were already crazed with worry and guilt.

  Hand clenched around his Sig Sauer, he crept into the kitchen, his gaze sweeping the room. A pizza box on the counter. A fast food bag with a kid’s toy.

  So the man had had a child with him.

  He hoped to hell that he was alive.

  John eased through the kitchen, glancing sideways into the bedroom to the left. A rusted metal bed with a quilt thrown over it, a pair of men’s work boots, a pair of overalls on the floor. He didn’t see Darby.

  Dammit.

  Coulter was waiting on him, so he moved swiftly into the hall and checked the second room. A twin bed, blue comforter on top.

  Shit. A bed for a little boy.

  But he didn’t see him inside.

  What had the bastard done with him?

  Heart racing, he crept to the edge of the living room and spotted the big guy on the couch, sprawled and snoring as if he hadn’t slept in days. He looked scruffy, a patchy beard growing in, a gut that indicated he liked fried food and beer.

  A shotgun sat propped by the couch within a finger’s touch.

  Coulter acknowledged that he saw John in the doorway, raised his fingers in a one-two-three count, then kicked the door open with a bang.

  “TBI!” Coulter shouted, his gun already raised and aimed at the man.

  The meathead on the couch jolted upright and reached for his gun.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” John said from behind him.

  The suspect jerked his head around, stunned, and John pointed the barrel of the gun at his face. “Where’s Darby?”

  “Get the hell out of my house,” the man muttered.

  Coulter took a step closer, closing in. “You have one more chance. Tell us where he is, and I won’t put a bullet in your brain.”

  The bastard was just stupid enough to ignore John’s warning and lunge for his shotgun.

  John and Coulter shot at the same time. Coulter’s bullet hit the man between the eyes, while John’s pierced his heart.

  They both cursed at the same time as the bastard collapsed, blood and brain matter splattering.

  Rage ripped through John. If little Darby wasn’t in the house, they might never find him now.

  Amelia raced into the hospital, frantic to talk to Sadie.

  Ayla, Jake’s daughter, and their nanny, Gigi, who was like a grandmother to Ayla, were in the waiting room, looking nervous and excited at the same time. Ayla jumped up and ran toward her. “Aunt Amelia, Sadie’s having the baby!” Gigi grinned at her from behind Ayla, as if she couldn’t wait to welcome the newest member into their family.

  A soul-deep ache seized Amelia. She’d give anything to have the kind of love Sadie and Jake shared. To have a family and a future to look forward to.r />
  Jake suddenly stepped into the hallway, his face glowing like a Christmas tree. “It’s a boy!”

  Gigi and Ayla rushed toward him, and Ayla threw herself into his arms. “Can I see him, Daddy? Please, please, please . . .”

  Jake swung Ayla around. “Of course you can. But remember Sadie’s tummy might be a little sore, so we can’t jump on her.”

  “I’ve got a brother, a brother, a brother,” Ayla sang.

  “Is Sadie okay?” Amelia asked.

  Jake grinned. “She’s great. Come on, and you can meet my son.” He waved for them to follow him, and Amelia’s nerves settled slightly. As they entered Sadie’s room, she saw her twin propped against several pillows, a tiny infant cradled in her arms.

  Amelia’s heart skipped a beat at the sight. Déjà vu hit her again, though, and she saw herself holding her own baby. Then a scream reverberated in her ears as someone took her son away.

  Ayla and Gigi raced over to dote over the child, and Jake lifted Ayla onto the bed. Sadie wrapped her arm around Ayla and whispered low to her, smiling as Ayla studied her little brother.

  “Congratulations, sis,” Amelia said, her earlier worries mounting.

  “We’re going to name him Ben,” Sadie said as she stroked the newborn’s head.

  After their father. They’d lost him, along with their mother, when they were only two.

  Was naming him Ben a good omen or a sign of bad to come?

  Amelia backed toward the door. “Jake, can I talk to you for a minute?” Jake gave her a curious look, but nodded and told Sadie they’d be back. As soon as they stepped into the hallway and the door was closed, Amelia clutched Jake’s arm.

  “Jake, I’m scared.”

  “What’s going on?” Jake asked.

  “I’ve been having these bad dreams, nightmares about having a baby, and then someone takes him away. I think the Commander is there, that he’s behind it.”

  Jake heaved a weary breath. “Amelia, maybe you should talk to your therapist—”

  “No, you don’t understand. I think the dream is about Sadie. We’ve always had a connection.” Her heart hammered. “I’m afraid the Commander is alive, and he’ll come after Ben.”

  About the Author

  Photo by Marie Williams, 2008

  Bestselling author Rita Herron has written over sixty romance novels and loves penning dark romantic suspense tales, especially those set in small Southern towns. She earned a RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award for her work in Series Romantic Suspense, and has received rave reviews for the Slaughter Creek novels Her Dying Breath and Dying to Tell. A native of Milledgeville, Georgia, and a proud mother and grandmother, she lives just outside of Atlanta.