Feisty Heroines Romance Collection of Shorts

by D. F. Jones

  “The next night, I saw the car arrive at the house. I didn't know then that it was here in Nebraska. But I saw the corn and the silos. It's a white house with black shutters.”

  She said it as though that meant something. Lando felt his eyes narrowing at her. She must have caught it, for her own expression changed and grew wary.

  “A white house, black shutters, corn, and a silo? You've just listed all of Nebraska, a good portion of Montana, and a lot of Oklahoma. Why did you come here, to Redemption?”

  “Because I saw the sun—”

  This time he couldn’t stop it and his eyes rolled, he sighed, and his pencil hit the desk. He’d thought it would be a slow night, but no. Chloe Bell was even more batshit than he’d originally thought.

  She was shaking her head. “No, I saw the sun out the back window of the car. The boy was pushed down into the footwell. I looked at how high the sun was in the sky. Given the angle to the back of the car, and the time of year, they were driving northwest. Since he started closer to me in the southeast U.S., and he passed the airport in Kansas City, they had to have been aimed this way.”

  Lando took a deep, calming breath. He wanted to like her. She seemed logical for all her zaniness. So he picked up the pencil and asked more questions he didn’t believe her answers to.

  They went back and forth, discussing her subsequent drive to Redemption. How she had bolted out of bed tonight and showed up at the tiny, square building that housed the police, the firefighters, and the three ambulance bays that served the area.

  She leaned across the desk, elbows down, as though she would make him believe. “About forty-five minutes ago he took the boy out of the crawl space under the house. Led him out into the cornfield—”

  “Did they come back?” Lando interrupted.

  “I don't know. I woke up, but… I don't think so.” She sucked in air. “And I can tell you, there have been at least five other children from places around the US that have been kept in that crawl space. If we don't stop him now, he'll do it again.”

  Chapter 2

  Chloe pulled up alongside the house. Gravel and dust left a faint trail as the sun rose behind her. She’d seen the white farmhouse and the silo and stopped. Unfortunately, Tavares had been right, these houses were a dime a dozen. Easily dismissing everything she said, he’d told her he’d “look into it.” He encouraged her to go back to bed and sleep it off—as though she was high. If only.

  As she shook his hand, she’d seen a flash of herself through his eyes. Beautiful. Logical. Crazy. The heat that zinged between them would have been a compliment, but she was too angry to take it. She’d driven out here. If the hunky detective wouldn’t help find the boy, she would do it herself.

  She was almost in tears, though. Her details weren’t enough. Now, in the waning morning, she saw the houses all looked the same. But one of them held a little boy who might or might not still be alive.

  She was hyperventilating with the thought.

  For a moment, she leaned her head back, letting her hands rest against the steering wheel. Nothing came to her, nothing but memories: The small red sweatshirt, the tiny jeans, the dark blue sneakers. His dirty hands and face from where he tried to dig his way out from under the house. He was tenacious, and she hoped that would save him.

  She knew the boy had been led out the back of the house and walked through the rows of corn. Chloe was hopeful that if she could retrace the steps, she could find him, though she thought her odds were relatively high that she would find a body and not a live boy.

  Her phone chimed then, startling her. Shit. It had to be work.

  For a moment she scrambled. Could she say her grandmother was ill, or had her grandmother already died twice? It was getting harder and harder to disappear and claim sick days. There was no money in what she did. She needed to keep her job and she liked it. She liked her little cubicle with normal people around her. She tried not to shake hands with her co-workers, didn’t want to see what they might inadvertently share.

  The only friend she hugged was Ever. Her best friend. Now raising her brothers on her own, Ever was the only one who had believed Chloe the first time she shared her secret. The two girls had grown up on the wrong side of the tracks together, and it hadn’t helped either of them get ahead.

  Sucking in a breath, Chloe formulated her response. No dead grandma. Breathless was too small to get away with that anymore. Putting a scratch into her throat, she lifted the phone and saw it was Detective Tavares.

  “Detective?” She tried to keep the hope out of her voice.

  He didn't offer any greetings, only said gruffly, “I'm sending you five pictures.” Then he promptly hung up.

  She was still frowning at her phone as texts began pinging in. In a moment, she had five school-type pictures of very young boys. Immediately, Chloe called him back. “It's the fourth one.”

  There was a pause, so she asked, “Are these all missing children from Georgia?”

  “No. Only three are actual missing children—one from Nebraska, two from Georgia. The other two are random pictures I pulled off the web.”

  She nodded into the empty space of her car. She’d earned his trust. She was opening her mouth in relief when he said only, “Thank you,” and hung up again.

  Left frowning at her phone in bewilderment, Chloe couldn’t decipher what had happened. She was usually asked to prove her abilities. She’d correctly identified the missing child and confirmed her information. Shouldn't he believe her now?

  But she’d done this before. Some officers didn't believe her until the child was found or the body recovered. Some of them never did because, despite all her work, the trail had gone cold. Those were the cases that kept her awake on the nights she didn't see anything.

  So Chloe hopped out of the car and snuck her way around the white house with black shutters, the one that looked like every other house across the state. Hoping that no one shot at her, she headed into the backyard, to walk through the rows of corn and hopefully find a missing boy.

  Chloe gasped herself awake into the dark space of the motel room.

  Again? she wanted to ask, but she was too shaken up by what she'd seen to question it. She calmed herself with a slow breath. Even as she let it out, she realized what was wrong and felt her heart accelerate again.

  If she could see the creek and the ground through his eyes, that meant the little boy was still alive! She felt him crawling, digging his fingers into the dirt. He was petrified of heading back into the woods and equally afraid of the corn in front of him. She felt stabbing pains all over her body that had turned to numbness. The feelings were his, not hers.

  The motel clock read 4:00 in harsh red numbers. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she catalogued every sound she’d heard, every stalk of corn. The color of the dirt. The smell of diesel in the water. Even though the boy didn't know what it was, he associated it with being under the house, of being with the man.

  Another clue. But that clue was not important right now. The kidnapper believed the boy was dead, of that Chloe was certain. She was equally certain the boy didn't have very long. Once again, she hopped out of bed and dressed quickly.

  However, once she was clothed, she found herself at a loss. She could go out with a flashlight, but she'd spent most of yesterday searching the back cornfields of every white house with black shutters she could find. Eventually, she'd gotten hungry and discouraged and had been forced to admit that Detective Tavares was correct.

  Beyond the curtains, the dark night made tears spring to her eyes. She’d come all this way for the boy. Last night, she believed she’d missed her window and he was already gone. But now? He was alive. Right now. And there was nothing she could do.

  Then again, maybe there was something. Picking up her phone, Chloe smiled. Tavares had made a crucial mistake: he'd called her, giving her his direct number. Hitting buttons, she hoped that he was on night shift again and she wasn't waking him.

  “Detective Tavares.”
The tone in his voice told her that he knew exactly who was calling.

  “He's still alive,” was all she said, before waiting a beat. When the detective didn’t respond, Chloe let the words tumble out. “I correctly identified him out of your lineup test. He's missing from my area, and you’ve already figured out his name even though I haven’t. He was brought here, and he’s now been stabbed multiple times and left for dead, but he's not dead yet. We have a small window to find him.”

  She heard a deep sigh from the other end of the line. She had Tavares’ attention, she just didn't have his faith. Closing her eyes, she steeled herself. She hated this part. The rest wasn’t peachy and this was so much effort, so invasive. But there was a kidnapper out there, stealing young children and torturing them. And honestly, she didn't give the detective’s privacy much credence in light of that.

  “You drove through your favorite fast-food restaurant for breakfast after getting off shift. You intended to order your usual, but instead ordered pancakes. You took the Styrofoam pack home and ate it at your dinner table which was handed down from your grandmother. When you woke up this evening, the clock said 6:44, which was earlier than you intended to get up. You ate leftover lasagna at 8 p.m. before coming into work, and you called it breakfast.”

  There was no noise from the other end of the line, as though he wasn't even breathing anymore.

  He had to believe her. A little boy’s life depended on it.

  Chapter 3

  Lando felt his face pull back. He liked her, or he wanted to, but then she said things like this. “You could have followed me.”

  “Yes.” At least she acknowledged that. All her insistence that he find the boy was now gone. “But how would I know that was your favorite place? How would I know that you changed your mind to the pancakes at the last minute?”

  “Maybe you asked around about what I usually order. That I changed my mind at the last minute is just a good guess.”

  “And that your alarm clock said 6:44 when you woke up?” She waited patiently for him to explain this one. Unless she was watching through his window, she couldn’t have known that. He was opening his mouth when she added, “There's a mustard stain on your shirt. It's under your tie.”

  Shit. He still wore this shirt to work sometimes because the stain was neatly in position to not show. Had she been in his closet? He didn't like the idea of being stalked. All his attraction to her fled. “What do you want?”

  “I want you to help me look for the boy.”

  Lando wanted to tell her that the boy that she’d chosen from his lineup had indeed come from Georgia. His name was Maddox, and he'd last been seen with a man that fit her—albeit vague—description. People had reported an unknown dark red sedan leaving the area just as the boy had gone missing. But she could have gotten all of that from police records.

  “If I'm wrong,” she started in again, “you'll waste your evening looking for someone you can't find. But if I'm right, you might save his life. And if we can find the kidnapper, who knows how many more you will save? Because right now, he thinks this boy is dead. And I think he's planning his next.”

  That, Tavares thought, was the right thing to say to make him move. Still, he tried to dissuade her. “It's dark.”

  “I don't care. I don't know how long he has. I just know that where he is, the dirt is dark brown. He's near a field of corn but not in it. There's a creek nearby that he can hear, and it smells of diesel. I'm sure that that describes every place you could possibly know in Nebraska, Montana and parts of Oklahoma—” She threw his words back at him, but his brain was churning.

  “No,” he cut her off, “it doesn't. Where are you? I’ll pick you up in ten minutes.”

  Lando stood outside the ER looking up at a bright morning. But he was still shaking from the events of the past several hours.

  As soon as they found the tiny body, he’d radioed in for police and EMTs. Then he’d placed fingers against the small, pale, dirty neck and found a weak pulse. He’d almost collapsed in relief, but the boy wasn’t safe yet. And possibly neither were they. Lando had been counting on the crazy woman not really being psychic and not finding the boy.

  Her clue of the water smelling like diesel had helped limit their search. Even so, Lando wanted to believe her. But it was still possible that Chloe knew what she did because she was involved. Though that didn’t explain his clock or his breakfast—more details that she’d rattled off so easily. Sadly, she’d also been right that the boy had been stabbed multiple times. He’d been dumped in the water and left for dead. Maybe the cold had kept him alive longer.

  Now, Lando’s part was mostly done, except for the paperwork. The adrenaline was starting to wear off as he walked to the edge of the ambulance bay. The family had been notified that Maddox was found, and they were already en route. Child Protective Services had sent someone to stay with the boy, but Lando wasn’t shaking the night off so easily.

  Even so, he was ready when Chloe walked out the door and tried to pass him. His hand shot out to clamp around her wrist. “No, you don't.”

  This was not protocol, but he’d gone off duty half an hour ago. She looked down at his hand and then up at his face until he loosened his grip, but not enough to let her go. “How did you know?” he asked.

  Her eyes darted to the ground, then up into the night sky, finally landing on him. “I told you.”

  He swallowed hard. This wasn't what he wanted to do, but flies with honey and all that. “I'll buy you breakfast. You’ll talk.”

  She shook her head. “I don't like the kind of pancakes that come in Styrofoam.”

  At least that made him smile. It was the first thing that had since they’d started searching. She’d driven him crazy with her demands of “Walk over here,” “No, check over there.” Lando wanted to conduct a standard search grid. But as he headed one way, she would invariably say, “No, he's not there” and bolt away, forcing him to catch up.

  When she’d yelled out, “We're close!” Chloe had once again been right.

  Orlando Tavares was completely stumped. The sun was rising higher in the sky, and he needed a good sit-down meal himself. “I'll take you somewhere decent.”

  She looked at his hand still wrapped around her warm wrist. It didn’t feel quite like holding a suspect anymore. He commented, “You don't have a car here. Rideshares and taxis are pretty skimpy in Redemption. I’ll drive.”

  She looked at him then a little sideways. “And if I say no?”

  “I'll take you back to the motel. But I'd really like to hear about it.”

  “Fine. Just breakfast, but somewhere with French toast.”

  He smiled again. Though the ride to May’s Diner was quiet and tense, once they were seated, she seemed relatively willing to talk. “I've always been this way. You can call several police departments for references.” She rattled off names of cities all over the US.

  “You're from Breathless, Georgia. Why not them?”

  She shook her head. “I never do this close to home.”

  “Why not? If you're so great…”

  Motioning between the two of them, she made her point. “Look at how you treat me. I have to live there. And I like to have friends.”

  He had to admit that telling people you were psychic was bound to make them distrust you.

  “Write it down.” She almost commanded before rattling off names of children she had helped find. She told him which officers she’d worked with that still didn't believe in her abilities and which ones did. “Jones calls me about once every six months. He gets something really tough or brutal, and he seems to think I'm going to have a lead on it.”

  “But you don’t.” Lando could fill in the answer from her expression. “And you can't just find a lead? You sure seemed to tap into my mustard stain pretty easily. Unless you knew that because you broke into my home?”

  Chloe offered a great heaving sigh, clearly exasperated that he was still picking on that. “Even if I broke into your h
ome, and even if I saw that you had a shirt that had a mustard stain on it, how would I know you would wear this one today?”

  “It's my only blue shirt.”

  “It's not. You’re a liar.”

  “So now you can detect lies, too?” But he was teasing her, even though he shouldn’t be making friends with the crazy lady. Despite everything, he did like her.

  “I saw you were wearing the same color yesterday, and it didn't have a mustard stain on it.”

  Okay, she had a point. He had a good handful of the chambray blue work shirts, kind of his uniform.

  “Look,” she said over her last bite of French toast. “You have two options: believe me or don't. But I’m the one who found the boy, and if we don't do something, that man is going to strike again.”

  Chapter 4

  “Thank you for the ride.” With a smile, Chloe climbed out of Lando’s car. But as she walked the five feet to her own car and unlocked the door, she heard his window come down behind her.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I'm…leaving?” Wasn’t it obvious?

  “You should go inside. Get some sleep.”

  But she shook her head at his recommendation. She’d gotten dressed when she woke up, and despite their harrowing search, she wasn't tired. “I'm not going to burn daylight.”

  Now Lando was frowning, climbing out of the car. Folding his arms across the roof, he frowned at her. “Are you going back to where we found Maddox? Because that’s not smart, we know for a fact that a killer was there.”

  “I also know he prefers small children—”

  “That doesn't mean,” Lando interrupted her, “that he won't hurt you if you find something, or even just get too close.”