“Well?” a voice said. “Is it done? Do you have Bridget in hand?”
Shock descended on me like a dark, heavy blanket. I knew that voice. It belonged to a dead man. The one that I had murdered in Paris three years ago.
“Hello?” the voice demanded. “Are you there, buffoon? Do you have the woman?”
My breath whooshed out against the mouthpiece. The voice paused.
“Ah,” it said with a sudden note of understanding. “Is that you, Bridget? I suppose the idiot failed in his task then. And left his phone behind! Merde, is it so impossible to find an American man with an ounce of common sense?”
The sirens grew louder. Red and blue lights appeared at the end of the street, but I couldn’t move. The voice held me frozen in place.
“My dear girl,” it went on. “Do you remember what I told you when you asked why I chose the name that I did?”
My heart pounded. My lips parted. I clutched the phone like a lifeline.
“Because you can never catch a Fox.”
Little Girl Lost: Book 2
1
Rough Night
The grass was wet. Dewy. Seeping into the knees of my jeans. A few feet away, the sod lay overturned, ruined by the quick spin of truck tires. The driveway bore marks of the same escape. Burnt rubber tracked out into the street, the pungent stench mingling with the soft reassurance of the nearby rose bushes. I clutched a phone to my ear, but the line was dead. That voice. A nightmare. I thought the man to whom it belonged was dead. I thought I had killed him with two gunshots to his chest. He had risen to haunt me. To take away the one thing that still mattered. My little sister.
She had been so close. Holly. She was right there, a mere ten feet away from me. But when the both of us were tied up in the basement of an old friend’s house, there was no way for me to go to her. To comfort her. To rescue her. After ten years apart, we should’ve had a better reunion. She was not the little girl that I’d left in Belle Dame. She was a young woman with a life of her own, and my irresponsible escapades had put her in peril. She deserved so much more than an absent big sister with no definitive coping mechanisms. All of this was my fault. These people were using Holly to get to me. If it weren’t for my poor judgement and lack of initiative, my sister would be preparing for her high school softball team’s big playoff games. She would be breaking state records and impressing college scouts. She would be getting ready for prom and graduation. Instead, she was being held hostage by someone that she thought she could trust, waiting for me to come rescue her. Always waiting.
Red and blue lights flashed, interrupting the subtle yellow glow of the streetlights with their harsh, unnatural hues. Sirens wailed as units responded to the report of gunshots in the quiet, rural neighborhood of Belle Dame, North Carolina. The neighbors had begun to leak out of their houses to peer into the next yard over. This was not a place where things like this happened. We were all used to gunshots in some capacity. Almost every resident here owned a hunting rifle, but those guns were meant for the backwoods, far from town, where the deer were plenty and the people were scarce, and the likelihood of making a mistake with your aim was much lower. We did not hear gunshots in the space between the houses. It meant trouble and pain and news stories. These days, all three of those things haunted me on a regular basis.
A convoy of emergency vehicles squealed to a stop outside the house. Doors opened and slammed shut. Officers and paramedics yelled orders into the night. Glocks found their way out of their holsters and into my face. I was the only one outside. Holly was gone. Emmett was gone. Mac was in the basement with Christian, both of them shot. Who knew if either one of them had survived?
“Down on the ground!” an officer shouted at me, circling away from his squad car. “Face down! Hands behind your head! Don’t move!”
And though I knew disobeying a direct order from an officer who didn’t know me was probably a bad move, I couldn’t force my body to respond to his commands. My brain was at a standstill. An empty shell unable to process anything other than the fact that I had lost Holly yet again. This time she was injured. A bullet had grazed her chest before Emmett had taken her away. How bad was the wound? Would she bleed out? Would Emmett bother to keep her alive? Did he even know how to do that?
The officer approached me warily. When I remained motionless, he leapt into action, holstering his gun to pin my arms behind my back and press me facedown into the wet grass. I went without complaint or struggle. Tears rolled off of my nose to water the ground. Heavy work boots obscured my view of the rest of the neighborhood as other cops joined the first. They shouted question after question, jumbling their sentences together into incoherent babble.
“She doesn’t have a gun on her,” the officer sitting on my back said, having patted me down from head to toe twice. “Do you think she fired the gun?”
“It wasn’t me,” I forced out, wishing he would take his knee out of my spine so that I could draw in a full breath. “Inside. In the basement. Please. Mac. Officer Hart. She’s already here. She was shot. She could be dead by now.”
Some of the boots thundered off toward the house to check out my claim, but the one officer remained on my back. I squirmed beneath his hold.
“Don’t move,” he ordered.
“I can’t breathe,” I croaked.
“You can talk,” he replied. “That means you can breathe.”
“Please.” My throat was blocked with mucus and tears. “Please, my sister. It was Emmett Marks that took her. He’s gone already. We have to follow him—oomph!”
The knee pressed down again, forcing the rest of the air out of my lungs. “Emmett Marks?” the officer repeated, leaning over me. For the first time, I got a decent look at his face. He seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place him. “Emmett wouldn’t do something like that. We’re friends. I’ve known him since elementary school.”
That triggered my memory. I recognized the blunt, blond buzz cut and the square chin covered in peach fuzz. I remembered his photo from the Belle Dame High School yearbook that I’d left in the bedroom of my foster parents’ house when I’d skipped town. He’d put on some weight since then. His uniform shirt stretched tight across a stomach that spoke of several beers after each shift.
“Roy Collins,” I choked out.
The knee came up, and I drew in a great gasp. The officer blinked. “You remember me?”
“Of course I remember you,” I replied, hoping that if I kept talking, Roy might let me breathe a little bit longer. “Belle Dame class of oh seven. Quarterback of the football team. Prom King. You were Emmett’s best friend.”
“Yeah, all the way up until he got completely obsessed with you.” Roy tightened his grip on my hands, but his knee remained blissfully light against my back. “After your parents died, I felt really bad for you, but then you started using Emmett to numb the pain. That wasn’t right. He wasn’t your boxing bag or your therapist, and that’s exactly how you treated him.”
“Are we really going to talk about this right now?”
The knee went back down.
“Don’t worry,” Roy sneered. “You’re not going anywhere for a while. Do you even know the effect you had on Emmett? You totally ruined him. Once you left town, he was an empty shell of a human being.”
“Maybe that’s why he didn’t have any qualms about kidnapping and torturing my sister.”
Roy inched closer to my face. “There’s no way it was Emmett. He’s not that kind of guy, and I won’t let you convince the force that he is just because you have some kind of sick idea in your head from ten years ago. No way, Dubois. You were trouble then, and you’re trouble now.”
“Collins!” a deep voice shouted. Another pair of boots, giant ones, found their way into my line of sight. “What do you think you’re doing? Get off of her!”
“Sir, gunshots were reported in the area,” Collins replied. “Miss Dubois was the only one around when we arrived on the scene. We have to take certain precautions—�
��
“Precautions, my ass!”
The massive boots stepped forward, shoving Collins off of my back. With the weight gone, I inhaled the rose-scented air and lifted my face from the grass. Calloused hands helped me to my feet. The boots belonged to Officer Scott, one of my only allies on the Belle Dame police force.
“Damn it, Dubois,” he said, brushing grass from the front of my bloodstained shirt. “I really wish you’d stay out of trouble. Jesus, what happened to your face?”
My head throbbed, reminding me of the moment Emmett had smashed it against the concrete foundation in the basement below. “Scott, it was Emmett Marks. He took Holly. He’s got her now, and she’s hurt. Please, I need you to send someone—”
“Sir,” Collins said, stepping in. “She’s probably delirious. That head wound definitely looks concussion-worthy to me. Marks is a good friend of mine. I can vouch for him.”
“Collins, were you present during the incident?”
“No, sir.”
“Then shut up.”
I swayed, leaning against Officer Scott as another wave of vertigo rolled over me. “Scott, please—”
He steadied me and led me to one of the waiting ambulances. “Whoa there. Take it easy, Dubois. That looks like a nasty bruise. Can you tell me what happened?”
“I’m trying,” I insisted. “Emmett Marks has had Holly this entire time. She’s been here in his basement.”
Collins stepped forward. “Sir—”
“Shut up, Collins!”
“Emmett drugged me and brought me here too,” I went on, struggling to recall the order of events through my fuzzy memory. “Holly was already there. Emmett told me that he wanted us to be together. In his messed-up brain, he thought that this was the way to do it. Then Christian showed up—”
“Christian Santini?” Scott interjected, mustache bristling.
“Yes, Autumn’s boyfriend,” I confirmed. “They were in on it together. Christian had Mac. He’d taken her gun from her.”
“Officer Hart is here too?”
I nodded wearily, wishing that Scott would stop interrupting so that I could finish my story. Five whole minutes had passed since Emmett had driven away with Holly. Why hadn’t anyone gone after them yet?
“She tried to stop them,” I explained. “We both did. Christian was going to kill Holly. He shot her and Mac. Then Mac shot him. Then Emmett took Holly and drove away. They went up the hill—”
“Slow down,” Scott said as my explanation began to get lost in the slur of my speech. “How many people were shot, Bridget?”
Before I could answer, the paramedics emerged from the basement steps in the backyard, wheeling two stretchers out to the ambulances. Mac sat on the first one. Her face was pale white, drained of color, and she held an oxygen mask over her mouth, but she was ultimately alive. One of the paramedics had torn open the leg of her uniform pants all the way up to her hip. A tourniquet was tied at the top of her thigh, where blood seeped through a thick layer of bandages.
“Mac!” I broke free of Scott’s supportive hold and rushed to the officer’s side, trying to keep up with the paramedics’ hasty pace as they steered her toward the closest rig. “Oh God, that’s a lot of blood.”
Mac lowered the oxygen mask to reply. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
Officer Scott followed behind me to keep waiting hands at my back should I stumble and fall. “Hart, have you been shot before?”
“Once.”
“Thought so. My other officers would be crying by now.”
“Mac, I’m so sorry—”
She grabbed my hand and squeezed it. When she pulled away, she left damp, warm blood on my skin. She had stanched the wound with her own hand in order to buy herself enough time for the paramedics to arrive.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “Worry about your sister.”
The paramedics pushed the second gurney past us. A plain black bag rested on top of it. I stared as they lifted it into one of the other rigs.
“Is that—?” I asked. “Is he—?”
“He’s dead,” Mac spat. She was still in work mode, even though Christian had blown a bullet wound into her leg. “Got him twice in the abdomen. He bled out in minutes. Where’s Emmett?”
“He drove off,” I told her. “With Holly. She was shot too. Jesus, Mac. What if she dies?”
“He only grazed her.” She grunted as the paramedics lifted the gurney into the ambulance, jostling her leg. “Holly’s a smart girl. She’ll get the bleeding to stop.”
I held open the door of the ambulance. “Mac, we have to go after him.”
A paramedic lifted me away from the rig. “Ma’am, we need to get Officer Hart to the hospital right away. She’s losing too much blood.”
“Wait!” Mac lowered the oxygen mask again so that her voice wasn’t muffled. “Officer Scott?”
Scott joined me at the back of the ambulance. “Hanging in there, Hart?”
She ignored the question, all business. “Listen to me, Scott. Everything Bridget tells you is true. Marks took the girl. You need to put out an APB on his truck stat. She’s not in good shape. We have to find her as soon as possible. Otherwise, we risk losing her.”
“Goddamn it, Hart,” Scott replied, shaking his head. “The two of you really are a pair.”
Mac’s face was now completely white. Her fingers shook as she took a pull from the oxygen mask. “Promise me, Scott. Promise me you’ll find the girl.”
“You have my word.”
“Good. Bridget?”
I stepped up to the back of the ambulance to catch her fading speech. “What’s up?”
Mac lowered herself onto her elbows, her strength quickly leaving her. “The bullet is still in my leg. I’ll have to go into surgery. You gotta do this thing on your own for a bit, but I have faith in you, okay?”
I wiped a tear from the corner of my eye. “Okay.”
“Did you hear me?”
“I heard you.”
“Good.”
She passed out, and the paramedics gently laid her head on the gurney. The doors to the ambulance slammed shut, and the vehicle peeled out of the neighborhood, sirens blaring as it transported Mac to the nearest hospital.
As soon as Mac was out of sight, Scott leapt into action, issuing orders to his officers through the radio pinned to his shoulder. “Let’s get an APB out on a dark green 2014 Ford F-250, license plate number 18367LA. All eyes should be on the lookout for a twenty-six-year-old male—about six foot two, dark hair, and hazel eyes—and a seventeen-year-old girl who’s about five foot nine with blonde hair and blue eyes. Recent report said Marks left the scene of the crime at about—” Scott checked his watch “—eight fifteen pm, heading northeast out of town. Requesting Dispatch to investigate the route.”
Suddenly, the rumbling of a truck engine filled my ears. I looked up and down the street, but only the emergency vehicles remained in sight. The truck sounds were in my head. I stepped away from Officer Scott, who continued shouting instructions into his radio, and Roy Collins, who watched me with a keen eye.
“Holly?” I whispered, focusing on the growl of the truck engine. An image that was not present flickered in and out. A long, familiar highway leading out of Belle Dame.
I don’t know where he’s taking me, Holly replied through our mental connection.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “How deep is the bullet wound?”
Superficial, she answered. It stings, but that’s only part of the problem. I think I’m sick, Bee. I feel weird. Faint and sluggish. I’m sweating, but I feel so cold.
My head swam, but I didn’t think it had anything to do with the possible concussion. “Holly, it’s probably a blood infection from the open wounds. You need to tell Emmett to take care of you. He’s a moron, but somewhere in there, I know he doesn’t actually want you to die.”
I already told him, Holly said. He said he’s taking me somewhere safe.
“Where?” Nowhere was safe with
Emmett, not while he had my injured little sister in hand.
I’m not sure. Though the conversation was not physical, I could hear the pain in Holly’s voice. I’ll try to contact you again when we get there. Please come get me, Bee. I miss you. I’m scared.
“Holly, do you remember that time you didn’t want to jump off the boat dock with me?” I asked her, holding on to the fading connection. “It took me two solid hours to convince you that it would be fun, and you were totally terrified when we stood at the top. Do you remember that?”
A pause. I remember.
“And then you jumped off anyway because you knew that I would never lie to you and tell you that something was safe when it wasn’t,” I went on. “I know that was forever ago, Holly. I know I haven’t been there for you like I should have, but I’m promising you now that I will find you and get you out of there. I swear it.”
I love you, Bee.
My throat closed up again. “I love you too, kid.”
I think I’m dying.
“No, you’re not,” I insisted. “I won’t let you.”
But the connection had already died out. Holly was gone until she had the strength to reach me again. Her last words echoed in my head. She sounded so frightened, so hopeless. It set a raging fire alight in my chest. My baby sister was hurt, and it was Emmett’s fault.
A swell of nausea rushed over me, and I emptied my stomach onto the driveway. Officer Scott rushed over and held my hair back. When I was finished, he gathered me up in his arms and carried me to another stretcher.
“Looks like you need the hospital too,” he grumbled as another set of paramedics started layering blankets on top of me. “Let’s get that head wound checked out.”
I started to argue, but there was no point. The ambulance doors closed behind Officer Scott, the siren started up, and we pulled away from the curb. The world blurred around me as I succumbed to the delirium of the concussion. Everything went black.
Deadly Visions Boxset Page 84