20.

Caitlin

 

I wanted to stick. For him. For us. But Houdini killed Laynie Briggs. He killed her. Jade and I need to get out of here. He won’t get my daughter. Her poor parents, sister and brothers. How can you ever be right again after something so heinous happens to your family?

With Hero out doing whatever he does when not guarding us, I jump on Duke’s laptop and navigate to a travel-booking site. As I scroll, I see Nashville has a red eye to Ireland leaving tonight. I calculate it in my head. Three hours for us to get to Nashville. The allotted three hours to get through security… if we packed now, Jade and I could be at my family home by lunch tomorrow.

 But only if we pack now.

My cell phone rings. Unknown number. Sydney, Australia. I cannot deal with him right now. For some reason I swipe to answer. “Aiden, I sold the locket. It’s gone. So leave us alone.” Then I hang up, not giving him the opportunity to turn his vitriol my way, and toss the stupid phone onto the coffee table.

I should have let it go to voicemail the first time. He calls and hangs up four more times. Four times.

Duke will be so angry with me. For talking to Aiden. For walking away. But he has to understand I’m not leaving him. I’m saving my daughter from ending up dead behind a garage. No. No. Quit second guessing yourself, Caitlin. I let out a breath and walk over to the island to grab my purse.

Credit card in hand, I click to purchase two tickets to Ireland. Though, once my confirmation pops up, it hits me that our passports are at the rental house with all our other stuff. And I know I’m not supposed to leave without a guard, but he can’t know we’re leaving anyway. Because I know for a fact Hero would try to stop us.

While Jade plays in her room, I walk into mine to grab our bags from the closet, pack quickly for myself, then head out to the laundry room to pack Jade’s clean clothes that I hadn’t put away yet. We won’t be gone forever. If she needs more than this, I’ll just have to buy it for her.

After loading the bags into Duke’s truck, I go back in to get my daughter.

“Teeny, sweetheart. Jade and I have to leave. So you need to head home, okay?”

“Sure, Dr. Brennan.” Teeny stands, but bends forward to give Jade a hug. “See you tomorrow, Jade.” She won’t. But she doesn’t need to know that.

“By Teeny.” Jade hugs her back. “Where we gowing, mama?”

“Out,” I tell her. “Now get your shoes.”

She does without asking.

At the last minute, I grab my cell up and shove it into the pocket of my jean shorts before heading outside. Then after getting my daughter buckled in to her booster, I back out of the spot and turn around. There are always bikes and trucks coming and going, so the prospect guarding the gate doesn’t give Duke’s truck a second look. Now it comes down to waiting. Because he’s not going to let me out without a guard with me.

But then… but then a busty young woman in an electric blue tube top drives up in a little convertible. It’s older, but cute. Red. Her over bleached hair looks windblown, but the way the prospect glares hungrily at her, he doesn’t seem to mind. No, he seems more concerned with something else as he looks behind him nervously, and then opens the gate to let the convertible in. With his head, he motions for her to drive a little ways in. She climbs in the backseat. He climbs on top of her.

And that’s it. The damn horny prospect forgot to close the gate.

I shift the truck into drive and slowly ease off of the Lord’s compound. We’re free. Pointing the nose toward town, Jade oblivious to everything watching her princesses on her tablet, we take road after road until pulling into the driveway in front of our rental. It’s been forever since we’ve been here.

Climbing out, I reach in the backseat to extract Princess Jade and set her down on the pavement. When I open the front door to the house, I expect the place to smell of dumpster. But it smells clean and fresh, instead. Duke taking care of me. He had someone clean out the trash and food. Damn it, I’m going to miss him.

We climb the stairs and walk to my pre-Duke bedroom. That’s where I have the passports. In a safe in the closet. Since I don’t know how long we’ll be gone, I collect our other important papers, shoving them in my purse. This whole time Jade keeps quiet, trusting me. Trusting that I know what I’m doing.

There’s nothing to grab from her room. She and Duke had moved it all over to his house, so we move back downstairs, and I stumble back a step. Blocking Jade with my body.

“H-how did you find us?”

“I have my ways, Caitlin.” He says my name with such distain it almost makes me start to hate me. “Now let’s go. The truck. That fucking biker has eyes on the SUV. But we’ll still have to ditch for another vehicle as soon as possible.” He’s very handsome with his in-need-of-a-cut, light brown hair dusting around his ears and that full, trimmed beard. Too bad his soul is pure evil.

“Mama,” Jade whimpers from behind me. “Who’s dat man?”

“What?” He sort of snarl-laughs. “You haven’t talked about me?”

“No.” I tell him defiantly. “I try to shield her from evil.”

Before I can raise my hands to block the swing, his fist cracks against my jaw. His fist cracks against my jaw. I’m stunned. My mouth begins to pool with blood. I’ve never been hit in my life.

He leans around me. “All in good time, sweetheart. All in good time. Now walk.”

Jade begins to cry but every time I open my mouth to comfort her, blood dribbles down my chin. Instead, I hold my hand out to her. She takes it, and we begin to walk. I need to keep him calm enough to give me time to formulate a plan. If it weren’t for the gun he held in the hand opposite the one he punched me with, I’d grab Jade and make a run for it. But the manic look in his eyes screams that he’d have no problem killing me, my girl or any samaritan I get to help us.

I lift my girl to put her back in her booster when he rips her from my arms. She cries harder. I cry harder.

“You drive,” he orders me. Reluctantly, I climb behind the steering wheel. He climbs in the passenger side with my girl in his lap. The gun he keeps pointed at her temple. “Try anything stupid, and she dies. Got me?”

Tremors shake my body from head to toe. My palms sweat profusely. I think I might vomit. Because of this, I don’t answer him fast enough and he strikes out, backhanding me along the cheek. Pain burns from jaw hinge to behind my eye socket.

“I asked you a question, bitch. Got me?”

Slowly, I nod and swallow down my tears and blood. “Got you,” comes out garbled, and I back out of the driveway.

We take the back roads out of town, his attempt to keep a low profile. But it makes me nervous. He doesn’t want me taking the highway. No highway. Back roads. He’s taking me somewhere no one will find our bodies. Or my body. Because I still don’t know what he wants with my daughter. Why he’d come after her?

Winding up the mountain, eventually he has me turn onto a dirt drive pocked with deep potholes. We bounce around the cab, my head hits the window. Jade he keeps a firm hold on, even though he jostles on the seat. We pass black walnut trees and thick brush. Finally we reach a decrepit singlewide. It’s been abandon for years. It has to have been, the place looks uninhabitable.

“Park,” he orders. I pull up along the blunt end of the trailer and cut the engine. There’s a small window, so probably a bathroom. Not a useful bathroom because I doubt the place was hooked up to a septic tank, but a bathroom nonetheless. “Out,” he commands next. “Keys on the seat.”

I do as directed. But while he is distracted by my daughter, I casually slip my hand into my front jeans pocket, remembering the phone. Fingerprint ID unlocks the screen and from memory, I hit the call app, hoping it’s Duke my cell connects with, as his was the last call I made, but am willing to take whomever. And then I get out, leaving the keys on the seat.

Jade in his arms, he carries her with the gun still pointed to her temple, me out in front. There’s a wretched smell coming from the trailer. And I know that smell. Death. In this Kentucky heat, a body would begin to draw insects rather quickly.

“Please, don’t bring her in,” I beg.

“I will put a bullet in her brain if you don’t move.”

There are two metal steps, no railing. The backdoor is open. A mouse or rat, or something scurries across the floor in front of me, scurrying across the toe of my sandal, and thus, my toe. I scream and jump. That’s when I feel the blunt end of his gun push me forward.

It’s filthy inside. I wade through the trash and debris of a kitchen into the living room. The flies have already found him. The man lying face down on the floor. There are syringes and used needles spread around the body. The dead guy has a band tied around his arm. His pallor is a gray/blue color. As I bend down to examine the man, I’d guess him to not have died more than an hour or two before.

Jade screams at the sight of the dead man and begins to outright sob.

“Please don’t make her see this,” I beg.

“Unfortunate turn of events,” is his only answer.