Chapter Thirty-Six
A full-on storm battered the resort. Levi pulled up to the family side and let his parents out.
“Is anyone going to tell me why it took the both of you to pick me up?”
He glanced at his dad and opened his eyes wide, silently pleading with him not to tell.
“No,” they both said at the same time.
“Fine, keep your secrets.” She laughed as the blue and red security lights cut through the dense snow. “What is that boy doing now?” Mom asked. They stopped on the porch and waited for security to park his car.
“Hey, Dickie, what’s going on?”
“You told me to get you if anything weird happens, and after the last time—”
Levi gave him the wrap-it-up sign. “Get to it, Dickie,” he said with a chuckle.
“Well, Ms. Young’s door is off its hinge, and—”
Everything in his body fell to the ground. “What do you mean off?” Not waiting for his answer, he jumped over the porch railing.
“It’s open and the cabin is a mess. Mr. Scott!”
Already on the path to the hill, Levi slid down the side closest to her cabin. Heavy wet slush caused him to fall a few times until he could gain his footing and run the rest of the way. The house lights shone brightly through the busted front door. Out of breath, he walked into the empty house wrecked with chaos.
As his mind raced with facts of the case, Levi grabbed the side of his head and thought about what he had missed. He couldn’t let panic sink in. PTSD would first overwhelm him then shut everything down.
“What the hell?” Dad said at the broken door. He stepped over the flimsy wood. “There’s no way you guys did this.”
“Oh, my goodness.” His mother climbed into the carnage. “Levi?”
All of the air had been used up. He couldn’t get enough oxygen into his lungs. He bent over in pain, unable to think.
“You guys didn’t do this, did you?” Dad repeated.
Dickie’s red and blue lights swirled around the room, along with everything else.
“Baby, stick with me.” Mom’s voice sounded heavy and far away. “Levi!” she screamed before she slapped him. Hard enough to bring everything him back from black. “What do we do?”
“Should I call the sheriff?” Dickie asked from inside the doorway as Levi’s eyes watered with fresh hatred he couldn’t control.
“Belle,” he choked.
“I found her up at the barn, she’s in my car.”
“Shit, shit, shit.” He hit his forehead with his fist. Cayden had been alone. If he hadn’t let the dog out, she would still be here.
“Levi!”
“I’m fine.” He held up his hand to stop his mom from hitting him again.
“Dickie, give me Belle, then take my mom back to the family house.”
The kid nodded his head and took off.
“What do you want us to do?” Dad asked.
“Mom”—he stood up—“when they come, act like you don’t know what’s going on, none of it.”
Tears slipping down her cheeks, she grabbed the side of his face and squeezed. “Bring her back, okay?” She kissed him on the head before she shakily stepped over Shana’s boxes, lamps, and a knocked-over end table.
Once he felt he wouldn’t lose his shit, he grabbed his phone and cleared his throat. “Hey, Shawn. … Yeah, it’s Levi. The weirdest thing, Cayden went on the trail and hasn’t come back. The storm is getting worse. Could you do me a solid and check near Chesterfield? … Great.”
While his dad stared at him opened-mouth and confused, Levi made a second call. “Hey, man, the storm is crazy and Cayden’s missing. Do you mind coming over so we can take a look up the trail? … No, I’m sure it’s nothing. … Yep, thanks!”
He leaned against the wall and gulped for air. Close to the surface, he needed to destroy something. “If you can’t handle what I’m about to do, then I’ll need you to go back to the house and follow Mom’s lead.”
“No, I’m fine,” Dad said.
“Good, then that makes one us.”
****
Cold. She opened her eyes, with a groan. “Ms. Young?”
Cayden blinked but couldn’t bring anything into focus. Fuzzy images swum around her head.
“Ms. Young?”
She tried to see where the voice came from.
“Over here.”
She swung her head to the left with effort. Tied to the chair next to her sat Shana Waters.
“Are you okay?”
It couldn’t be Shana. Cayden tried to make sense of it.
“Do you remember me?”
“Sure.” Mouth thick with the feel of cotton, her head throbbed. She couldn’t recall what happened less than five minutes ago. “We had college-prep algebra together.”
“Huh? No, I went to Camp Goose growing up and now I’m a counselor. Britney James.”
Cayden vaguely remembered the girl, but she couldn’t be sure. “What happened?”
“That guy from the camp brought us here. Do you remember anything?”
She tried to shake away the foggy haze. When she thought back, her head pulsated in pain.
“I was walking home and he said he wanted to talk to me about camp. He dropped your name.”
Cayden tried to concentrate on the girl sitting in the chair next to her. Tears tracks streaked through the dirt on Britney’s Homecoming Queen face. Shana won the year she attended Chesterfield, right?
“He was so nice at the resort, I just thought it was okay. Once I got into his truck, he put this cloth over my face.” She struggled against her binds before she started to cry. “The next thing I knew, he brought me here.”
Cayden made a move to comfort her, but found that her own restraints held her back.
“What’s going to happen to us? I just got into a good home. It’s not fair.”
She took in the room. A stark cabin probably used for fishing. A small fire to keep them quasi-warm burned in the fireplace in front of them. The window at the front of the door was frosted over. Maybe the fishing cabin, she thought, but it didn’t look the same from the time Levi brought her years before.
“He’s going to kill us, isn’t he?” The girl cried harder.
Cayden wanted to tell her “no”, but she had no idea.