Chapter 22

Do you ever look at a kid and think, ‘that one’s going to be an asshole in a few years?’

-Parker to Kayla

Kayla

“Where are you?” Parker asked.

I looked around me. “Carmen and I are having some bonding time.”

He grunted in my ear. “Not that I have a problem with you taking her, but since she’s registered to me as a service dog, sometimes I’m the one who should be taking her out.”

I laughed.

“You were sleeping on the couch with the man flu. Are you really going to tell me that you were going to be able to take her out today?” I asked, genuinely curious of the answer.

“No,” he paused. “But you’re not even in the apartment’s neighborhood. Your car is gone. Normally when one takes someone else’s dog, they at least leave a note.”

I grinned. “I decided that your new place needed some blinds and curtains for certain…things that we do.”

He sighed. “And did you get blinds?”

“No,” I admitted. “I had to measure first. I was going to buy the blinds next. But I got caught off guard by the prettiness of your road, and I decided to take Carmen on a wee walk. We ended up walking a little farther than I intended. Did you know you have a neighbor about a mile past your house? The house is adorable and well maintained, and it looks like yours could look after you did a little landscaping and maintenance on the outside. You should ask them if they restored it like you’re going to do.”

Parker made a nose in his throat.

“Are you even listening to me?” I asked.

His answer was to throw up. Again.

Poor Peter Parker Penn had strep throat. And, when Parker had strep throat, he threw up. Why did he throw up? Because the beast refused to take Tylenol and Motrin until it was absolutely necessary. Which was after his fever had spiked so high that he’d throw up the medicine and wouldn’t be able to get any more down.

It was a vicious cycle, and honestly, I was tired of dealing with him and his man flu.

His stubborn, pig-headed, never-going-to-change self.

God, I loved him.

Also, he was a loud puker. Like, really loud. I was sure he’d left the phone on the bed where I’d left him an hour ago. His bathroom was in the hallway outside his room, meaning there was at least a room and wall between the phone and him, and I could still hear him.

I grimaced, thought about hanging up, but then the house that we passed when we started this walk came back into view again.

This time, there was a man standing outside.

Something about him made me look away.

I continued to look at him out of my peripheral vision.

Was he wearing a rain jacket?

It wasn’t even raining.

Yet, he looked like he was dressed to go crab fishing on the TV show Deadliest Catch. Long raincoat. Rain boots. He even had rain pants.

What the hell?

I walked faster and noticed how he started walking to a later model black Suburban. I was guessing it was a late nineties model, and the only reason I knew that was because Cheyenne, Janie’s aunt, had one with the same body style.

The Suburban was in wonderful shape, and I was sure that Cheyenne would appreciate it since she had a love for that model seeing as she still drove hers to this day.

But, I couldn’t appreciate it because something about the man was really rubbing me wrong.

I was extremely thankful that Parker’s corner post signaling his land came into view, and I was glad that we’d walked this trail the other day.

I took off down the trail and became buried in the trees, blocking my view of the road.

When Parker came back to the phone two minutes later, and I was rounding the bend to his house, and my car, I was almost overcome with relief.

“Sorry,” Parker said pitifully. “I think I’m dying.”

I was fairly sure that I was hyperventilating.

“Babe?”

I swallowed and looked behind my shoulder one last time, then sighed.

“Sorry. There’s a weirdo that lives next to you,” I told him. “You’re gonna have to build a privacy fence on that side of your property or something, just in case he thinks you’re friendly.”

He laughed, and it turned into a moan.

“Did you take any meds yet?” I asked. “I left the next dose on your nightstand. You can have both Motrin and Tylenol.”

He grunted something that sounded suspiciously like “damn woman,” but I heard the pills being scraped off the nightstand, followed shortly by the crushing of a water bottle as he drank deeply.

“If I keep it down,” he muttered once he was through.

I stepped over a log, struggling to do it without using my hands, and turned back with a frown when I noticed Carmen was no longer with me.

“Oh, shit,” I moaned.

“What?” Parker barked.

“Carmen’s gone. She was with me, and now she’s not.”

I turned around, backtracking over the same log that I had just climbed over.

“Fuck me,” Parker groaned. Then I heard the bed creak. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

I grunted my own reply, then shoved the phone down into my pocket.

I walked nearly to the property line before I found her. She was standing deathly still, staring through the trees. I glanced in the direction where she was staring, but I couldn’t see a thing. As long as you counted trees as nothing.

I frowned and tried to tug her collar, but she turned on me with a growl.

I lurched back and put some distance between us, not expecting her reaction.

I’d thought we were over this, but apparently, we weren’t.

I pulled out my phone with shaky hands and placed a call to Parker.

He answered on the first ring.

“No rush or anything,” I said. “I found her, but…she won’t let me near her.”

He growled in frustration. “What the fuck? I thought she was okay with you.”

My sentiments exactly.

“I’m at the corner of your property line, hidden by the thicket. I’ll wait for you.”

And I did, nearly laughing when he walked up less than ten minutes later, looking like he’d crawled out of his deathbed.

His face was pale, his eyes were sunken, and he had a fine sheen of sweat covering his forehead.

“Hey,” I said softly. “You made good time.”

He gave me a halfhearted smile. “Drove fast.”

His eyes moved from me to Carmen, and he whistled at her. “Carmen?”

Carmen looked once over her shoulder at him, flattened her ears out, and then took a few steps farther into the trees.

I frowned. Parker’s brows rose.

He called her name again, and this time it wasn’t a few steps she took, but a full ten yards.

Obviously, she wanted us to follow her.

Parker did, and when he caught up to her, Carmen took off through the woods.

When I started to follow, he slowed and held out his hand.

“Don’t get too close to her,” he ordered. “And if I tell you to back off, you do it.”

“What’s going on?” I questioned.

He shrugged. “I haven’t seen her act like this since…before she was tortured.”

Maybe she was having a flashback?

I didn’t know. What I did know was that Parker was following her lead, so I would, too.

I’d follow him anywhere.

My eyes went down to his butt, and my eyes closed. He had a hole in his pants. The poor, poor man.

***

Parker

I felt something touch my ass and looked over my shoulder at the offending person.

“Seriously?”

She shrugged. “I’m telling you. I have no control. None.”

Little did she know that I liked that she had no control.

“Come on,” I ordered with my head. “If I pass out, you’ll have to call Rafe. And control Carmen because she might bite him.”

I nodded my head.

“I thought he was a dog whisperer, though,” she whispered.

I gave her an incredulous look. “Have you met Carmen?”

She pinched her mouth shut and didn’t reply. I was right, though. Carmen didn’t like anyone. Honestly, there were times I was sure that she just barely tolerated me. She did seem to have affection for Kayla, though.

As we walked deeper into the woods, Kayla really started to twitch. The more we moved, the greater the worry on her face became, until suddenly I just stopped.

I looked over at her with concern, but I was sure she could tell it was halfhearted at best. I wasn’t doing well at all.

That jump into the pond in Virginia cost me, and now I was dealing with strep throat on top of the cold I’d gotten afterward.

I wasn’t going to make it much farther.

“I think you should call Rafe now.”

I stared at her for a few long seconds, then nodded once. I felt something, too. But my senses were off, and I didn’t want to react if there wasn’t something to actually react to.

Up ahead, I could see Carmen had paused, staring back at us with impatience.

There was no impatience on my face, though, as I placed the phone to my ear after selecting Rafe’s number.

“What do you feel?” I questioned.

She bit her lip. “Honestly?”

I nodded once. Of course, I always wanted honesty from her.

“Sick to my stomach. Like, I’m about to throw up. Each step I take forward, my worry grows. I think we’re heading to that house I told you about with the creepy guy that was standing out front,” she said softly.

Wariness swept through me, and I had to grab on to a tree to keep my feet.

“Why do you say creepy?” I questioned, then held up a finger when Rafe’s voice sounded from the other end of the line. “Rafe?”

She patiently held her reply in, waiting.

“Yeah, I’m gonna send you my location. I need you to come here. Something’s wrong,” I said.

“What’s going on?” Rafe asked.

“Carmen won’t come to me, and each time I get close to her, she runs toward my neighbor’s property. She’s not snapping at me. This is her warning action.”

He made a worried sound in his throat.

I knew that Kayla’s interest had been peaked with what a “warning action” was, but I chose to hold my tongue instead of explaining anything to her.

“She hasn’t done this since she…”

“Since we found her,” Rafe supplied.

“Yeah, since then. Something’s wrong, and now Kayla has a bad feeling. I’m literally about to pass out.”

I looked at Kayla with worry. She was looking at me like I looked really awful.

I bet I did.

Most assuredly.

While we were moving, I had felt okay. Better. But now that we were stopped, my momentum had stopped with me. I felt ready to fall to the ground in exhaustion.

“Yeah. If you can’t find us, keep driving past the house. Kayla thinks we’re headed to the house past mine on the same road.”

Once I ended the call, I went to a text message, and then sent him my location from my phone.

I waited, wondering if we should go any farther, but then Carmen whined.

My eyes went electric as a surge of adrenaline rolled through me.

Then I heard it. The unmistakable, high-pitched ziiinnng of a saw blade.

“Parker?”

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Did you hear that?”

I nodded. Even sick, I missed nothing.

“The neighbor I was telling you about? He was wearing a raincoat.”

I frowned. “Okay…”

“He was wearing rain boots and rain pants, too. And it’s sunny as fuck.”

I looked up at the sky.

She was right.

It was sunny as fuck.

It was also fairly nice out for December. Sixties.

But for him to be wearing a raincoat…something was off.

Something that I was sure wasn’t a good off, either.

“Did he see you?”

She shook her head.

“No. At least I don’t think he did. Carmen and I had been walking along the road, and the man had been facing the house, unaware of what was behind him,” she answered.

Suddenly filled with resolve, I turned to Kayla and said, “Stay here.”

She immediately shook her head. “No.”

“Kayla…”

She shook her head again, more vehemently this time.

“No.”

“You will.”

“I won’t. Listen, Parker. You’re ill. You won’t be able to…”

“I will. I’ve done this more times than you can imagine. Being a SEAL? You have no idea what kind of conditions we had to work in. This is a piece of cake. You, however, are a liability. I can’t see what’s going on while I worry about you.”

With that, I left and knew she wouldn’t follow.

She didn’t want me to go, yes, but she also didn’t want me to have to worry about her.

As I slipped through the trees, I caught up to Carmen, who stayed at my side this time.

She kept looking over at me, expecting me to pass out at any moment.

Which might very well happen.

It wasn’t until I was nearly to the clearing that I started to hear the screams.