Silas wondered what the hell Gabi and Cindy were talking about for all this time. Maybe Gabi was peeking out the window, waiting for Travis to arrest her stalker and take him away.
A few hours in one of Travis’s cells might be just what he needed. At this point it would be a damned vacation.
Judge had been sulking but obedient, but suddenly the bloodhound was on alert. Like a shot, the dog took off running. Toward the Benedict house, then around the side yard.
Shit. Gabi had gone out the back door and through the overgrown backyard of the house between Cindy’s and her own, doing everything she could to avoid him.
Silas followed Judge, his heart hammering.
She hadn’t imagined anything, he knew it. Blake Pierce was in town. He’d been waiting for her to come home, waiting to catch her alone.
Around the house, through the weedy backyard of the vacant house, to Gabi’s back door.
Judge barked at Mia’s diaper bag, which was on the patio next to Gabi’s purse. Keys dangled in the lock. Silas found Gabi just inside the back door, lying on her kitchen floor in a small pool of blood.
He probably shouldn’t move her, not knowing where the blood came from or how she’d been injured, but he couldn’t help himself. Gently, he rolled her onto her back. Her eyes were closed. The blood poured from a cut at her temple. He went for the closest suitable rag he could find, a clean dishtowel snagged from a nearby drawer.
“Gabi?” he said, putting pressure on the wound and trying to rouse her. “Wake up.” She didn’t, at least, not immediately.
Judge barked, quick, frantic barks that wouldn’t stop. Travis, lagging behind, walked into the kitchen, studied the scene, and then asked, “Where’s the little girl?”
“I don’t know.” Silas looked at Judge, and knew in a matter of seconds that the kid wasn’t in the house.
Finally, Gabi stirred. Her eyes fluttered opened, and for a split second she smiled at him. Then reality came rushing back and she sat up too quickly.
“He took Mia,” she said, tears filling her eyes as she began to shake. “Blake has my daughter!”
Chapter 17
She could still hear her daughter’s scream. More than the pain of being hit on the head, more than the worry that Blake might kill her this time, that sound was what stayed with her.
Her greatest fear had come true. Blake had found her; he’d taken Mia.
How had he come upon her so quickly and quietly? One moment she and Mia had been alone; the next he was there, snatching Mia from her with one hand, swinging a piece of metal pipe at her with the other. He’d drawn that hand back to hit her again — and again and again, she imagined — when a woman’s voice had said,
“They’re coming. We have to go.”
Blake had given in to the impulse to hit her one last time. That had been the blow that knocked her out. She’d gone down listening to her daughter scream.
She tried to explain to Silas exactly what had happened, but her thoughts and her words were jumbled. Oddly enough, he didn’t seem at all surprised to find out that a woman had been with Blake. He’d even mumbled a name.
Jenna.
Silas and Travis made phone calls on their cells. Gabi was so out of it, in such a panic, she barely heard what they had to say. But within minutes, people started showing up. At her front door, at the back. Men and women came on foot and by car. Some of those who showed up were clients, people she knew well. Others were complete strangers.
Cindy was there. Jordan, too.
Silas left the organization of the crowd to Travis, while he bandaged the cut on her head. He kept telling her everything was going to be all right, but she didn’t believe him. He didn’t believe it, either, she could tell.
The bleeding had stopped, but she expected her head would hurt for a while. She didn’t mind the pain. What bothered her most was the way her thoughts were scrambled, the way the voices of those around her were muffled and hard to decipher.
Gabi sat at the kitchen table. A woman she didn’t know was making coffee. Another had brought in a tray of sandwiches as if this was a neighborhood block party, as if Mia wasn’t in the hands of a psycho. Cindy and Jordan fretted, and double-checked Silas’s work.
Silas dropped down to squat before her, so they were