Dark Secret - Avelyn Paige Page 0,45
just took Lindsey inside. He’s got a little house out here in the boonies.”
Kevin comes back out, and Hayden steps out of the van. She’s steadier on her feet, but she looks exhausted, covered in dirt from head to toe.
“She’s there,” I relay back to Judge. Shelby shoves me over and snatches the binoculars from me. “She was the last girl out of the van. He’s got another girl with them.”
“Oh, my baby,” Shelby cries when she sees her. “That’s the same outfit she had on the day she disappeared. She looks like she’s lost weight.”
Grabbing the binoculars back, I take another look. It’s hard to make out from this distance, but she looks unharmed outside of the filth. I watch until she disappears from view, and the door slams shut behind her. Stepping out from the trees, I hand the binoculars to Shelby and head back to the van to watch the tracker. The beacon flashes. He hasn’t found it yet.
“What’s going on?” Karma demands over the radio.
“Everyone’s inside the house. Tracker is still active.”
“So we go in. It’s one guy against ten of us. There’s no need to wait.”
“No,” I snap. “Kevin will signal us when the time is right. If we bum-rush our way in there, he’ll kill the girls before we can even get close.”
Karma growls into the radio, “I don’t fucking like this, man. We’re putting too much faith in this kid.”
“I’ve got eyes on the place. He makes a move, I’ll see him. I’m sending Priest our location now. The sun’s going down fast, so it’ll be dark by the time you get here.” Pulling my phone from my pocket, I fire off the text with our coordinates.
“How the fuck are you going to see in the dark? He could move them and you’d never know,” Karma argues back.
“Night vision, dumbass. I had Priest pick up some new toys for us. They’re in the van.”
Silence comes from the other end.
“We’re on our way.”
Laying the radio on the ground next to my laptop, I turn to Shelby, who still stands in the brush with her gaze locked on the house that holds our daughter. She leans against me when I move behind her.
“She’s alive,” she whispers. “I thought…” A sob snatches her breath away.
“Shh, Shel. I told you I’d find her. Just a little longer until she’s back and safe with us.”
“What if they’ve done something to her?”
“Then we deal with it as a family.” I wrap my arms around her neck, holding her tight. We stand like that, watching together, for thirty minutes before the rumble of another vehicle pulls up behind our van.
“Stay here, and keep watch,” I whisper to her. With my hand on the gun, I step out of the tree line and sigh in relief. The cavalry is here.
Karma charges headlong into the trees with Shelby, leaving the rest of us outside.
“Any movement?” Priest asks as he exits the van, dressed all in black.
“None. It’s been quiet.”
“Quiet is good.” Reaching back into the van, he tosses me a bag. I unzip it, and find my own set of dark clothing. Pulling out the long-sleeved T-shirt, I take the one I have on off and slip it over my head.
“You weren’t kidding about being out in the open here,” Burnt remarks when he joins us. “The only thing we have going for us is the darkness.”
“There’s been no traffic since we’ve been out here. It’s just us and them. The odds are in our favor.”
“Let’s keep it that way.”
Karma stomps out of the tree line and beelines for the back of the van.
“He still pissed?”
“Pissed ain’t the word I would use to describe his mood,” Twat Knot declares. “He bitched the entire drive down here. Thank fuck for headphones, man, or I’d have thrown his ass out on the interstate.”
A laugh escapes my lips, but lasts only seconds when my laptop begins to beep, and I feel as if the ground has been yanked out from under me.
“The fuck is that?” Karma questions.
“The tracker’s offline!” I yell, rushing toward my laptop. A red bar flashes above the screen. Disconnected. He’s found it. The fucker found it on Lindsey. Fuck, fuck, fuck!
“He’s outside,” Shelby calls out to us. I burst into a run and fly into the brush, snatching the binoculars from her.
The uncle is outside the house, gun in hand. He knows we’re here. There’s no time to waste now. We have to move in.
Shelby
“What do we do, Prez?” Karma asks,