that pain worse, and I need to save her from that.
I need to save her.
Period.
I throw the dishcloth in the sink and run out of the guesthouse, heading into the kitchen. My mother is nowhere in sight, thank God, and I don’t think Jolie is back from her walk yet.
At the thought of Jolie, anger rolls through me.
Anger that’s just waking up again after being knocked unconscious.
How dare she not believe her daughter?
How dare she take my father’s side?
Then my thoughts pause, remembering what I know.
How dare my father get away with it?
The anger is now a beast, coming out of slumber, getting to its knees, making me shake inside as all sense of self is being corrupted by this blinding white-hot rage.
My father won’t get away with it.
I don’t know where there are guns in the house other than mine, which Gabrielle has, so I think I’m shit out of luck in that department, and with the clock ticking, there’s no time to ransack the house looking for one.
There’s only one weapon I know of.
I run into the study and grab the cane leaning against my father’s desk.
Back in the foyer, my keys are nowhere to be found. Of course Gabrielle would steal the car. For a split second, it almost makes me smile, the thought of her ripping out of the driveway in my car, feeling the speed beneath the gas pedal.
But that thought disappears in a flash, replaced by the anger and its new partner, fear.
Fear that if I don’t get there in time, I’m going to lose her forever. She’ll be taken again at my father’s twisted, bloody hands.
I grab the keys to my father’s Lamborghini, the one in the garage, the one he never drives, and run out there.
The garage door is already open, so I get right in the car.
I’ve driven it a few times before but never cared for it. Gaudy cars were more Blaise’s thing, not mine.
But this will get me there quicker than my mother’s SUV.
I enter the address coordinates into my GPS on my phone, and it brings me to a location not too far away. I roar out of the driveway, swinging the car onto the road with so much power, it nearly takes me into the ditch. I correct, and then I floor it, the car responding faster than my Audi ever could.
There’s no doubt that whatever place Gabrielle has chosen had been chosen on purpose and to her advantage, so I’m not surprised when I zoom in on satellite view and see that it’s a farmhouse, most likely abandoned.
I slow down, knowing I don’t want to get closer than this, and look for a place to ditch the car. I come across a side lane, basically a rutted path along a fallow field, and when I see my Audi parked behind a barn, I know I’ve come to the right spot.
I park beside it and get out, looking across the field and the woods to where the location must be beyond it. She must have gone through that way, hoping to surprise them from the other side of the house.
It’s still raining and getting darker as I start running across the field, cane in one hand, phone in the other. Thunder gives an ominous rumble, and somewhere in the distance there is a flash.
How fitting.
But the wry thought doesn’t stay for long. No thoughts do. This isn’t a time to think, this is a time to react and hope you’ve made the right choice.
All I’ve got is the cane. Gabrielle has a gun, and while I haven’t seen her shoot anything yet, she had zero hesitation in hitting me with it, so I don’t think she’ll have a problem. My father, well, who knows if he has anything at all. He has Jones. That’s all he needs.
Someone to grab Gabrielle and hold her down . . .
The thought turns my insides into something molten hot.
He raped her. He hurt her. She had to get an abortion because of him.
All alone, just a teenager, just a girl who was abused and unloved her whole life. She came with her mother to my house, looking for salvation, and instead she was pulled into hell by the devil.
I’m nearly so blind with anger that for a moment I’m afraid my heart might explode, that the rage is too much for it. I grip the cane tighter.
I have no doubt what my father has planned for Gabrielle.