Torn - Cynthia Eden Page 0,51
battered-looking truck parked on the edge of the pavement. He saw the silhouette of a man in the truck.
Wade killed the SUV’s engine, but before jumping out, he took his gun from the glove box. He had a concealed carry permit in Georgia, and the way this killer was jerking them all around—hell, no, he wasn’t about to rush out unarmed.
When he and Victoria hurried out of the SUV, he made sure to stay in front of her. Victoria didn’t like guns. They’d talked about that—once, a lifetime ago. She never carried a weapon that he knew of, and Wade thought that was some dangerous shit. Considering the way their cases had gone lately, the woman definitely needed to be armed if she was going to work in the field.
When he approached the truck, Jim shoved open the door. Then he climbed out, staggering a bit. Victoria hurried toward him and wrapped her arms around his torso to steady him. “What happened to you?”
“Melissa . . . I—I think it was her. I went to get her out. He’d said she was locked inside . . .”
Wade looked over at the old cottage. He could see light glowing from the interior.
“But when I got in there, the back room . . . there were ropes and blood.”
Hell.
“No Melissa.” Jim’s voice was hoarse. “An empty cot. That blood. Not her. Then . . . then someone hit me from behind. I went down, hit something . . . and I—I thought I saw her running away.” His words were heavy with confusion. “I think . . . maybe she was hiding behind the door?” Jim shook his head. “Why would she hide from me?”
Wade’s fingers were curled around the gun. The weight of the weapon was a familiar comfort in his hand. “We’re going inside.” He wanted to search the place and figure out what the hell had happened. But he was determined that they would go in together. Until backup arrived, their little group would be going everywhere together. There would be no Scooby-Doo separating shit, not until he knew just where the killer was.
Not with his fixation on Victoria. I’m not leaving her until I know she is safe.
Victoria kept her arm around Jim as they climbed the front steps that led to the old house. The door was unlocked, hanging open a bit. Wade opened it more with the tip of his weapon. “Don’t touch anything,” he whispered. The warning was for Jim, not Victoria. She knew better than to contaminate a crime scene.
He inched forward, studying the place. Light blazed, but he wondered if Jim had turned the light on when he rushed inside, running to Melissa’s rescue. The place had the heavy closed odor that told him it probably hadn’t been used in a long time.
Two years? Did you use this place before, when you kept Kennedy hidden away?
The furniture was dusty, another sign that no one had been using the house in a while. He walked down the tight hallway, the old wood squeaking beneath his feet. He pushed open the first door on the right, needing to do a thorough sweep and make certain the house was empty.
This room was empty. No furniture. Nothing in it at all.
No clothes in the closet. No toiletries in the bathroom.
He eased out. Victoria and Jim were right behind him. “There . . .” Jim pointed down the hallway. Wade noticed the blood dripping from a gash on Jim’s forehead. “I went in . . . there . . .”
The door Jim indicated was partially open. As Wade continued down the narrow hallway, he was aware of a cold tension in his body. Battle-ready tension. He’d felt this way before, right before confronting perps when he’d been a detective with the Atlanta PD. He knew scenes could go to hell in a heartbeat. There had been times—times he didn’t like to remember but could never really forget—when he was forced to pull the trigger. In order to defend himself, his partner, and even to protect other victims, he’d had to shoot.
He’d done what was necessary. Hadn’t hesitated.
And he wouldn’t hesitate now.
As he approached the room, his footsteps slowed. He could see what looked like a narrow cot. Thick rope had been tossed on it, the ends still tied to metal pipes that seemed to come straight from the walls. And Jim had been right. There was blood in there. Blood near the top of the mattress, where a