Head Start (Cedar Tree #7) (26 page)

“Glad to see your eyes open and alert this morning, honey,” she says with a wink, before picking up the now empty plates and heading back to the kitchen.

“Me too,” Neil agrees, keeping his voice low and reaching for my hand across the table. “Very glad. Thank you, Pup, for earlier and for coming to my defense now.” His tone is soft but slightly teasing, and I simply shrug my shoulder in response. I figure he probably wouldn’t feel comfortable discussing the first and I
know
I don’t want to discuss the latter.

His eyes turn away from me, and when I turn in that direction, I see Mal standing in the doorway with a phone to his ear. His chin lift is almost imperceptible, but Neil seems to understand what it conveys, because he immediately stands, takes out his wallet and throws some bills on the table.

“We’ve gotta go,” he says, pulling me up from my seat.

The guys exchange a few words that I can’t quite distinguish since Arlene is yelling goodbye. Before I know it, I find myself hustled up the stairs with Neil in front and Mal behind me. Once inside the apartment, Neil immediately pulls out his phone while Mal stands beside the window, peering outside. Not quite sure what the hell is going on, I can feel the tension in the room is thick. I sink down on the couch, listening to Neil’s side of a conversation.

“Where?” I hear him bite off to someone on the other side.

“What time was that?—And it took you ’til now to notify us? What the fuck, Drew? Have you contacted Gomez?—Well, thank God for that, at least. No, I don’t want any more attention drawn here than necessary. We’re fine here. You just find that bastard.” With that, he ends the call, throws his phone on the counter and pulls at the hair on his head. “
Fuck. Son of a whore. Motherfucking idiots!”
His voice booms so loud in the small space that I’m sure the patrons downstairs in the diner can hear the curses flying out of his mouth. Poor Chaos, who was sleeping on his bed in the corner, crawls almost on his belly over the ground to sit beside Neil, leaning his big body against his legs.

“Chill,” Mal admonishes from his spot by the window, and I just pull my knees up on the couch, silently freaking out. Things just got really scary and I have no clue why.

Some of what I’m thinking must’ve shown on my face, because Neil is beside me on the couch in a flash, Chaos close on his heels. The arm he puts around me is only partly reassuring, given the tension radiating off him. “What’s happening?” I manage, a bit wobbly.

A meaningful look is exchanged between the two men, but before I have a chance to work up a head of steam over that, Neil explains, “Your neighbor across the street, the old lady, called the sheriff’s office. She says she saw someone slip from between your house and the house next door, getting into a car she claims having seen before, early this morning. Says it looked like the same guy she saw sneaking on the porch last week. That and the car he got in this morning was the same one parked down the street last week.”

He’s here. He’s watching my house
. Fear crawls up my throat in the form of bitter bile and I struggle to keep my breakfast where it is. Suddenly, being cooped up in this apartment with Neil indefinitely doesn’t seem like such a bad option.

Neil squeezes my shoulder, demanding my attention. “The deputy Drew who had been keeping an eye on the place, was called away on a domestic disturbance call close by. Apparently, he never got back to your house. Doesn’t look like whoever was there tried to get in. The grass on the side of the house was trampled a bit but he could’ve been looking for exterior wiring for the alarm system. What it means, Pup,” he says, now holding both my shoulders with his hands, “is that he’s still around. He was close enough that if a half-decent law enforcement officer had been on the job, he might’ve been off the streets.”

“Knowing he’s close is not a bad thing,” Mal points out. “It also means we can tighten the circle. Especially now that we have a description of what he’s driving.”

“I don’t understand,” I wonder out loud. “What does he want with me? I don’t get this focus.”

“You messed up his pattern. He’s a psychopath who seems to be working from a script. From what we can tell, you were supposed to be the seventh in his cycle, but you slipped through his fingers,” Mal answers me straight, and a cold realization comes over me.

“But he took an eighth woman, didn’t he? Last week?” Neither Neil nor Mal look me in the eye and the stark truth of what this means settles in my bones. “She’s dead, isn’t she? That’s why he’s come back, because she’s dead.”

“We don’t know that, Pup. We can’t know that for sure,” Neil mumbles as he hooks me behind my neck and pulls me to his chest.

-

T
he rest of the day I spend trying to read a book and watch some TV, while the guys spend most of their time keeping watch and talking on the phone. Gus and Joe both popped in and had muted conversations over the dining room table, which apparently has become security central. I’m pretty sure if I asked, they would tell me what is going on, but frankly, my head hurts from everything I already know. So instead of trying to listen in, I try not listening, often disappearing into the bedroom. Neil occasionally checks in with a touch or a kiss, a soft-spoken question from time to time, but I don’t want to distract him from what he needs to do.

I’ve just cleared away the dishes of the simple stir-fry I threw together and fed Chaos, who’s been happy with the attention lavished on him. Mal offered to get something from downstairs, but I wanted something to do. Pulling mugs down from the cupboard for the coffee that is almost done brewing, I almost drop them when I hear the distinct ring of my phone. Setting the mugs down, I scramble for my purse and the phone located somewhere in its dark depths.

“Hello?” I sound out of breath and a familiar snicker sounds on the other side.

“Please tell me I interrupted you schtumpfing the hot hunky guy Mom tells me you hooked up with.” My sister giggles. “Now that would be a true reversal of roles, wouldn’t it?”

“Karly... I... it’s nothing like that. I just had to run to find my phone.” I turn to Neil, who is observing me from his perch at the table, a smile slowly stretching over his face. In response, I roll my eyes and turn away from him. My sister—always getting me in embarrassing situations.

“Oh, you had to burst my bubble, didn’t you? Well, wherever you are, you’re not home, because I’m standing on the porch and there’re no lights on anywhere.”

“You’re... Wait, what? My house? Karly, what are you doing at my house?” I can’t hold back the panic in my voice and my sister doesn’t miss it.

“What the blazes is going on, Kenny?” she demands as I feel Neil stepping up behind me. Mal already has his phone out and is furiously punching numbers.

“Honey, get in your car right away and find the diner. It’s only three blocks west from where you are. Just head back out to the main road, and—“ A rustling and the sound of something hitting a dull surface stops me mid-sentence.

“NO!” I hear Karly scream in the background before the phone goes dead.

“Neil...” I whisper, turning and holding out the dead phone in my hand.

He doesn’t say anything but lifts me up in his arms, just as I feel my knees folding. With Mal leading the way, he runs down the stairs with me, as if I were weightless. Mal already has the diner’s kitchen door open and hustles us inside. Seb looks up from the grill and takes in the three of us.

“Shit’s going down. Right now, she’s safer here in a crowd,” Mal directs at Seb, who nods in apparent understanding. Part of my brain is trying to figure out how it is all these guys can communicate barely using any words, while the other part is still hearing my sister’s scream.

Before I know it, I’m planted on a stool at the counter and Neil is leaning in to me. “I will find her,” he says through gritted teeth.

“Please,” I whimper, not able to stop the tears from rolling.

“I will fucking find her,” he repeats before turning to Seb and pointing a finger at him. “With your life,” he snarls.

“You’ve got it, brother,” Seb calmly says as Arlene wraps her arms around me and we watch the two of them sprint outside. A second later, they tear out of the parking lot, tires squealing.

I’m not one to pray, but I’m praying now.

N
eil

“Gus is on his way. He’s calling Gomez,” Mal says as we peel away from the diner.

He’s driving, so I have my hands free to make a call of my own and save some time.

“Drew,” I say when he answers his phone. “Where the fuck is your detail on Kendra’s house?”

“What do you mean? I put my best guy on it. I don’t make mistakes twice,” he says defensively.

“That right? Well just so you fucking know, Kendra just listened to her sister being attacked on her own fucking doorstep. Where was your best guy then, huh?”

“Fuck! Hang on,” he shouts, and I can hear him put a call out on his radio. “No fucking response,” he says when he gets back on the line. “I’m on my way.”

The line goes dead just as a loud explosion rattles the car.
Jesus Christ.
“Hustle!” I yell at Mal, who’s already flooring it.

“On it,” is his gritted response.

The moment we round the corner onto Kendra’s street, chaos hits us. Debris litters the street and people are running out of their houses, panicked and scared. We ditch the car and start hoofing it only vaguely registering the patrol car parked halfway down the street. The front of what was once Kendra’s house is a jagged pile of rubble. The front porch and most of the front of the house is gone. The only recognizable feature is the stairway going up toward the bedrooms. I don’t think, I run up the drive, avoiding large chunks of the house, and start pulling on debris where I think the front door might have been. Although with the blast, anyone standing there would’ve been blown to pieces.
Jesus.
The scene is eerily familiar to ones from a time in my life I have no wish to revisit, but I can’t stop the shaking that takes over my body. Nevertheless, I forge on, surprised to find Gus coming up beside me, helping to pull the rubble out of the way.

“Is she under here?” he questions as he helps me pull a large chunk of roof out of the way.

“I don’t know, man, I don’t know.”

We don’t stop working, not when Joe, Mal and some of the neighbors join us on either side. After what feels like hours, but was likely only minutes, we finally hear sirens in the distance. Gus steps back. “Fire and rescue are here, boys. Let them do their job.” His voice sounds as dejected as I feel, and from the look on the other guys’ faces, they are no more optimistic. Either he has her, or she was killed in the explosion, and I don’t know which would be the better outcome for her.

Kendra.
I know the phone ringing in my pocket is her, or possibly Seb. They surely heard the explosion. What do I tell her? Leaving Gus to explain things to the first responders, I walk away to find a quieter spot to take the call. The diner’s number shows up on the screen.

“Seb?” I’m guessing.

“He’s okay,” I hear him shout out. “Brother. We’ve been going nuts here since that explosion. Good to hear your voice.” His relief is evident. Then he continues on an almost whisper. “Don’t know what happened, but we’ve had to almost physically restrain your girl from flying out the door. Better talk to her.”

“Put her on.”

There’s the sound of movement and some rustling before I hear her panicked voice. “Neil? Oh God. What was that? Are you hurt? Did you find Karly? Where are you?”

The barrage of questions pierces my chest. I don’t want to do this over the phone. “Pup.” I get her attention in as calm a tone as I can manage. “I haven’t found your sister yet, and I didn’t get hurt, but there’s some damage to your house.” That’s got to be the understatement of the century, but first concern is Karly.

“The explosion? It was an explosion we heard, right? I’m coming right now.” The thought of her leaving the relative safety of the diner when we have no fucking clue what’s going on has my hair stand on end.

“No. Baby, listen to me; this is the last place you should be, there is confusion, panic, people from the area milling about. It’s not safe. Please stay where you are,” I plead with her.

“But Karly—“

“Listen to me. That’s exactly why you should stay there. We have to focus on finding your sister and the best way to help us do that is to stay safe.” It breaks my heart hearing her cry on the other end of the line.

“Please tell me she wasn’t in the house...”

She’s killing me. I have to swallow down hard before I can reply. “Kendra, baby, we’ve looked, but nothing we found indicates she was there. We’ll keep looking, I promise. Now can you put Seb back on the line?”

“Okay...”

“Love you, Pup.”

“Yeah...” I don’t know if she heard me because next thing I know Seb’s on the line. I don’t know if it was the right thing to say, but I needed to say it.

“...is about empty.”

I just pick up the last of what Seb said so I ask him to repeat.

“I said, after the explosion, most of the crowd ran outside and the place is about empty. I’m keeping the girls close to me in the kitchen.”

“Sounds good. I better go,” I tell him, as I watch Kendra’s neighbor, the white-haired nosey neighbor, wave to me from her front yard. Ending the call, I walk across the street.

“I saw him,” she says when I’m near her. “Didn’t have the same car, though. That’s why it took me a while, but I know it was him. Tossed that girl in the back of the truck and took off. I was just about to call for help when the house blew up.”

“Did you get the make and color of the truck?” I snap impatiently, earning me a huff.

“Well now, it looked like it might be an older one, beige looking. But it could’ve just been dirty white. I don’t know much about brands. They’re all big noise makers to me. But I did notice a trailer hitch when I was memorizing the license plate.” I could rattle the old woman when she smirks at me.

“You have the number?”

“Yes, that’s what I was trying to tell you. Reason I was taking a moment before calling 911 was because I wanted to make sure”—she shows me a piece of paper before continuing—“I wrote down the number before I for—Hey!” she yells after me as I snatch the paper from her hand and take off, running to where my team is standing.