Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 71625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
I swallowed and stepped onto the first smoking cinder that used to be my front room.
“The kids,” I croaked. “Have you searched for them at all yet?”
“That was our next step, Chief,” Cook said faintly. “We have to move the walls on that part of the house, and for that to happen we have to wait for them to cool down.”
I could see it. Everything had collapsed into itself. Really the only thing I could see standing in that part of the house was the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that’d been on the wall of my office, but even those weren’t in all that great of shape.
The rest of the house, though likely salvageable, was covered in water, soot and ash.
I headed to the part of the house where they’d found Winnie, no other reason than an instinct telling me to go there.
I looked around the area, covering my face with my shirt to avoid breathing in the soot and smoke that was still leeching into the room from the opposite side of the house.
I’d done this. I’d allowed this to happen.
That was why I was late today. That niggling feeling in the back of my head had finally shined bright in the forefront of my mind, and I’d connected the proverbial dots.
Andy Anderson was Anderson Munnick.
After acquiring a search warrant for his temporary residence—which had been at the low-income hotel in town, I’d gone with three other officers to either arrest Anderson or seize his computers.
If I could prove he’d done anything with Conleigh, I would have him. His being with a minor, while on parole for rape, would send him back forever.
I swallowed.
But he hadn’t been there.
Why? Because he’d been here.
Terrorizing Winnie, Cody, and Conleigh.
I started walking through the house, ignoring the way my feet started to go through some of the walls that’d collapsed onto the floor.
If I didn’t, my stomach started to crawl.
What was I stepping on? Could it be them?
I closed my eyes and tried not to think about Conleigh and Cody, or the way that they were probably buried under that pile of burning ash forty feet away from this room.
We made it to where they’d found Winnie when we came to a stop.
Everything in this room had been my pride and joy. At least, I realized it was until about a half an hour ago.
Then I realized that my prized possessions weren’t things. They were people.
“The funny thing here is that she had all those guns laying around her. How many did you have?”
The question was asked so gently that I knew he was trying to broach the subject without tipping me over completely.
“We found her right there.” Cook pointed to the spot next to where my guns lay in a discarded mess. “Do you think she was going to shoot the guy?”
“Maybe,” I muttered. “I suppose it’s possible if she felt that was the only way she could protect them.”
A thump had me looking over at Cook, but Cook was just standing there with his arms crossed over his chest.
His bunker gear was half on, half off. His shirt was saturated with sweat, and his face was coated in grime. The only clean spots on his face were from the sweat that had poured down his cheeks and forehead.
“Did you say something?”
Thump-thump.
I turned back and looked at the pile of guns on the ground, and I immediately felt an almost irrational surge of emotion pouring through me before I catapulted myself toward the safe.
My fingers hit the safe’s dial and slipped off as a layer of ash and soot fell away.
I wiped the entire thing off with my hand, then tried again.
43-99-36-96-12.
I’d never hated this combination more in my life.
I spun the dial and twisted the locks, swinging the door open.
“Stop touching me!” Cody shrieked.
“I’m not touching you, you’re touching me!”
I’d never, not once in my life, been happier to hear two children fighting than I was in that moment.
I looked at the two children in the safe.
Conleigh had joked that it was so big she could fit in it earlier in the day…but I’d didn’t really consider the idea of her actually fitting in there.
Apparently, she could fit in there, though, and so could Cody.
They had my two back-up SCUBA regulators in their hands, but neither was in their mouths.
And before I could process much more than that, two missiles hit me at my waist and knocked me backward.
“Steel!”
“Steel!”
As they cried in my arms, I felt sick to my stomach.
“Come on, you two,” I said, standing up with both still in my arms. “Let’s go get y’all checked out.”
Conleigh was sobbing but managed to turn with me.
Cody hadn’t even made it to the ground because he was clinging to my neck.
I turned, finding Fender standing on the concrete of my front porch.
“Did you check her feed?”