Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 82411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
“I’ll think about it, angel. Now you know the rules. Come alone and don’t alert anyone.”
He gives her the address, confirming that we are in fact in Farmington.
“See you soon, angel,” he says before hanging up.
Chapter 37
Oracle
The trip to Santa Fe took about twelve years. At least that’s what it felt like.
The good news, if you can call it that, is that the phone moved since we left the clubhouse.
Max pinged it at a small house about a mile and a half from the store it stayed at all night.
There’s nothing special about the non-descript little ranch-style home. The car in the driveway looks like it doesn’t run, and we can tell there’s at least one child that lives there, according to the small toys littering the front porch.
We haven’t bothered to call the local police department because they would only cover us with too much red tape. Depending on who has Beth, we also have to consider that local law enforcement might be on their payroll.
“Someone must’ve seen you drive up,” Max says, his voice coming through the headpieces we put on once we got word about where the phone was. “The phone is moving out of the back of the property.”
Despite Kincaid’s call of my name when I jump out of the SUV, my feet don’t halt when they hit the ground.
I race around the side of the house, scaling a chain-link fence easily, only to discover that the assailant I’m chasing isn’t a monster, but rather a teen boy.
“Stop, asshole!” I yell.
The boy looks over his shoulder, fear filling his eyes as if the devil himself is chasing him.
He doesn’t stop, but luck must be on my side because my legs carry me faster than he can get over the backside of the fence.
I pull him down, pressing him against the fence.
“Where is she?”
“What?” he asks, his voice more a sob than what I would expect from a criminal capable of abducting a grown woman.
I don’t release him when he claims not to know what I’m talking about. I’ve seen too many times just how young people working to traffic women and kids can be. Most of them are victims themselves, but he could easily be pretending to be innocent. Age isn’t a factor when it comes to such crimes. We’ve seen kids as young as four and five who are made to pretend to be lost or hurt in order for men to be waiting to snatch someone off the streets once they’ve been lured in with the idea that they’re helping an innocent child.
With one hand holding him in place by his shirt, I pat his jeans until I find the phone.
“Where did you fucking get this?” I growl.
The kid holds his hands up at his ears as if I’m pointing a gun in his face.
“At the store. I swear I was going to turn it into the police.”
He’s full of shit. Even if he wasn’t involved in Beth’s disappearance, he sure as hell wasn’t going to give up the phone. I don’t know a teenager in today’s age who would.
“What the fuck is going on out here?”
I look over my shoulder.
“Only two heat signatures in the house,” Max says in my ear just as a couple of the other guys come around the far side of the house.
The man yelling from the porch catches sight of them, only he isn’t scared. He turns his attention back to the boy I have pressed against the fence.
“What the hell has he done now?” the guy snaps, his attention on who I presume to be his son. “I told you, boy. The next time you pull some shit that leads the cops to my door, I’m done with you. It’s fucking boot camp for your ass.”
“We have word that your son—” Kincaid begins,
“Evan,” Max supplies into our earpieces.
“Evan,” Kincaid repeats, “has a cell phone that doesn’t belong to him.”
The man glares at his kid. “Let me guess, you’re gonna say you found it?” his father asks, already prepared to call the kid a liar if he argues.
“Dad, I—”
I shake the kid to shut him up.
“There’s a chance Evan has other items that do not belong to him,” Kincaid continues. “Do you mind if we search his room?”
The guy’s shoulders fall as if he’s been dealing with the police for far too long with as young as the kid is.
“Can you not tear everything up like last time?” the man asks, giving the guys permission to look in the house with a sigh and a wave of his hand.
I know they aren’t going to find her inside, just as well as I know that the kid probably did just find the phone at the gas station.
I listen, hearing Kincaid’s team clear every room in the house before they reappear on the back stoop.