“It’s our car.” I reminded him. “It’s from both of us.”
He shut the door, and we stepped around the hood of the Bronco when Rimmel came running over, her face white as a ghost.
“Rim?” Trent said, rushing toward her. “What’s the matter?”
“I can’t find Andi,” she said, voice high and breathless.
“What?” I asked, hair on the back of my neck standing straight up.
Rimmel shook her head. “She was just there playing with the other kids. And then suddenly, the girls were calling for her, and now no one can find her.”
“Okay, well, she couldn’t have gotten far. Maybe she went down to the house to check on Panda,” Trent said, a strong voice of reason as I looked around frantically for a flash of her dark hair.
Rimmel’s eyes filled with hope. “You think?”
“Yeah, she wanted to bring her up to the party, but I told her to leave her at home,” T said. “I’ll go down there right now.”
My heart was pounding, ears ringing as clammy sweat coated my palms.Trent’s right. She probably went to check on that damn cat.She’s fine.
And then a very distinctive scream pierced the late-afternoon air.
Andi.
12
Trent
I’ma guy who tries not to think the worst. I try to stay positive and especially to be strong and calm for my family.
But hearing Andi scream like that? Not knowing why or where she was?
Strength splintered. Calm succumbed to chaos.
In that moment, my eyes sought Drew, and when they found his panicked blue stare, I remembered my reason. My true strength. It didn’t matter how splintered I was or if a cyclone of chaos brought me to my knees. I would crawl if I had to, brandishing my splintered insides as weapons.
No one messed with my family.Oh, hells no.
Heart pounding, I started running, pulling out my cell as I went. I hoped it was a good sign that the scream came from the direction of our house. Maybe she had gone to check on the cat. Maybe she just fell on the way.
But why didn’t she tell anyone? If she was hurt, why didn’t she call?
“Andi!” Drew yelled, keeping pace beside me. “Andi!”
The absence of her answer rang loud in my ears and caused the panic to snowball inside me. The second it loaded, I checked the location tracking on her phone, clinging to that pulsing red dot like a lifeline. “She’s over by the garage,” I yelled, picking up my pace.
I was aware of shouting and pounding footsteps in step with mine, but I didn’t take my eyes off the place I was going. The only face I wanted to see just then was hers.
It didn’t matter that I had a location and was just with her twenty minutes ago. It didn’t matter that we were at home on our family compound. The bad feeling worming through my veins was overwhelming, shoving back all rational thought. Somehow, someway, even with all the precautions we’d taken… somehow that woman had gotten to my daughter. I knew it deep down in my bones.
The bright-pink object lying abandoned in the grass forced a pained grunt out of me as I snatched it off the ground, turning it over to find the screen cracked.
Lurching to a stop beside me, Drew stared at our daughter’s phone. “It’s her.” He panted. “How the fuck did she get on this property?”
“Andi!” I roared. “Andi, where are you?”
It was echoed about ten times by various members of the family doing the same.
I strained to hear past the whirring between my ears and the thick anxiety attempting to hijack my thoughts.
