The garage doors were down. The front door of the house was closed.The side door!
I sprinted around the large free-standing garage where the side door was wide open, and I lunged forward, bursting inside.
“Andi! Andi Mask, answer me right now,” I yelled, my voice echoing in the massive space. The flimsy cover hiding the Mustang we’d gotten for Travis fluttered lightly from thedisturbed air, but nothing else moved. Nothing made a single sound.
“Trent!” Drew yelled from outside, and I tore back out into the yard, heart in my throat. “Look.” He pointed to the separate shed a short distance from the garage. It was shaped like a mini barn with a black metal roof. The side door to that was open as well.
We shared a brief look and started forward together, but the sound of an engine turning over stuttered my steps. I didn’t even have time enough to wonder if what I heard was what I thought it was because the engine turned over again.
Someone was trying to start one of the four-wheelers.
What. The. Fuck?
I started forward again just as the large garage-style door on the front of the shed began sliding up, the sound of the motor drowned out by a four-wheeler firing to life.
“Andi!” Drew yelled, racing through the open side door just as the ATV lurched forward from too much gas.
I held my breath as it barely cleared the still-rising door and bounced over the ground, the back end fishtailing a bit from another burst of the throttle. The mad woman driving pitched sideways in her seat, hair blowing back to expose her maniacal expression.
And there was my daughter. My peanut.
Strapped to the back of that mechanical bucking beast and fighting to stay on.
Time stopped for an extended second, and during that brief pause, our eyes connected. Her terror was palpable. The cords in her neck stood out from the force of her shout, the sound muted because of the gag stuffed into her mouth.
“Jump off!” Drew yelled, running through the shed toward her, and Andi thrashed her head from side to side, lifting her bound hands as if to say,I can’t, Daddy!
Bound and gagged right under my nose.
Rage dropped a veil over my vision, tinting everything with the vivid shade of blood. An unholy growl ripped out of me, the sound so menacing the woman trying to kidnap my daughter—again—looked up.
Our eyes clashed, and whatever she saw in mine rattled her so deeply that she flinched, hold slipping off the hand grips and making the quad stall.
Drew reached Andi, pulling her off the back and into his arms. Realizing she’d never get out of there with my daughter, the woman frantically restarted the four-wheeler, clearly planning to escape.
Over my cold, dead body.
The quad shot forward, and I ran at her. A mean glint flared in her eyes, and she jerked the handlebars to speed directly at me.
Everyone started yelling and waving their hands. I knew they wanted me to move.
Again I say, over my cold, dead body. Like hell I’d let this woman escape. This was ending. Today.
I started to run, essentially right into a game of chicken with a psycho on a four-wheeler. Smirking, she leaned forward, and my body readied for impact, bending slightly at the waist. It happened fast. My shoulder slammed into the handlebars as my arm shot out in a clothesline move, knocking her out of the seat.
We collided and went down, both of us rolling across the ground before skidding to a stop. Pain shot through my shoulder, and a loud crash filled the air behind me, but I ignored both because the woman scrambled up and started to run.
I tackled her into the grass, pinning her facedown.
She fought despite me being twice her size, back arching and chin jutting up toward the sky. “She’s mine!Mine!You can’t have her!”
I reached around, slapping a hand over her mouth, and she bit down on my finger with a wild grunt. I felt my skin tear, and I cursed beneath my breath but refused to let go. Her words were poison, and I’d bleed to keep them from my kids’ ears.
Her screams and bucking continued, and for a moment, I truly wondered if maybe she was mentally ill. But then I heard my daughter crying, and any compassion I might have had went up in smoke.
Jamming my knee between her shoulder blades, I braced my hand beside her head and leaned down. “This is over. You willneverget near my kids again.”
13
