Maddox rolled his shoulders, muscles bunching beneath his shirt. “Gladly,” he muttered gravelly.
I turned and walked away before I could hear Jesse start to beg. Before I could hear the first crack of bone against flesh. Because if I stayed, I’d want to be the one breaking him apart piece by piece, and I had bigger things to worry about than Rusty’s cowardly son.
Kaylor.
Her name carved itself deeper into my chest. We were burningdaylight, and every second she remained missing felt like barbed wire wrapped around my ribs, tightening until I could barely fill my lungs. I needed a goddamn lead that didn’t end in blood and silence.
Which meant we needed Kenny.
She was our best chance, maybe our only chance. She’d been inside, trapped in the same hell that had swallowed Kaylor. Nearly lost, like who knew how many others.
She might not even realize what she’d seen, but there could be details buried in the trauma. Anything that could help us find the girl who’d saved her life.
I headed toward the car as gloomy clouds gathered overhead in the sky. Raine materialized beside me, sliding into the passenger seat.
“She’s gonna be a tough one to get to,” he said as I turned the ignition, engine growling to life beneath the hood. “Cops have been crawling around her house since she returned. She’s front-page news, the first missing girl to come back and verify what the police didn’t want to believe. Not exactly someone we can knock on the door and borrow.”
My hands tightened around the steering wheel. “Then we won’t knock.”
A grin spread across his face. “Love it when you go full felon.”
Kenny’s place sat at the end of a quiet residential cul-de-sac, just a house away from Carson’s and Kaylor’s. Mature oak trees created a canopy overhead, their bare branches rustling in the cold air. Despite the dark clouds rolling in from the west, the chill of winter still clung to everything, but spring was around the corner.
A patrol cruiser idled at the curb, its engine maintaining a low, steady rumble. Exhaust fumes gathered behind the car, and I could see the officer’s silhouette through the window, head tilted back against the headrest, probably half-asleep from boredom.
One cop. That’s all they posted?
Good for me, not so much for Kenny’s safety. If I could get to her, what was stopping Rusty from grabbing her again?
I circled the block once, my eyes cataloging every detail. Thespace between houses. The high privacy fence that enclosed her backyard. The motion-sensor lights mounted under the eaves.
Raine peered through the windshield, his fingers drumming against the dashboard. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“You distract the cop while I sneak inside,” I said, pulling over two blocks away and killing the engine. “Don’t be subtle.”
Raine’s smirk widened. “Subtle is not really my thing.”
I waited until Raine rounded the corner and approached the front gate, his voice already carrying down the street, loud and just the right kind of annoying that would demand attention. He stumbled around, pretending to be drunk, snagging the cop’s attention. The officer stepped out of his cruiser, and Raine maneuvered his position so he blocked the cop’s view of the house, allowing me to sneak in.
I slipped out of my hiding spot and disappeared into the shadows between houses. Breaking and entering wasn’t new territory for me. I’d learned these skills young when survival meant taking what you needed from whoever had it.
The privacy fence stood about six feet high, but I’d scaled worse. I grabbed the top rail and hauled myself over in one fluid motion, landing in a crouch on the other side. The grass crunched beneath my boots, but most of the snow had melted over the last twenty-four hours.
Kenny’s house rose before me, a two-story with white siding and blue shutters. Most of the windows were dark, but warm light spilled from what I guessed was a bedroom on the second floor. I traipsed across the lawn, keeping low and using the landscaping for cover, to the back window on the ground level. My fingers found the window frame and applied gentle pressure. It was locked, go figure, so I moved on to the next and the next. The third lifted to my surprise. Someone was going to need to give her parents an education about security. Never leave a window unlocked. Period.
The wood gave way, opening wide enough for me to slip through. I hoisted myself up and through the opening, landing on carpet soplush it nearly swallowed my boots whole. The room smelled of vanilla candles and clean laundry with an underlying sweetness.
It was late enough that hopefully her parents were asleep. I made my way straight for the stairs. Light spilled out from the slightly ajar door when I reached the second floor, and I was banking it was Kenny’s bedroom. Careful not to scare her, I peeked inside. Only a fool burst into a room without taking a beat to check for potential threats.
Soft pink walls surrounded me, a light and floral perfume lingering in the air. A narrow bed dominated one wall, its white comforter half tossed aside with Kenny sitting in the middle. She glanced up at my entrance, wide brown eyes staring at me from a face gone paper white. My intention wasn’t to scare her to death, but I couldn’t think of her feelings right now.
Her mouth opened to scream, but I reached the bed before she could really let loose, my hand smothering her cry of alarm. “I’m not here to hurt you. You know who I am, don’t you?”
“What the?—?”
Shit. She wasn’t alone. My head whirled at the deep voice.
Of course, fucking Carson was here.
