“Would she go for a walk without her phone?”
He shakes his head. “Nah, I’ve never seen her more than two feet away from that thing.”
The hair on the back of my neck prickles. “Is the doorbell video saved anywhere?”
Abe catches on to my concern and snaps to attention. “I’ve got an app on my phone.” He retreats inside his bedroom and returns, his fingers fumbling over the screen. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep a curse inside.
The phone rings right as he accesses the video, and as the image of Cole’s father appears on Abe’s phone, I hear the old man’s voice on the other end of mine.
“I’ve got your girl,” he rasps. “Gonna send you a photo. Come to my address or it’ll be the last image you’ll see of her.”
He hangs up before I can respond. The text alert pings immediately. I grip the metal so tightly I can hear it crack. Josie sits on a metal folding chair, her legs tied to the base and her hands wrapped behind her back. There’s a white cloth in her mouth. I close my eyes and beat the rage back. The floor is dirt, and there’s straw around her feet.
“There’s a couple outbuildings on Cole’s father’s property. He’s probably holding her there.”
“How far away from the main house?” Abe’s on the move. He kneels down next to his bed and pulls a long arm out. “I got a handgun, too. Which one do you want to use?”
“Neither. I’m a fists guy myself.”
Abe gives me a skeptical look.
I shrug. “When you’re carrying a weapon, every criminal act is bumped up to a felony.”
Abe lets out a choked laugh. “Take this then. You point and shoot. Can’t miss with a shotgun. It won’t kill them either if you’re worried about that. Would’ve thought a gang member was handy with a gun.”
“I can hold my own,” I promise, but I take the shotgun and head out the door. Abe is right behind me. He veers over to the cab of his truck and climbs up on the passenger side. A few moments later, he joins me with a Glock tucked into his hand.
I drive, and he holds the shotgun between his legs with the Glock resting on the dashboard.
“I’ll drop you off a little before the drive. You okay to go through the brush?”
He nods grimly. We don’t talk after that. There’s nothing to say. We’re going to save Josie. End of story. After Abe climbs out, I toss the shotgun in the back seat and roll down the window. I am more of a fist guy, but I’ll use whatever tools I have.
I stop the truck right before the porch. Cole’s dad stands in the middle of it, a shotgun resting in his arms, the index finger of his right hand tucked against the trigger. Of course he’s armed. It hits me as I approach the stairs that this man probably killed his son. I don’t know why, but he must have, and that’s why he came for Josie.
I raise my hands up so he can see I don’t have a gun. “I’m here.”
“Walk on that dirt path.” He points the gun’s barrel toward a well-worn trail that circles around the side of the house and toward one of the outbuildings. “I’m sick as hell to do this to you, but you brought it on yourself. Don’t try anything funny. I’ve got the whole barn wired. Your girl and Cole’s friends will be nothing more than cow mulch if you so much as sneeze wrong.”
Cole’s friends.His dad must be behind the disappearance of the other guys. I start walking. “Why’d you kill him?”
We both know I’m talking about Cole.
“Didn’t mean to. Told him to stop struggling, but he wouldn’t listen. I needed to get the devil out of him.” The man sucks in a shaky breath.
“The gambling devil?” I take a guess.
“That’s right. How’d you know?”
“Rumor was that he was throwing games and taking money for it.”
“The coach figured some stuff out and was going to report Cole to the police. I couldn’t have that, so I pulled the fire alarm and snuck in and stole the report. Blamed it on the other players because they should have stopped him.”
“Why’d you take Cole’s friends?”
“They were all in on the devil’s game. I’m saving them. Cole’s death served as a blessing. They’re all reading the Bible now. They’ll soon come to see the light, and then I can let them go, but that little reporter girl was causing problems. The police were out here asking me all kinds of things. Wanted to search the property. They didn’t find nothing because they don’t know where to look, but I knew they’d be back.”
“Too many missing people is going to cause more questions, don’t you think?”
