Had he even seen my texts?
“Hello?” the voice asked.
I cleared my throat. “Yes, I need to report a burglary in progress.”
I heard typing on the other end of the line. “What’s your name, ma’am?”
I got out of the car and started looking around. “Naomi Ryland. I’m at my father’s house. His front door is wide open and there are--.”
“Slow down and breathe for me. Is anyone hurt?”
I darted toward the right side of the building and picked up a shovel off the ground. “I don’t know, but if you don’t get here before I get inside, someone will be.”
“Ma’am, if there’s a burglary in progress like you say, then it’s best for you to stay put. I need an address. Do you know where you are?”
I rattled off my father’s address as I rested the shovel on my shoulder. “I heard at least two other voices in there with my father, if not three.”
“Ma’am, for your safety I need you to--.”
“And what about my father’s safety?” I hissed into the phone as I stood at the back door of my childhood home.
“I have dispatchers en route. They’re ten minutes out. If you could just--.”
“Thank you,” I whispered before I hung up the call.
Then, I slowly reached for the doorknob and jiggled it to see if it was open.
When the door popped loose, I winced. Shit, had someone heard that? My heart leapt into my throat as I looked back down at my phone, wondering if I should call Gordon instead of text. He was always so good at answering my texts, though. I opened them up and saw that he hadn’t even read them, and I knew I was on my own.
At least, for the next ten minutes.
“Fine,” I murmured as I rolled my shoulders back, “I’ll do this myself.”
I tucked my cell phone into my back pocket before taking my first step into the unknown. I didn’t hear a soul, and the fear that coursed through my veins ran thicker than the blood that pumped my heart furiously in my throat. I ran through all of the techniques Gordon had taught me in order to keep me safe. I had grabbed a weapon, check. I cleared my corners, check. I stopped and listened for any sound that may be echoing across the room to try and identify the obstacles before me, check.
It was hard to resist the urge to call out for my father, though.
Nothing looks out of place.
I had been with Gordon long enough to know what it was that police officers looked for at a crime scene. If someone had been taken, then usually many things were disturbed. Curtains pulled from their perched positions. A table, knocked over. Possibly a glass that was broken in the fight. I heard my father struggling. He had been fighting against someone, even in his frail state. Yet, there was no evidence of a fight.
Save for the front door being open, nothing was broken. Nothing was turned over. Nothing even looked like it had been stolen, including my father’s wallet that he kept in a bowl on a small table right next to the front door, so he’d never forget his I.D. before leaving the house.
“Dad?” I called out against my better judgement as the shovel slid to the floor. “Are you here?”
The cardinal sin. I had given away my position. Even I heard Gordon’s chastising voice in my head as something warm and tight wrapped around my throat. I gasped for air in order to cry out. In order to scream as much as I could in the hopes of alerting my father’s neighbors that lived at least a mile down the road. But, just as I girded my stomach to pump the sound through my throat and up my mouth, a hand clapped around my lips.
Silencing my voice in an instant.
“No!” my muffled screams released.
I felt someone picking me up off my feet and I kicked my legs in the air, trying to throw them off balance. Adrenaline rushed through my system, sharpening my ears and harnessing my muscles. I bucked back, trying to get my feet back down to the ground so I could heave that motherfucker right over my back.
But as I tried to break free, a set of lips pressed against the shell of my ear.
“The more you struggle, the slower he’ll die.”
Where the fuck are they!?
