Youthful excitement filled Jeff’s young eyes. “It was like something out of a movie!”
Derek turned and walked a few steps away. With his hands in fists at his side, he closed his eyes and forced more air to move in and out of his lungs.
The scene the boys just described left him shaking. Worried he’d lash out at the kids, Derek took a minute to compose himself.
Thankfully, York kept them talking.
“What did the woman look like?” she asked calmly.
“It was hard to get a good look,” Ronald began. “When she hit the ground, she screamed like she hurt herself. I’m guessing she probably did, taking a dive out of a moving car like that.”
Derek stormed back. “Tell us exactly what you saw.”
With a trembling voice, Ronald nodded. “O-okay. Um...she had brown hair. Sort of longer.” He licked his lips nervously. “And she had on jeans and a long-sleeved, white shirt.”
The other boy chimed in. “The man yelled her name. I think he said Charlotte or something like that.”
“Yeah!” Ronald nodded his head in agreement. “That’s what he said.”
“Fuck!”
Derek spun on his heels and began pacing. His jaw was clenched so tightly he thought his teeth would shatter.
The thought that Charlie had been so scared she’d jumped from a fucking moving car made him want to vomit.
“What else can you tell us?” Jake asked the boys. Derek glanced back over and listened.
“She hit the ground and screamed,” Ronald told them. “I think she may have hurt her arm because when she got up to run, she was holding it against herself like she was trying not to move it.”
Sonofabitch.Derek’s entire chest hurt, and he had to dig his fingers into his jaw to keep from hollering out.
“What happened next?” Mac asked. Derek could tell she was shaken, too.
“She got up and ran into the trees right over there.” Jeff pointed to an area they hadn’t reached yet. “We were going to go see if she needed help. Honest, we were. But then the car backed up, and the guy got out. He was yelling and running toward her. And he had a gun. I couldn’t see real well, but when the woman tripped and fell, he caught up to her. She was begging him to stop, but then she said something I couldn’t hear, and the guy lost it.”
Derek didn’t know if he could stand to hear any more. Had the man shot her? Was she dead?
He shook his head to clear his thoughts. Charlie hadn’t given up, and neither would he.
“What do you mean he lost it?” Derek asked.
Jeff looked up at him with regret. “He hit her.”
Derek let out a breath. “So, he didn’t shoot her?”
“No.” Ronald shook his head. “He punched her in the face. Knocked her out cold.”
Jeff scowled. “That jerk hit her really hard. She tried to fight him off, but with a bum arm, there wasn’t much she could do.”
Derek’s blood was acid. He wanted to find the bastard and torture him slowly. Painfully. Until he was begging for death.
“Then what?” Mac asked Ronald.
“Once she was out, he picked her up and carried her back to the car. We didn’t dare move, so I couldn’t see anything more. We heard the car drive off, and we just sat there for a minute. We...we didn’t know what to do.”
“How long ago was this?”
Ronald shrugged. “Probably about an hour ago. We started to go back home, but then thought maybe we could find something. You know, like evidence. We thought maybe if we found something that could help the police find her, then....”
