Haze was already grappling for the gun in the footwell. She leaned out of the door and fired two shots at the other man, who was still running toward us.
He dove to the ground.
We screeched down Balgray’s driveway and toward the highway.
Minivans were not designed to drive at speed.
I was struggling not to slam my foot down on the accelerator, to slam it down until it could go no further, until the doors rattled, until we were back home, back to Reggie, back to Bibi’s empty bed.
I gripped the steering wheel and tried to keep my speed to eighty miles per hour. We couldn’t afford to be stopped. We couldn’t afford to die in a fiery crash. We needed to get our daughter back, and we needed to wreak vengeance on those who had dared to take her.
Chapter Sixty-One
Haze
Fox rang Jenny on loudspeaker.I didn’t know how he was able to drive. It was taking everything I had to not scream, and keep screaming until my daughter was back in my arms.
“We’re both here now, Jen.” Fox kept his eyes on the road.
“I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. I should—”
Fox cut her off. “Jenny, stop. You know who we’re dealing with. If he decided he wanted Bibi, he was going to get her, no matter what.”
If Jenny had happened to come across him taking her, he was a professional. He would’ve left with Bibi regardless; Jenny wouldn’t have stood a chance.
“Tell us again what happened.”
Jenny’s voice was low but steady. She’d cried it all out too. The steely focus was back. “I last checked on Bibi an hour ago. She was in her bed, asleep. I went down to the kitchen. I was on my laptop at the kitchen table. A dog started barking, then howling. Loudly. I thought maybe there was an injured dog in the garden. The sound was so loud. I went to the back door and looked out. There was nothing there. I then—”
“That’s when he would’ve exited through the front door with her.”
“Agreed. I’ve already checked and the Ring doorbell is disconnected. No footage can be recovered.”
Fox and I looked at each other. A well-organized kidnapping plan.
“I wasn’t sure she hadn’t just decided to get up and go find you, or to give me a scare with a game of hide-and-seek. But then I found a Bluetooth speaker hidden in the garden. There was no injured dog—just a recording of one. If I was looking out of the back door, he knew I’d have my back to the front door.”
I turned the scene over in my head. Something didn’t make sense. And then it hit me.
“Sausage! She didn’t bark at the sound of the dog?”
“No.” Jenny paused. “She’s been asleep all evening.” Our minds went to the same place, and before I could ask, Jenny cut in. “I’m holding her now. She’s very floppy and tired, but she’s fine.”
There was no doubt Sausage would’ve heard or smelled a stranger in the house. The kidnapper had drugged her.
He had taken my child and fucked with my dog.
There weren’t enough superlatives to describe the level of pain I was going to put him through.
I got out my phone and tried to get my fingers to stop shaking enough to tap out a message.
What the fuck have you done? Why have you taken her? What do you want?
A ping came back immediately: undeliverable. He’d blocked me. He’d taken what he wanted, and he’d blocked me.
All the texting to make me feel we were building a rapport.
All bullshit.
