Page 97 of Burn With Me

“I will dispatch an officer to come to speak to you. They should arrive in approximately thirty minutes.”

“Thirty minutes?” I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it in disbelief. “She could be anywhere by then. I need to speak to someone now.”

“That is the closest officer, Mr. West,” the operator said.

All I wanted was to lose my shit on them and swear every word I could think of, but I managed to pull myself together. The police thinking I was the one losing it was not a good start.

“Fine, I understand.” I quickly relayed the location and hung up the phone only to begin pacing the backyard. My eyes found Monica.

“How did Violet seem to you?”

Monica shrugged. “She seemed fine. She offered to help me cook and then said she was going to take a nap. I haven’t seen her since.”

“And you didn’t see anything or hear anything suspicious?” I asked, glaring at her.

“No, I had Christmas music on and was in the cooking zone. A bomb could’ve gone off, and I wouldn’t have heard it.”

“Shit.”

My mom walked toward me and tentatively reached for my shoulder like I was some wild animal she was trying to console.

“Asher, sweetie, you need to take a breath. I know you’re scared, but….”

“I’m not scared.” I squeezed my phone tighter. “I’m angry. If someone has hurt her, I’m going to kill them.”

I marched away from my mom and ran back into the cabin to look for any other clues. Realizing I was still in my boating clothes, I stripped out of my swim shorts and pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. I was just putting on my sneakers when my phone dinged.

Grabbing it, I saw a text from Vi and sighed. When I opened it, there was an image of her tied up and gagged on the floor of a vehicle. Her eyes weren’t open, and she had a mark around her neck.

Thump, thump, thump.

My heart pounded hard as my blood pressure rose. I couldn’t stop staring at the image that confirmed my fear to be true. There had been a small piece of me holding out hope that she would wander down the driveway after a nice walk and wonder what all the fuss was over.

My eyes drifted down to the message that accompanied the image. I read the message a half dozen times.

No police or I’ll burn her alive and send you the video.

Meet me where the baby rabbits used to play.

We have unfinished business.

What the fuck? What kind of message was this? My mind raced as I tried to figure out what the person could mean by baby rabbits.

“Derek, come quick. You have to see the baby bunnies,” I yelled out the barn door.

“It’s just rabbits,” he called back, putting the wheelbarrow down and walking toward me.

“I know, but they are so tiny, just little balls of fur.” We’d never been allowed a pet, but here at the Giltberts, we had more animals than I could even keep up with. Dogs, cats, chickens, cows, rabbits, and goats always ran around and needed tending to.

Derek walked over to where I was standing and stared at the pen of grey balls that could’ve passed for the furballs that popped off Gizmo when he got wet. Derek lifted a brow as he looked in the pen. If you didn’t know him, you would’ve said he was unimpressed, but the little curl of his lip and the look in his eye told me he thought they were just as cute as I did.

“Now we will have a bunch of baby rabbits to play with,” I said.

“Great, well, you better pick one out you want to keep and then hide it before Mr. Giltberts decides to eat them all for dinner.”

“Shut up, man,” I said as Derek laughed.

“Holy shit, it can’t be,” I said, but even as my mind was telling me it was impossible, I grabbed the keys to my truck and ran for the door.