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I took the porch steps two at a time and tried to get to Axe, but he wasn’t having it.
The moment I got close enough to touch, he jumped away again.
“Fuck!” I cried. “What is it, boy?”
Axe whoofed and started to run, obviously wanting me to follow him.
I cursed and started to reach for my keys just inside the door, but Axe was gone in between one blink and the next.
“Son of a bitch,” I said as I started down the length of my driveway toward him.
That’s when Smoke took off, too.
“Son of a bitch!” Saint grumbled as he hurried after the two dogs, echoing my own statement.
I wasn’t far behind, a sick sort of sense starting to penetrate my brain.
I pulled out my phone and called 911, wondering why in the hell I was running down the road when I should’ve been walking through the woods to get where I knew I was being led to.
But Axe hadn’t been taken that way ever. Only Bobo. So he wouldn’t know the way.
He’d only smell the way that the ladies always took to get to the duplexes.
“Fuck,” I hissed as my call didn’t connect. “Your cell phone connecting?”
The dogs were so far ahead of us now that I could only see a goddamn dust trail where they’d once been.
“No,” Saint grumbled. “We’ve been having shit service lately because they’re changing the cell tower over.”
I remembered hearing something about that but hadn’t given it much thought seeing as I didn’t get on my phone much.
I was noticing it now, though.
And at the worst time possible.
The roar of a car passing by had me flipping them off, only to realize when we were halfway to the car that’d pulled over to stop that it was my grandmother roaring past us.
She stopped, and Saint and I both jumped into the back of the truck.
I pounded on the roof and she took it as her cue to go, roaring all over again toward her place.
The dogs took the turn into my driveway a bit later, and just as we breached the entrance to the drive, Grans came to a sudden halt.
It was only when we saw Sierra’s rental car that I realized why.
It was slowly creeping our way.
“Follow Smoke,” I suggested as we jumped out of the car.
Axe had stopped just behind Sierra’s rental car, barking at me frantically.
Smoke, on the other hand, had run into the woods.
Saint jumped one way, and I jumped the other, both of us meeting at the front of the still slowly rolling car that was making its way down the driveway.
I reached in and put the car in park just as Saint shouted at me.
Frowning, I got out and walked backward toward the car only to fall to my knees in horror at what I saw.
Sierra was tied to the back bumper of her car by a yellow rope.
My yellow rope.
The one that I’d bought as a stringer for when I wanted to go fishing at the creek and keep my catch.
Saint already had his pocketknife out of his pocket before I could even process what I was seeing.
“Fuck!” Grans cried.
“Go back to my truck and use the radio to call this in,” I ordered. “Say officer down. They’ll get here faster.”
Sierra might not be an officer. But she was the daughter of one. She was the sister of one. She was the soon-to-be-wife of one.
They would come.
And none of them would care that she wasn’t an officer.
“Baby,” I said as I frantically searched for a place to touch her that wasn’t hurt. There were no places. I chose to cup her cheeks, not pressing too hard. “Baby. Sierra. Can you hear me?”
“Don’t let me go,” she whispered through her cracked and bleeding lips. “Don’t let me go.”
I would never. Not ever. Let her go.
“I won’t, honey. I won’t,” I promised.
I could hear police sirens in the distance.
“Do you need me to do anything?” Grans asked.
I looked up to find Saint gone, likely following his dog. His dog who, hopefully, found whoever was responsible for this.
“If you see Sammy or Miller, keep them away,” I ordered. “Don’t let them see her like this. Or, if they don’t listen to you, tell them what happened. Explain. Don’t let them walk in blind.”
Not like I did.
Goddamn, seeing her being dragged behind her car would forever be ingrained in my head.
I was going to be sick.
Not now. But later. When I knew that she was okay.
“Should I try to get the rope off?” Grans asked as the sirens got closer.
I looked at the rope and immediately shook my head. “No. Not yet.”
The rope was embedded in her skin. I wasn’t sure what the protocol would be in getting it off, but it wouldn’t be something that could easily just be taken off just yet. At least, I didn’t think it would be.
