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He cleared his throat. “I made them send me a picture of her.”
I pressed my forehead into the seat, and the belt buckle of the seatbelt that should be wrapped around my body holding me in dug into my face.
“Are you sure that she was alive?” I asked. “Are you sure that it was her?”
Because Cannel had been gone for a while. I’d learned through my work that they normally got the abductees out of the area fast. Just in case someone was looking for them, they wanted to make sure that wherever they were holding them that the girl wasn’t seen.
Toot didn’t say anything for a long time, and I yanked on my restraints, hoping and praying that they would come free.
They didn’t.
I continued to struggle until we pulled onto a very bumpy road.
“Please, Toot,” I begged. “Don’t do this. This is not the way. I’ve been working hard on that case. I’ll get her back.”
Toot tensed. “You won’t. You’ve had a while now, Beckham. Your chance is up. It’s my turn now.”
I wanted to cry. To scream. To rail at him.
I knew that it wouldn’t help.
He finally came to a stop and there was a bunch of yelling.
Then the back door was yanked open and I was dragged out by my feet.
My head hit the base of the car door, and I saw stars.
When I next came to it was to hear arguing.
“…give her to me!” Toot bellowed.
“Get out of here, man,” I heard another male say. “She hasn’t been here in weeks. That photo was of the day we took her. It’s not my fault that you’re a complete dumbass and didn’t recognize that she was wearing the same shit she was abducted in.”
“Then I’ll take her back,” Toot ordered frantically.
I would’ve laughed had this situation been even remotely funny.
‘That’s not how it works, Toot!’ I wanted to shout.
Instead, I stayed silent, hoping that I was forgotten.
Spoiler alert: I wasn’t forgotten.
Not even a little bit.
“Beckham Spurlock,” I heard some random male say. “This was in her purse, do you think that it’s real?”
“It says FBI,” another murmured. “What did you bring us, Toot head?”
“She’s just a girl. She was a cop for our Halloween party.” Toot decided to lie.
He was really bad at lying.
Shit.
“It looks pretty freakin’ official,” someone denied his words. “You brought us a toy.”
“Oh, goody,” another male clapped. “Now, leave and don’t come back. We won’t be here when you come looking for us.”
“But my fiancée…” Toot said.
“She’s gone, man,” yet another male said. “Just give up. And don’t tell anyone. You’re boned now. We read up about you. Giving some girl, your buddy’s girl, to us in exchange for yours was a shitty thing to do. You wouldn’t want your friend to find out, right?”
A kick to the stomach had the breath leaving my body in a rush.
“Now get gone so we can have some fun.”
The worst feeling in the world was to hear that car start up and drive away.
• • •
Crying snapped me out of replaying anymore of that memory.
I hurried toward the room where Hiro was wide awake and smiled down at him.
I’d moved him to his own bed last night.
Not because I didn’t like him sleeping in the same room with me, but because the nightmares woke me up, which inevitably woke Hiro up.
The one person that didn’t need to worry about getting enough sleep—me—had the one perfect baby that slept through the night.
My mom said that I was lucky. That most people didn’t get that.
But I didn’t feel lucky.
I felt sick to my stomach.
All the time.
And when I woke up from my nightmares, I wanted to hold something that I knew was beautiful and pure. Sadly, each time I picked Hiro up, I woke him up, and then he was awake for the next couple of hours.
Which made me feel like shit because he would easily sleep through the night if I didn’t wake him up because I was in need of comfort.
I looked at my son and smiled.
“You ready to go see your daddy?” I asked our boy.
He gave me a chubby, gummy smile.
That smile made the tear inside my heart—the one that’d been rendered when Janie had said that Trouper didn’t want me there—again—mend just a little bit.
I didn’t care what Trouper wanted.
I didn’t care what he thought we needed.
I knew what I needed.
I had a pretty good idea what my son would need.
And that was his father.
Which happened to be why I was standing where I was standing an hour and thirty minutes after getting my phone call.
Funny enough, my child was insistent about one thing, and one thing only. Eating.
He ate like a damn horse, which meant I was breastfeeding him when Trouper exited the tunnel.
Tears hit my eyes, and I straightened up and moved away from Trouper’s car.
