We’re in the woods.I can see you.She came here.We ran.
“They’re out in the woods,” I said to Everett, the two of us heading back out the front door and around the side of the house.“Mabel?”
“Here,” she said, followed by the sound of cracking twigs and crunching leaves as she and Damon emerged from the dense wooded area behind our house.Mabel had her weighted blanket over her shoulders, and Damon had his arm around her.I could tell my daughter had either had, or been in the middle of having, an anxiety attack.Her eyes were wide, her cheeks flushed, and fear was written all over her face.She ditched the blanket and ran to me, wrapping her arms around my waist.I held her tight, burying my face in her hair.
“You’re okay?”I asked.“She didn’t see you?”
She shook her head against my chest.“No.She …”
“She had a lockpick, and she managed to get into the house, but we had already run out here,” Damon finished.“She spent a bit of time in the house, rummaging around.I’m not sure if she did anything or took anything.We’ve been out here for about five minutes.”
“Then she left?”Everett asked.“Did you see her car?Did you see anybody in it?”
Damon shook his head.“We didn’t see anybody in the car, no.She probably parked on the road and slipped through the gate.”
I pressed a kiss to the top of Mabel’s head.“You’re okay, Mabes.You’re okay.”She tightened her grip on me, and I tightened mine.One of her hands snaked up between us though and she started to gently stroke my scar.
“All units be on the lookout for a forty-three-year-old woman, red hair, driving a silver Ford Focus.She is armed and dangerous,” came the radio from Everett’s chest.“We have video surveillance of her using a taser on Naomi Geuer and loading her into her car.Ferry transportation staff have been notified.We have initiated an island-wide search for Ms.Geuer and the redheaded woman.”
“Red hair?”I asked, turning to the cop.“Kyla is blonde.”
“The video surveillance has her as a redhead,” he said.
She must have dyed it to help hide her appearance.
“Wait, she used a taser on my aunt?”Damon exclaimed.
“Wh-where did she take Naomi?”Mabel asked.
I shook my head.“I don’t know, but I need to find her.”I went to peel away from Mabel, but she clung to me like a baby koala, her finger still on my lip scar.
“Don’t go.”
Damon stepped toward us.“I’ve got you.”
She glanced at him, hesitated for a moment, then released me and went to him.
I turned to Everett.“We have to find Naomi.I don’t even knowhowKyla knew about her.”
My phone vibrated again, and this time it was a text with an attached video from Gabrielle.The footage was from not too long ago at Naomi’s house.A silver Ford Focus pulled onto the property and headed toward Naomi’s cabin.Then the next link was to the camera at her front door where … ice filled my veins as I watched Kyla get out of the Focus.Naomi opened the door and a moment later fell like a toppled tree.What happened after that was even more difficult to watch.With absolutely no care for her body or head at all, Kyla dragged Naomi toward the rear of her sedan, popped the trunk, and tossed her inside.
“Dad?”Mabel said, her arms around Damon, her cheek to his chest, and voice really small.“You should look at the video surveillance of our house.”
She was right.
Even though I wanted to be searching for Naomi with the rest of the island, nobody here knew Kyla better than I did, even if I’d done everything in my pre-teen power tonotlearn anything about her.
I found the footage of her coming to the house.Since we’d built the gate, she had to park on the outside of it, then slip through a thin space by one of the posts.Then we saw her picking the lock and entering.We didn’t have cameras in the house, and I wasn’t ready to go inside and see what she’d done or taken.
Was this her first time here?If she’d been on the island since this afternoon, maybe she came by the house earlier when nobody was home.I went back further in the day to when Naomi and I met up for our little lunch hour rendezvous.
I skipped past the part where our bodies crashed together in the driveway and I backed her up to the door.The kids didn’t need to see that.
While we were inside, the driveway remained empty, except for a bird or a butterfly.
Then there was movement.
Not a car, but a person, walking down the gravel toward the house.
