AllFreeNovel
Share Us
8
Porsche’s heart ached for the little girl. There wasn’t much in the way of talking, but she was comfortable enough to shower in the strange place. Passing the bottle of shampoo past the curtain to her when she couldn’t figure out the cap started a bit of a conversation. A brief mention of being used to having someone in the room when she took baths hit Porsche hard. They spoke a bit about how to wash, top to bottom. No one area needing more attention unless she’d been in a mud puddle.
Every inch of her skin rose during that discussion as Porsche had to wipe tears imagining the extra attention being placed on areas with the little girl. She’d had that issue as a grown up, thankfully, not as a grade schooler, but it made her want to step out only to have Sydney ask her to stay. This child was reverting back to when she couldn’t wash herself. As if the few years in between when she was allowed to take a bath herself were gone.
“Do you think Hack and Ms. Preacher are gonna be mad at me?” the meek voice asked from the other side of the curtain.
“I can’t see any reason they would be,” Porsche said.
“But the bed,” she said.
“Probably had a mattress cover and even if it didn’t accidents happen,” she assured. “No worse than spilling a soda.”
“I used to not,” she said. “But then I started to again. I think I shouldn’t have drank so much at dinner.”
That wasn’t the reason, not by a long shot and Porsche knew it. Kids didn’t get over wetting the bed only to start up again without a trauma. It was a response to a change, a drastic one and the only glimmer of hope that Mike wasn’t the cause was the way the child clung to him once she knew he was the one in her room, not the monster from her dream.
By the time Sydney had gotten dressed again for bed Porsche combed out the snarls and braided her hair. Yawns replaced tears and Mike had remade the bed as Preacher Girl rocked Matthew in his nursery. The little girl, tucked back in and settled down in the bed as her eyes heavy lidded closed and Porsche stepped out into the hallway to see Mike sitting, bent kneed, with his back to the wall.
“Your phone went off again,” he said, resignation caught in his throat.
“Tends to be every thirty minutes when they start running an AMBER ALERT,” she warned, her belly turning wishing he would give up the ghost and tell her why. What happened, how and why. “We help people that need help.”
His jaw tightened as he glared at her from the floor.
“Bend over backward and sideways,” she said. “If we believe you’re on the side of right. You have a story and so does she.”
“Don’t,” he warned, the growl coming from deep in his throat and Hack’s words slammed along her spine. He didn’t believe he would lay a hand on a woman, but his child is involved.
Holding her hands up in surrender she backed away. Snagging her items she paused, the moment had come in the movie where Cary Grant walked past Deborah Kerr as she sat in the theater. The two still trapped in the game of hide the secret for fear of hurting the other. Glancing over her shoulder she could see the pain and hurt in Mike’s eyes from the weight of what he was carrying. The burden one he took on for his daughter, to keep her safe. Somewhere in her heart she knew this was the truth even if her mind tried to call her a liar. Challenging her into believing something harshly different. At this point she needed muscle, the kind you didn’t find in a friend wanting to protect you.
She’d known Red for close to a decade now. Met him in New Mexico and was happy to answer the call when Dell asked some Hoez to move north where Red was forming a new charter. Whatever Mike’s reason for taking Sydney, it was for her own good, but an AMBER ALERT wasn’t something to take lightly, questions would come and if he ran it would only make everything worse because it would trigger the Steels into action.
When they were in the serving line Red had come by to let Roadkill know he had work to finish up at the clinic and would be home whenever he could get it done. While it was late, she needed to take a chance and see if he was still at the clinic. Someone was always there, not necessarily a trained professional, but with at least first aid training and the ability to call in a doc or nurse.
Arriving downtown, music escaped the Roadhouse bar across from the small clinic. Red must have taken advantage of the cool, but clear spring night since his Harley was parked on the clinic side of the street, but that meant little beyond the fact he was in fact downtown. Knocking at the door Porsche shivered waiting and hoping it would be him that answered.
A small light flicked on from the hallway as Red shook his head when he approached the door, frowning, “Porsche, Roadkill told me you were out of meds, but I ain’t gonna override Becks.”
“I saw Doc this afternoon,” she said pulling the nearly full prescription bottle from her purse and shaking it. “Even took my dose before dinner like a fully compliant patient.”
“It new? You having side effects?”
“It is and no, I’m not even sure it’s really in my system yet.” Part of her couldn’t help feeling a bit warm at the worry both Red and Roadkill had for her. “I’m sorry for disturbing you, Red, I need to talk to you, it’s very important.”
“Well don’t stand out there freezing come in.” Red led the way into the cramped office. The desk was loaded with stacks of files, each with a different colored sticky note she assumed was from Lil’ Mama telling him to fix part of the chart. “Sit down.”
As if on cue, the AMBER ALERT blared from her phone as his buzzed wildly on the desktop. This wasn’t going to stop unless Hack found a way to shut it down, at least in our area, but that wouldn’t stop it from spreading across the rest of the county.
“It’s that little girl Sydney,” Porsche said holding up her phone as she silenced the tone and set it back on her lap. Red instantly picked up his own and to read the scrawl lighting up his phone. “Hack’s friend Mike’s little girl. He took her, but isn’t talking. All I know is she’s scared of something and it’s not her dad.”
“What can you tell me?”
Porsche didn’t know much but she couldn’t help the suspicion eating away at her belly telling her it was bad. “You see the alert and we’ve learned to spot the signs.”
“There was a body found in her house,” Red said and set his phone down.
“I was over there with Mike. I didn’t ask him about this because Hack told… more warned me not to.”
