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He snapped immediately into cop mode. With his gun in hand, he carefully scanned the large room, looking for anything out of place.
Sitting area was clear.
The dining area was clear.
His heart all but stopped as he visually searched the kitchen. There was a plate with an untouched cupcake sitting next to a mug. The door to the laundry room was open. A body lay on the floor.
A blonde-haired body.
Barely able to breathe, he ran to it. It was facedown. Grasping a shoulder, he rolled the body over.
Simultaneously, he was both relieved and terrified.
It was Naomi. If she was lying unconscious in the kitchen, then that didn’t bode well for Clara. Jonathon suspected that Naomi would gladly give her life without a second thought if it meant protecting her sister.
His hand that had grasped Naomi’s left shoulder was covered in blood from a deep wound. Blood also streaked her face from a nasty looking cut just under the hairline on her right temple.
He confirmed she was alive by pressing his fingertips to her throat, where he felt her pulse fluttering. Yanking out his phone, he called for backup and an ambulance.
Torn, he wanted to go and check the rest of the house for Clara, and yet at the same time he had to do something to try and staunch the flow of blood, or he was afraid Naomi was going to bleed to death.
Gun still in hand, he darted into the laundry room. After confirming it was empty, he grabbed a couple of towels and returned to Naomi’s side. Jonathon knelt beside her and pressed one of the towels to her shoulder.
A small moan escaped from Naomi’s lips.
“Naomi?” he whispered urgently, keeping his voice quiet in case anyone was still here. “It’s Jonathon, can you hear me?”
“Mmm,” she groaned.
“Naomi, open your eyes,” he instructed.
Her eyelashes fluttered on her pale cheeks and then her eyes struggled open, unfocused as they looked up at him.
“Naomi, I have to go check the rest of the house, and you're bleeding pretty badly, so I need you to try and keep pressure on your wound until I get back to you.” He spoke slowly; she had a head injury, so she might be struggling to understand him. Taking her right hand, he lifted it and pushed it down on the towel. As soon as he released it, her hand slid limply down her body. “Come on, Naomi,” he urged.
Blinking as though trying to get her eyes to focus, she whispered, “Jonathon?”
He let out a relieved breath, “Yes.”
“Wh . . . what happened?” her voice was faint, blood loss already affecting her.
“You were stabbed; just keep pressure on this for a moment,” he tossed aside the old towel, now saturated with blood, got a fresh one and returned her hand to her shoulder. “You got it?”
“Yeah.”
“Good girl, I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he assured her.
Jonathon didn’t like the idea of leaving Naomi alone and injured, but he didn’t have a choice—Clara could be here, also injured. Or worse. He dared not think the word in case that would somehow make it happen. Clara was not dead. None of the other options were much better. She was either injured enough that she hadn’t heard him downstairs or had been unable to get to him. Or she wasn't here.
That the Doll Killers—for there was no doubt in his mind they were who had been in her house tonight—had taken her was a genuine possibility. It was also a terrifying possibility.
Upstairs, everything was quiet.
He checked Clara’s room first, then the spare bedroom, then the bathroom.
There was no sign of Clara. No signs of a struggle up here either. The beds were mussed from the girls’ sleep, but nothing else in any of the rooms was out of place. There was no blood, either. Which meant that all the action had taken place downstairs.
Clara was gone.
