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Could this be it?
Could this be where Jay Turner was holed up with his wife, daughter, and Hayley?
Brian prayed that it was.
* * * * *
1:52 A.M.
Hayley wished he would just come back and do it already.
Sitting here waiting had to be worse than whatever Jay Turner had planned for her.
Right?
Only Hayley wasn't so sure she was right.
He’d beaten her in the back of the truck while Maria went to kidnap Kinsley, but since they’d arrived at this house, he hadn't come back to see her, just dumped her in a room with Kinsley, locked the door, and left.
Hayley suspected she knew what he was doing.
Jay was with Maria.
No doubt beating her.
For some reason she couldn’t fathom, Maria liked being beaten basically into unconsciousness by her husband. Whatever psychological problems Maria had didn't excuse her behavior. She had been complicit in the abuse her daughters had suffered. She had been complicit in Leah’s death—for all she knew Maria had been an active participant as well. She had been complicit in the plan to lure her out of the safehouse. Plus, she had abducted her own daughter.
Maria was just as guilty as her husband, and she would make sure that neither of them ever got Kinsley back. Well, she would if she could. But right now, she was Jay and Maria’s prisoner, and they already had Kinsley. Once they killed her, they would flee with their daughter, and there would be nothing she could do about it.
“Hayley?” Kinsley said, wriggling so she was looking up at her.
The two of them were sitting on the floor of a bedroom in someone’s house—not the Turner house but wherever Jay had been hiding out—one of her wrists was tied with rope to the metal frame of the bed, and her other arm was curled around Kinsley, holding the child close. “Yeah, honey?”
“I’m scared.”
“I know, sweetie, so am I. Do you still have Brownie?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Then you just hold him really tight, okay?”
“Okay.”
She would do whatever she could to try to keep the child safe, but right now she didn't really like her chances. She’d hit her head in the car crash when Jay and Maria had rammed their car with a truck. She still had a headache, and the world was still a little blurry, so she was pretty sure she had a concussion. She had bumps and bruises over most of her body, both from the crash and from Jay punching and kicking her while they waited for Maria to kidnap Kinsley.
Hayley knew he had only unleashed a tiny fraction of his rage toward her.
There was a lot more to come.
Maybe it was a good thing that he hadn't come back into the room yet.
Especially since Maria seemed to enjoy what her husband was doing to her. If she liked it, she could have it, the longer Jay left her alone the more time it gave Brian, Adam, and Jessica to find her.
Finding a way to escape wasn't an option. Even if she wasn't restrained, Hayley wasn't sure she would have the strength to search the room for a weapon or try to break the window and climb out. They were on the second floor, and she wouldn’t have been able to coordinate herself well enough to climb down, and she’d have to get Kinsley down as well. The only option would be to jump, which would only cause her more injuries, and it wasn't like she could throw a five-year-old out the window, nor could she leave her behind.
So, for now, they were stuck here, waiting, and to try to calm her nerves she may as well try to focus on something else.
“Kinsley, the night that Leah died, in your picture Leah was on the ground, your daddy was on the roof, you were in your bedroom, looking out the window. Where was your mommy?”
