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Trying not to make a sound, he stood up next to her. She pulled her gun. Alex grabbed her arm and made her look at him, shaking his head. She jerked away, moving toward a rickety ladder that leaned against the opening to the loft. The sound had stopped.
Alex halted at the ladder, his hand on Deborah’s shoulder. He shook his head again. “Wait,” he mouthed the word without making a sound.
She shrugged and stopped. No sound, but bits of hay floated down from the opening, landing in her hair. He reached a hand out to brush them away and then stopped. She had a gun in her hand, after all.
Deborah put one foot on the lowest rung, a hand in the middle, and took a step up. The ladder creaked, the noise loud in the silence.
A blast lit up the dark.
Chapter Thirty-six
Alex threw himself toward Deborah. He forced her off the ladder. They smashed to the rock-hard barn floor. She rolled away from him, her Glock still in her hand. He rolled with her, trying to give her cover.
“Get off me.” She meant to whisper, he was sure of it, but the words came out in a scream.
He scrambled to his feet and grabbed her arm to pull her up. She needed to forget being afraid of men and be afraid of getting shot. “Get away from the opening!”
Deborah shrugged away from him. She crouched behind the ladder where she couldn’t be seen from above. “Benny, is that you?”
Benny? With a gun? Alex shook his head at her. She nodded hard and whispered, “Ray said they didn’t find a gun at the accident scene. He thought that was odd. Maybe Benny took it and ran. Get Daniel on your cell. Get him over here.”
She turned her focus back to the loft. “Benny, please answer me. I just need to know if it’s you. It’s me, Deborah. I’m a friend of Daniel’s. We met at the wedding. He told me to come look for you, find you.”
A shot answered. This one smashed into the wheelbarrow. The ricochet made a pinging sound that forced Alex to the ground, Deborah next to him.
“If it’s Benny, why is he shooting? He’s got to recognize your voice.” Alex tried to keep his voice a whisper, but a kid shooting at him didn’t sit well.
“The kidnapper probably told him something similar. Your mom sent me. Stupid of me to use that line.” The light filtering through the windows had increased. The storm had started to move on. Alex could see the tension in Deborah’s face and the frustration. He shook his head at her. Not her fault.
“Get Daniel here, now.” She didn’t bother to whisper now. “Benny. We’ll wait. I know you’d feel better if Daniel were here, so we’ll wait for him. Don’t shoot anymore, all right? We promise not to come up there. We’ll wait for Daniel, okay?”
No answer. But no shots, either. Alex squeezed Deborah’s shoulder quickly, before she could duck away. He dug his cell phone from his pocket and eased toward the door, careful to stay out of the line of fire. She was right. As ironic as it seemed to him, they did need Daniel.
* * *
Daniel tightened his grip on the barn ladder. “Benny, it’s me.”
A small sniff. Benny could hear him. Daniel put his foot on the first rung. He wanted to get up there. He wanted to know how badly Benny was hurt. He wanted to take care of him. Now.
Except Benny had a gun.
“What are you doing up there?”
Silence. Then the small, tearful voice. “I don’t feel good.”
Daniel swallowed. Benny was within reach. Nicole took a deep breath next to him. The relief in her face reflected his own. When the call had come that Alex and Deborah had found Benny, Nicole had insisted on driving him to the abandoned barn, arguing that he was too shaken to drive himself. “One piece, Benny, needs you in one piece.”
He didn’t remember the ride over. He’d been focused on this moment. This moment with Benny. He wanted to throw himself up the ladder and grab the boy, wrap him in his arms, and rock him. Make him safe again.
Easy. Take it slow.Benny was a eight-year-old with a gun. Scared beyond belief, he had to be cold and hungry and traumatized. But alive. Daniel could fix those other things. He just had to talk him down. He cleared his throat. “Why are you up there?”
“It smells like Mr. Ray’s barn.” The voice quivered.
Daniel grasped for understanding. He glanced at Nicole.Safe.She framed the word with her lips without make a sound. He nodded.
“You feel safe?”
“Yeah.” The matter-of-fact response ripped out a piece of Daniel’s heart. “Mr. Daniel?”
