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“I want you to be my dad.”
Daniel closed his eyes and hung his head. “Me, too. But first you have to put the gun down and let me come up. Or come down. Whichever you want.”
Tiny particles of hay fell through the slots in the loft floor. The boards creaked until Daniel saw Benny’s dirty, swollen face peeking through the trapdoor. Massive purple and green bruises covered his face. Dried blood darkened his lips and nose. His eyes were almost swollen shut. His nose had been flattened. Daniel’s stomach heaved. “Benny, where’s the gun?”
The boy held it up with two fingers.
“Can you lay it down on the hay for me?”
Benny laid it down. Then he sat on the edge, his scuffed shoes on the top rung of the ladder. His face scrunched up. Tears flowed in rivulets down his cheeks. He began to rock back and forth.
Daniel pulled himself up the ladder, hands and feet stumbling over each other to get to him. He dropped down on the hay next to Benny, folded the boy’s thin body into his arms, and felt the trembling blossom into full-scale shaking. “It’s over, it’s all over.”
“I was scared.” Benny sniffed. “I’m not a crybaby. I’m not, but I was so scared. He kept hurting me. I made him mad. It was my fault, but I just wanted to come home. I was scared.”
He stuck two grimy fists inside Daniel’s jacket and grabbed his shirt, hanging on for dear life. His runny nose, dirt, and tears stained the white shirt. Daniel’s throat closed and he had to struggle to get the words out. “I know. I was scared, too. It’s okay to cry.”
“You get scared?”
“All the time.” Daniel looked over the boy’s head at Nicole, standing below, looking up at them, tears on her white cheeks. “Sometimes, I even cry.”
“The ambulance is on its way,” she said, her voice hoarse.
“No.” Benny burrowed deeper into Daniel’s arms. “Home. I wanna go home. I want to have pizza night and movies.”
Daniel ran his hands over the boy’s arms and back. “We have to make sure you’re okay. Where does it hurt? How bad did he hurt you?”
“I’m okay. You’ve got me.”
Daniel choked on the answer. “Yes, I do.”
Chapter Thirty-seven
Alex slid his gun from his holster and nodded at Cooper.
They’d no sooner followed the ambulance carrying Benny and Daniel to the hospital than Samuel had instructed him to go with Cooper to bring Chavez in for questioning in both cases. Despite exhaustion, Alex hadn’t needed to be told twice. He wanted to nail Chavez to a wall. It wasn’t enough that he might have killed one of his own kids, he’d supplied the information that resulted in Benny’s kidnapping.
Alex’s clothes were still wet, his eyes nearly stuck shut with exhaustion, and he was going into a possible shoot-out situation. Time to suck it up. Cooper rapped on Chavez’s trailer door. With any luck, Chavez wouldn’t decide to shoot first, talk later. One shoot-out a day was more than enough.
No answer.
“Again.”
Cooper pounded harder. The door opened a crack. A young woman clad in a skimpy, red negligee peered out. “Do you mind? I’m trying to sleep.”
Holstering his gun, Cooper stuck his foot in the door before she could shut it and flashed his badge. “Is Tómas Chavez here?”
The woman—who looked more like a teenager now that Alex got a good look at her—pushed tangled curls from her face and frowned at him. “No. He ain’t. Now go away.”
Alex shoved past her through the door “Yes, we’d like to come in, thank you.”
Cooper slid in behind him. “Mr. Chavez is the homeowner, right, I guess that would make you a trespasser if he’s not here.”
“No, he’s my . . . my significant other.” Her lips turned down in a pout. “You know, that common-law thing. We’re married.”
“Right.” Alex glanced around. Empty beer bottles, overflowing ashtrays, empty pizza boxes. A royal mess in sharp contrast with the day Alex had first come here to tell the man about the remains found on the ranch. Chavez’s mental state seemed to be deteriorating rapidly. “So where’s hubby now? Are you expecting him soon?”
She snatched a cigarette from the coffeetable and then a lighter. The nightie didn’t cover much, and she wasn’t wearing anything under it.
