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Declan blocked the sight of the man as it was nothing for a young girl to see. My God, today hit him close to home.
He just found out he was having twins, and here he was, saving a little girl’s life. How old would she be? Five? Six, maybe? She looked around the same age as Tommy.
“Thank you so much,” whispered the woman.
“He would’ve…” she sobbed and her entire body shook as her cries increased in volume.
“Ma’am, can I please have a look at your beautiful baby girl?” he said.
The woman eyed Declan suspiciously, but he could understand the need to hold on to your child after this morning. He held out a hand and kneeled down again. “Just to make sure she’s not hurt. Would that be okay?”
The woman nodded and her red rimmed blue eyes turned on her daughter. “Liv, we’ve got to let this nice police officer have a quick look at you. Come, show him your face, sweetie.”
“That’s a good girl,” Declan said. The girl had a bruise on her upper arm, probably where that man had grabbed her, but other than that, no injuries showed on the surface.
“Do you hurt anywhere, Liv?” Declan said.
He needed to make sure the girl didn’t have any internal bleeding. In times like this, these small check-ups could save lives.
Liv shook her head and looked up to her mommy. “I want to go see Ryleigh.”
“Ryleigh?” Declan asked, wondering if they’d missed someone during the altercation. He instantly stood and eyed all exits.
“Is there someone else present here?”
He couldn’t believe they made this rookie mistake. He hadn’t even cleared all rooms yet. He’d been too preoccupied with his partner losing her shit and almost killing the bastard holding a knife to this child.
The woman shook her head. “No. No, it’s just us. Liv and I live here, and…” she waved a trembling hand at the man on the floor who still was knocked out cold.
“Nobody’s here?”
Cait walked into the living room. “I got it.” She checked out the pantry before he could even tell her to sit her arse back down in the kitchen. Just his luck if she would find another man to shoot in the bedroom. But he couldn’t exactly yell this in front of the victims before him.
“Just a minute, I’ll be right back. Call out for me the moment he stirs.”
He followed Caitlin as she just entered the last bedroom down the hall. His eyes scanned the room, and he looked under the bed. After checking the closet, he turned to Cait, who held still in front of a chest of drawers with several pictures on top.
“Okay, the room is clear,” he said and made a move to walk out of the room.
Cait stood stock-still. She trained her eyes on the bigger photo frame and her hand went to pick it up, as if in slow motion.
“Cait.”
She didn’t respond and trailed her finger over the picture.
“Cait!”
She picked up the photo frame and turned it to Declan.
“It’s him,” she said.
“Who? What are you talking about? Leave that and walk back with me to the kitchen. Stop touching their stuff.” Declan was getting more agitated by the minute, and more worried. The haunted eyes of Cait shot over the photo and she picked up her cell phone.
“What are ye doin’?” Declan said as he tried to take the picture from Cait’s hand.
“Stop it, Dec! It’s all I have of him. I need to take a picture!”
“What are you doing in here?” the woman said as she held still outside her bedroom where Declan and Cait were playing a tug of war with her photo frame.
