Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 88841 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88841 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
The officer approaches her, letting her know that he’s going to take her to the station, and when she smacks him in the face, he pulls her hands behind her back and says she’s under arrest for assaulting an officer.
Once she’s gone, Officer Glen says, “Do you have any idea where your fiancée could be?”
“No.” I shake my head. “Her phone and car ended up at the bottom of the fucking lake.”
“Maybe she has another device,” he suggests. “An Apple Watch or—”
“The iPad!” Fuck! Why didn’t I think of that sooner? “Violet never goes anywhere without her iPad mini, and it’s trackable.”
I pull out my phone and scroll down. And sure enough, her iPad mini is on my list since it’s on my account.
“It’s showing she’s about thirty minutes north of here.” I turn my phone around so the officer can see it. “I need to get to them. With her car in the lake, someone had to have taken them there, and I have no idea if they’re okay.”
“We can get a team together,” the officer says. “If her ex is armed, you don’t want to just barge in there.”
“Okay,” I say, snatching up my keys. “Then, let’s do this.”
On the way, I contact Kira’s attorney to let her know what happened. She lets me know that if Brian took her, he’s fucked. The charges that she’ll throw at him will send him to prison for years. Then, I call Julian to check on Addie and update him.
“Nora is Marie?” Ana gasps.
“She all but confirmed it,” I tell them. “Marie is her middle fucking name. It didn’t even click into my head. I feel so fucking stupid.”
“Fuck that,” Julian says. “Nobody would have thought like that unless they were as crazy as she is.”
“It makes sense,” Ana says. “She bailed every time I was there. She knew I’d recognize her in a heartbeat.”
“She changed her hair color and dresses less high-class, but, yeah, if you saw her, you’d recognize her. Only Kira’s never seen her because I have no pictures of her in the house. Fuck!” I slam my fist against the steering wheel. “If something’s happened to either of them …”
“They’re going to be okay,” Ana says. “Just stay positive.”
“I was supposed to keep them safe,” I murmur. “I failed.”
“Nobody could’ve expected any of this to happen,” Julian says. “The important thing is that you know where they are, and you’ll get to them before anything goes down.”
We hang up, and I focus on following the tracking information for the iPad. The police officers took down the location as well, but I can’t stop watching it in case they move. It’s my only shot at getting to them.
The tracking app takes us down a dirt road off the beaten path, and we end up in front of an older house. Officer Glen has me park down the road, not wanting to alert anyone that we’re here. He wants me to hang back, but I refuse. If something’s wrong with my girls, I need to be there. This is all my damn fault. I took them into my home and promised I would keep them safe. And I’ve failed.
I wait by the bushes, so as not to give them away, while they quietly surround the perimeter. I don’t know what’s happening, but after several minutes, one of the officers knocks the door in, and several guys rush in.
A few minutes later, an officer comes over and says, “We found the suspect in the kitchen. He’s been injured, and we’ve called for an ambulance. We did a full sweep of the house, and it’s empty.”
“What? That doesn’t make sense.” I run toward the house and inside, not giving a shit about anything but finding Kira and Violet.
The second I see Brian lying on the ground, blood oozing out of his head, I push past the officers and grab him by his shirt.
“Where the hell are they?” I demand.
“That bitch damn near killed me,” he slurs. “I need help. She drugged me.”
“Where are they?”
“Hopefully dead in the fucking woods.”
I throw him back onto the floor and go in search of Kira and Violet. When I spot Violet’s mini backpack, it confirms they’ve been here, and for her not to take it with them means Kira probably acted quickly, and then they ran out.
“Don’t touch it,” an officer says behind me. “It’s evidence.”
“I’m going to look for them,” I say. “They have to be somewhere.”
And who the hell knows if they’re okay? It’s late, and it’s pitch-black outside. They must be terrified.
chapter twenty-seven
KIRA
Earlier Today
“Oh shoot. We don’t have any bacon.”
“We can’t have mac ’n’ cheese without bacon,” Violet says.
“C’mon. We’ll run to the store.”
While I grab my keys off the hook, Violet grabs her mini backpack she brings everywhere she goes, and we take off toward the store.