Total pages in book: 209
Estimated words: 196085 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 980(@200wpm)___ 784(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 196085 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 980(@200wpm)___ 784(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
She’s miles ahead of me but I barrel through traffic as horns blare. I don’t give a shit. It’s my baby. And now, it’s really my baby.
Christ, I’ve never been so fucking angry before. If she’s fine and just neglecting her phone, along with the command I gave her to check in, I’m going to tan that ass of hers so she won’t sit down for a week.
If she’s not fine, and something’s happened to her, I’ll apologize to her later but I won’t be able to keep my promise to not hurt anyone.
Because if there is one hair out of order on her head, someone is getting hurt.
As I round the corner onto Sullivan, the blip takes a hard left into the less desirable end of town. She’s moving fast and if it’s her driving like that, and I pray it is, again her ass is going to pay the price for speeding.
But in my gut, everything about this tells me it’s not her.
The last hope of that possibility is dashed when I see her Jeep parked outside of the baby store. For a moment, I debate if I should pull in and see if for some crazy reason she’s in there and someone has her bracelet, but my instinct tells me otherwise. The phone may have been dropped, but she would have noticed if the bracelet was gone.
I take the chance and keep driving. After all, if she’s safe inside the store then there’s no harm done. I make the ten-minute drive to the street where she turned in five, and she’s still moving but I’m closing the gap fast.
It’s a miracle I don’t kill myself or someone else as I try to watch the blip move and negotiate the car, screaming down the city streets. Traffic isn’t helping and I consider leaping over the curb and driving down the sidewalk to make better time, but when I look down at the app and see the blip has stopped moving, I know I’m close.
It’s blinking at a location about three miles away and I push the Suburban into the red, driving out and around the car in front of me on the wrong side of the road until I find a stretch of the street with no one in front of me.
Two minutes later I’m on top of the blip outside one of those residence kind of hotels. Not horrible, but not nice. Probably the best on this side of town. But that’s not what’s bothering me. My mind is spinning as red clouds my vision and I try not to imagine what could be happening to her right now.
I screech into a parking spot and charge out of the car, leaving it running in case I need to pull off fast. With my phone in my hand, I follow the blip to a doorway on the ground level.
There’s no knocking. I boot kick the door right by the knob and the doorframe cracks. Another kick and it’s open.
Hate and fury engulf me when I see the two people hovering over Ginger as she lays on the sofa unconscious.
“Get the fuck away from her.” I pull my Beretta out of the shoulder harness and twitch it back and forth between the two people, scarcely able to believe my own eyes.
I recognize Leonard Calfus in an instant, and my best guess about the second person, going by her hair color and skin tone, is that she is Ginger’s mother.
“Face that fucking wall, fingers intertwined and on the back of your head. I want your nose on that wall right fucking now!” I keep the gun trained on them as I step to Ginger, my heart in my throat.
They do as I command, although that fuck Calfus is fucking smiling and humming and it takes every ounce of my will not to splatter his brains all over the generic beige wallpaper.
“We do keep running into each other, don’t we?” He spouts, and I walk up behind him and slam the butt of the nine-millimeter into the back of his head, crashing it into the wall.
When it springs back, I take a second shot just to make sure he understands. I’m not playing this time.
“One of you better tell me what’s wrong with her right fucking now.”
“I did it.” The lady caves and I step back to put a hand on Ginger’s forehead. She’s cool—too cool—and I feel like I’m dying as I look down at her. “I gave her Rohypnol.”
“How much?” I scream. “How much did you give her?”
“Just enough to make her sleepy.” The woman is clearly not as comfortable with whatever is going on as Calfus.
“You’re her mother, right?”
I see the woman nod but there’s not time for more questions. “I don’t know what you are getting out of this, but I’ll tell you right now it’s not enough. Hell is waiting for you. I only wish I could send you there right now.”