Page 69 of Silver Hills' Christmas Miracle

“I’m so glad you’re here!” Mrs. Mogan surged up and unexpectedly took one of my hands. “I said, I said if you had been here, then none of this would have happened.”

“We don’t know that,” Samuel replied gruffly.

I glared at him. “You can’t be serious.”

Samuel made a few noises but had no argument worth a reply.

“Tell me,” I insisted. “Where is Kitty? Where is everyone?”

“It’s terrible,” Samuel said tightly as Mrs. Morgan sank back down onto the couch and dropped her head into her hands.

“These people came in last night,” Samuel said. “Kitty brought them.”

“Hardly,” Mrs. Morgan snapped, lifting her head. “They grabbed her in the garden and forced her to come inside. They held a gun to her head and forced all of the security and staff into the basement. I know some of them argued because we heard gunshots…” Her hands shook terribly.

I thought back to Paul. Of course he fought back. That man may be a dick, but he was good at his job.

“People. What people?” I pressed. “Quickly, just tell me.”

“Those protestors Kitty is working with,” Samuel said, and for the first time since I returned, he looked old. Like the stress had deepened the lines on his face and the weight of the situation was finally hitting him. “They grew impatient, I guess, and now they want me to sign some papers that would end the highway construction.”

“And did you?” I demanded. Kitty’s absence already told me the answer.

“No,” Mrs. Morgan snapped. “He didn’t, and then that tall man dragged our little girl away!” She dissolved into sobs, crying into her hands.

“When?” I demanded again. “Where did he take her?”

“I don’t know,” Samuel replied. “Maybe about twenty minutes ago? As soon as they took her, I told them I would sign, but they told me it was too late and I…”

Anger surged up like a wave and I gripped the hilt of the knife until my knuckles ached. “Tell me you didn’t put this deal before Kitty’slife.”

Samuel looked at me with pathetic eyes. “I didn’tintendto?—”

I grabbed him by the collar, shoving him backward a few steps and silencing him with a growl.

“Wakeupman!” I hissed. “Your fucking daughter could die, and all you care about is that stupid fucking construction?”

“No!” Samuel gasped.

I released him with a snarl of disgust, and he stumbled backward into the bookshelf. Then I pointed at him with the knife.

“If anything has happened to her or my baby, I will be coming back here,” I snarled, barely able to contain my fury. “Do you understand?”

I didn’t wait for an answer. I turned and hurried from the room, resuming my search of the ground floor. Each room continued to come up empty, and the longer I searched, the harder my heart raced in my chest.

Was I too late? Did that fucker harm her already? What if he took her away from here?

Louder and louder thoughts clouded my mind as I searched through the house until finally, by some insane stroke of luck, I caught the soft, sharp tones of Kitty’s yelling drifting through the ceiling above me.

She was upstairs!

I sprinted down the hallway and took the steps two at a time. As I reached the landing overlooking the front of the property, the garden bloomed to life with flashing red and blue lights from the arriving police force.

The sharp tones of Kitty’s voice grew louder as I hurried down the upper hallway until finally, they were crystal clear through the door to her father’s office.

“How many times!” she snapped. “There’s nothing here for you to find. Are you thick, Anton? Do my words just bounce off the fucking ten-inch thick barrier between you and sense? He doesn’tworkhere. He works in town, so anything important will be there!”

“Bullshit,” snapped the familiar tones of Anton. I’d only met him briefly during the protest a few weeks ago, but I’d put his face to memory. “We searched his office. We didn’t find it.”

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