Page 22 of Under Their Watch

“We just need to hurry,” Emma says.

“You don’t mean…” Anika turns and asks.

“Hurry,” Emma says. “Now. We can buy her whatever she needs.”

No one argues. Everyone grabs a bag, and we get out of the house. I’m not sure what’s going on, but we get back into the vehicles while Emma and Theo go to the officers that have arrived. Anika is still holding the bag of what they called torture tools when opens her door.

“Rhea, I need for you to sign this,” Emma says, handing me a clipboard.

“What is it?” I ask her.

“It’s signing over that bag to the police,” she says.

“Oh… okay,” I say, confused. I read through it before signing my name at the bottom. “Have I done something wrong?”

“No, sweetie. You haven’t done anything wrong,” she says. “They’re not pressing charges on David for assault.”

“What?” Quinn snaps.

“Quinn… I need for you to trust me,” she says. “Can you do that?”

“Yeah,” he says with a sigh.

“Thank you,” she says. “Rhea, do you have a phone?”

“Yeah. It’s in the blue bag. It’s pretty useless. It only calls Marvin,” I say.

“Write cell phone beside the list of items and initial for me,” she says. When I do, she hands the clipboard off to Casey. “I should mention I lied. Casey is a detective.”

“What?” Jace asks. “Why did you get a detective here?”

“Because…” she goes to say, but stops.

“You can tell them,” says.

“I think Marvin and David might have been planning to kill Rhea. All of those items… I'm starting to think that those submissive that he brought in were not there willingly and they didn’t leave the house alive,” she says.

“I’ll come by the house,” Casey says. “I don’t want them to be suspicious. I will tell them that they are not allowed to leave town because you are filing domestic violence charges. I will file the domestic violence charges just to keep them in town. That’s not what I am after, though.”

“Okay,” Emma says. “Wait, no. Meet us at the Cherry. I can guarantee that no one is listening in there. I’ll close it to the public so we will have the place to ourselves.”

“That works,” she says. “I’ll text you.”

I feel numb with all of this information being thrown around. I move to sit by myself between Quinn and Jace before letting myself zone out.

Chapter Five

Rhea

When we got backto the house, I went to the basement and laid down. Everyone thought I was asleep, but I wasn’t. Someone would come down and check on me, but I would never roll over to see who it was. I feel so out of my mind right now. Why would my father hand me to someone who was going to kill me? Why would Marvin hand me off to David to kill me? Why not just kill me himself? If those women weren’t there by choice, what happened to them?

We pull into the parking lot of The Cherry, and Quinn tugs me out of my seat to stand. “You and Theo are going to go talk for a minute before Casey gets here. Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” I say simply.

Theo gestures for me to walk with him. Emma unlocks the door and he and I walk in. The others go to sit at the tables near the bar, but Theo and I go back to one of the private rooms. “Why are we here?” I ask, staying by the door.

“I just want to show you something and talk for a moment,” he says. “Come, sit.”

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