Page 68 of Out of the Shadows
“Charlie, I already told you—I stick with you wherever you go. Your kids made me promise.”
“Laura doesn’t want to see me.”
“Laura wants you safe. Here, or there. It’s your call.”
“Fine. I’ll go with you.”
Margo was relieved. She wanted to back Jack up. She just had a bad feeling about this whole thing. Aberdeen was desperate, and desperate men did reckless things.
“Pack a bag. I’m giving you five minutes.”
He went into his bedroom. Margo dialed Jack to let him know she was on her way with Charlie. He didn’t answer. She texted him. He didn’t respond.
She called out to Charlie. “Pick up the pace, we need to go now.”
Margo then called Luisa.
Luisa didn’t answer.
“Now, Charlie.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know, but you’d better buckle up because I’m going to break some traffic laws.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jack walked briskly to the barn. The night was dark. There were no streetlights, only the lights from the house partly illuminating the yard. The moon hadn’t risen yet, the air hot, still. He heard the chickens in their pen. A soft neigh of a horse. A dog barking in the distance.
He quietly opened the side door of the barn and slipped inside. A faint light came from a stall on the far side of the barn. Goats maa’ed and moved on as they settled for the night in their pen. Jack approached the light, looked over the short stall door, and saw Cody sitting in the middle with a flashlight. Relief flooded through him.
He didn’t want to yell at the kid, but after the relief came anger that Cody had scared everyone.
“I told you to stay in the house. We were worried.”
“Shhh, you’ll scare her.”
Cody gestured his flashlight toward a hay-filled box in the corner. Nimbus, the gray-and-white cat, lay panting, her belly large.
“You need to come with me, Cody.”
“Please, she’s little, not much more than a year old. She’s too young to have kittens, but someone dumped her out here and she needs me.”
Jack wasn’t going to leave Cody out here all night with the cat.
He called Laura. “Cody is in the barn like you said. The cat is about to give birth. He doesn’t want to leave, and I don’t want to scare the creature. Can you talk to him?”
“Yes.”
Jack gave Cody his phone. “Talk to your mom.”
Walking the length of the barn, Jack checked every possible hiding place like he’d done before. There were three faint lights hanging overhead across the length of the barn that gave just enough ambient light for him to see.
All secure. He returned to Cody.
“Are you sure, Mom? Because she’s all alone and she didn’t eat the food Luisa and I gave her this morning.” He listened, then said, “Okay. Okay. You promise, first thing in the morning?... Okay. I’m sorry, Mom.”
He handed the phone to Jack. “I have to go back with you. Mom says cats like to be alone when they deliver their kittens and it could take all night. She also said that she would come out here before she goes to bed and check on her. You’ll let her do that, right?”
