Page 25 of Dark Memories
“Okay, but will you let me know you got her and she’s okay?” When Zach didn’t answer, he said, “Please.”
“We will,” she answered for Zach. Robbie sounded broken, and even though his actions had started all this, she felt sorry for him. Maybe broken was where he needed to get before he could turn his life around. She hoped he meant it when he said he wanted to.
“What’s going on?”
Harry swallowed a groan at hearing Zach’s mother. She glanced at the woman entering the room. Misty Jamison had improved her image since the last time Harry had seen her. The gray was missing from her hair, her clothes were more fashionable, and she’d lost a good thirty pounds.
Misty glanced from Zach to Robbie, frowning at the sight of her youngest son hunched in on himself. “Are you bothering your brother again, Zach? Isn’t it enough that he went to prison because of you?”
“Leave him alone, Mom,” Robbie said.
“I will not.” She walked to the chair where Robbie sat and put her hands on his shoulders. “What has he said to you?”
“Surprisingly, not what I deserve for him to say.” He pushed her hands away. “Go get her, Zach.”
“We’re going back to your house,” Harry said when they reached his car, knowing full well his intention was to drive straight to the address Robbie had given them and storm his way into the house where his daughter was a prisoner.
He stilled with her door half-open. “Tell me you’re kidding.”
“If we go in there with guns blazing, Kali could get hurt. I need to call my captain, and we need a plan.”
His lips thinned, but he nodded. She gave him credit for listening to her.
* * *
Zach paced a path over the floor in his living room as Delaney and her boss discussed the best way to bring his daughter back to him.Just go fucking get her, he wanted to yell, but one thing he’d learned in getting to where he had was to listen to the experts. If that applied to business, it had to be the same for police work. At least he was banking on that being true.
Delaney wouldn’t lead him astray, and because he believed that, he let her and Captain Scanlon huddle their heads together, making a plan and making their phone calls to whomever they wanted to be in on the invasion on the odd house with a door on the side that had let his brother hear Kali’s voice.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about Robbie right now. Baby brother had been the instrument to set Kali’s abduction in motion, and albeit unintentional, if Delaney hadn’t put her hand on his knee, grounding him, he would have rained his fists down on Robbie’s face. But Robbie had done the right thing as soon as he’d thought he heard Kali’s voice, and for that reason he hadn’t killed his brother. Or maybe his brother was still alive because of Delaney’s calming influence.
The hell if he knew the answer to anything anymore.
* * *
Kali heard the footsteps approaching the door, and she yanked the cover over her head, closing her and Oliver inside their dark cocoon. Since she’d been here, she’d learned that softer footsteps meant the woman was coming to feed her or let her go to the bathroom. Oliver always came in with Miss Doe.
This morning Miss Doe had said, after dropping another baloney sandwich on the bed, “Oliver, come.”
Oliver had pranced out of Miss Doe’s reach when she’d tried to catch him, and she’d said, “You’re a stupid dog, Ollie.” Then she’d left, letting Oliver stay.
“Do you like Ollie better than Oliver?” Kali asked after she’d pulled the cover over their heads. He licked her face, and she was sure that meant he did.
The heavy footsteps stopped outside the door, and Kali held her breath as she made a wish that they would move away. They didn’t, and the door opened.
She hated the tears that came out of nowhere. She wasn’t sure why, but she didn’t want the man to see her cry. The cover was yanked away, and she squeezed her eyes closed. She peeked out of one eye and saw the snake tattoo curling up his arm. It was the man she’d seen when Miss Doe was taking her to the bathroom and he was coming out, wearing only a towel.
He hadn’t been happy, yelling at Miss Doe for letting her see his face. That was another thing she wasn’t sure about. Why was he so mad that she’d seen his face? Except she hadn’t. The snake on his arm had scared her, and she’d stared at the floor instead.
The man thrust a phone at her. “Tell him you’re okay.”
“Who?” She didn’t know what was happening, and more tears came.
“Stop with your damn crying. Tell your father that you haven’t been hurt.”
“Daddy?” she whispered, afraid to believe that her daddy was on that phone, waiting to talk to her.
* * *
