Page 54 of Stolen Angels

Sixty-One

Crooked Creek

Revulsion filled Derrick at the very thought of selling a child. Ellie rushed from the table and into her bedroom, and he let her go. This case was getting to both of them.

If Ava had been sold on the dark web, locating and recovering her would be more difficult than a parental kidnapping. They could be talking international exchanges.

Or it could be as simple as a desperate woman wanting a child. She could be hiding right here in the Appalachian Mountains.

Perspiration beaded his neck as he phoned his partner at the Bureau and explained what he’d found. He’d known Bennett ever since they were in the military together. They’d gone through a hell so bad that they’d made a pact never to talk about it. But sometimes at night the memories haunted him. The endless screams. The explosions. The smell of burned flesh. The bones of the dead scattered all over.

Shaking himself from the past he couldn’t escape, he focused on the case. Work was all that helped him block out the darkness that sometimes threatened. Helped him forget what they’d done…

“Fox?” Bennett said. “You still there.”

Hardly. “Yeah. Have our cyber team do a deep dive into this group,” he said. “Find out whose spearheading it and their physical location. Also look for chatter about anyone seeking a child around Ava’s age.”

“I’ll do it myself,” Bennett said. “These sick bastards need to be stopped.”

As Derrick glanced out at the dreary skies and heard the rain pounding the roof, he couldn’t help but think about how frightened Ava must be.

If she was still alive.

Ellie emerged from her bedroom looking pale and wiped out. He stood and crossed the room to her. “Go to bed, Ellie,” he said gruffly. “Hopefully my partner will have more on that group in the morning. Tonight, get some rest so we can hit the ground running tomorrow.”

Ellie lifted her chin in a show of bravado but her tormented eyes told a different story. “You do the same.” Then she turned and walked back to her room. When the door closed, he returned to his computer.

He couldn’t rest right now. Not with Ava’s little face haunting him.

They had to save her from whatever kind of monster had stolen her from her mother.

Sixty-Two

Honeysuckle Lane

The wind blew strands of Lara’s hair in her face as she stumbled forward in the dark. The woods were thick with trees so tall and close together she couldn’t see two feet in front of her. But she could hear Ava crying somewhere ahead.

“I’m coming for you, baby girl, I’m coming,” Lara cried.

Her calves ached from running, her breathing was nothing but a pant, and overgrown brush and weeds clawed at her arms and legs.

“Mommy!”

A sob welled from deep in her gut as she broke through a small clearing and spotted the monster dragging her daughter deeper into the forest, up a hill and into the wilderness. She picked up her pace, her lungs straining to breathe as she climbed higher into the mountains.

The acrid odor of a dead animal swirled around her, and rain began to slash the ground, turning into sleet-like pelts that stung her cheeks and eyes.

“Ava!”

The figure on the hill suddenly paused and looked down at her from the ridge above where she stood. The big winter coat and hat shadowed his face and body, but she heard his sinister voice.

“She’s mine now. You’ll never get her back.”

“No,” Lara screamed. “Ava!”

But suddenly the dark clouds unleashed a heavy torrent of rain and sleet, blurring her vision as the figure disappeared into the oaks and pines.

She ran faster, climbing higher and higher, but the trees were bending in the storm, dead leaves hurling at her feet, and limbs cracking and breaking. Her foot caught on something, a tree root maybe, then she felt the vines wrapping themselves around her like snakes, trapping her. She couldn’t get up. The darkness swelled above her, and she fought at the tangle of vines, but they were alive and holding her down and choking her, and she couldn’t find her way out and Ava was gone…

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