Page 48 of Broke Down Single Mom

It couldn’t have been that bad. This was once a thriving part of North Platte. People raised their children here. They used to buy their groceries at the abandoned mart down the road. They must’ve enjoyed their cups of coffee out on the sidewalk on a warm spring day at some point. But all of that is gone. What’s left is a dirty, dilapidated pathetic shell of a building.

As instructed, I head up to the second floor and find apartment number fourteen. The door is scratched up and the green paint has faded. My heart thuds furiously as I turn the knob and find that it’s open. I tremble as I go in, one hand in my pocket, tightly clutching the knife.

“Annie? Miley?” I call out, hoping that I might hear them, praying that they’re safe.

But silence is the only response.

I take a few cautious steps deeper into the narrow hallway, paying attention to any hint of movement. The shadows are long, beams of light breaching through the dirty living room windows. Yet I hear nothing. Not even a peep or a sigh. My girls aren’t here.

A door opens to my left, too fast for me to react.

I see him.

His hand swings out.

Daniel punches me hard in the side of the head. Stars explode before my eyes.

I feel myself falling. The darkness swallows me whole as I hit the floor with a thud.

24

Luke

“They were supposed to be back here two hours ago,” I say as neither Fallon nor Kellan are able to tell me where Avery and the girls are.

We’ve been so busy going over CCTV footage that we didn’t even notice the time until Helen came in to take charge of Annie and Miley, assuming they’d be back from school by now. My nerves are stretched thin, none of this makes sense.

“I can’t reach her,” Kellan says as he hangs up on a third attempt at calling Avery. “The phone has been turned off.”

“Let me see,” I mutter and go on my laptop. “We didn’t fit her phone with a tracker for nothing.”

The last call she got was from an unknown number just outside the school at an hour when the girls were supposed to still be in class. Fallon and Kellan inch closer, both of them frowning at the laptop screen with understandable confusion.

“This doesn’t seem right. The signal cuts off here,” Fallon points at the online map. “What is this, a dry cleaners?”

“I think so,” Kellan says, then looks at me. “Where are the agents you had watching her?”

I check my phone but don’t see any text updates from either Smith or Paxton. It’s unlike them, and it’s only serving to amplify my uneasiness. I try calling both, but I can’t get through to them, either. With shaking fingers, I type their GPS identification number into the same online map, but it seems to have been disabled. I’m getting an error message, and it’s got Kellan cursing like a sailor.

“This is bullshit!” he snaps. “What the fuck is going on, Luke?”

“I don’t know.”

Fallon growls hoarsely with newfound anger. “I don’t like this. Call the fucking school.”

“I have a better idea,” I reply.

Half an hour later, the three of us get out of my SUV outside the girls’ school. There’s no sign of Avery’s car. I can’t see Smith and Paxton’s undercover sedan anywhere, either. It’s cold, it’s snowing, and it’s getting darker. It’ll be night soon, and the kids have already been sent home. Checking my phone again, I’m not receiving any new updates from the GPS trackers. They’re still deactivated.

“Whatever is going on, I think the three of us can easily point to a suspect,” I say.

“Son of a bitch,” Fallon hisses, angrily looking around. I’ve seen this look on his face before, and it led to a particularly brutal outcome.

“Listen, we need to do this smart and fast,” Kellan cuts in. “I’ll go check with the principal and find out what happened. Avery must’ve picked them up if the GPS confirms that she was here. Worst-case scenario is she made a run for it like I suspected she would.” He looks at Fallon. “I need you to check the dry cleaners. The phone must be somewhere in or around that place.” He looks at me. “What was the last transmitted location of Smith and Paxton?”

“Right where we’re standing,” I reply.

“Okay, do a perimeter search,” Kellan says. “Round the block. I’ll put a BOLO out on Avery’s car in the meantime.”

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