Toot’s smile didn’t reach his eyes.
The poor guy. Ever since Cannel had gone missing, the smile never reached his eyes anymore. It was a sad thing to see, honestly.
That look right there was the reason that I’d stayed in the game as long as I had.
It didn’t matter whether it was a fiancée like Toot’s, a father, a mother, or a brother. They all had ‘that’ look to them. The one that said they were quickly giving up hope and every minute that passed was another minute that their loved one was likely being tortured to death.
“Um.” Toot shook his head, “I was hoping to borrow you for a few seconds. I started to ask Traci, but she is a wreck because of Cannel. You’re next because you’re one of the only girls I know.”
I opened the door wider to let him in. “I was supposed to be going out to eat for breakfast with Trouper, that’s why I’m so dressed up. But since he was called in, I don’t see any reason that I can’t help you with whatever you need.”
When I turned and presented him with my back, he struck.
I next woke up with my arms tied behind my back, and my feet tied at my ankles, on my stomach in the back of an unfamiliar car.
I blinked my eyes, trying to clear my vision.
It didn’t work all that well, so I continued to blink.
I had mascara on my eyelashes, and I was fairly sure that the gunk had leaked into my eyeballs.
Had I taken a nap?
What was…
“I’ve got her. I want my fiancée back. I’ll bring her to the specified location.” Toot’s voice had my foggy brain coming back online.
He wanted his fiancée back?
What?
We went over a pothole of hell, and I groaned when my face hit the leather seat.
Toot’s SUV.
That’s where I was.
In the back.
“You awake?” Toot asked.
I blinked open my eyes and saw him turned around, looking at me.
I swallowed bile.
“What are you doing?” I rasped.
Someone honked and he turned around and started driving again.
“I found out who has Cannel.”
My heart soared. Just as suddenly it plummeted again.
“What? Where?” I asked.
I was genuinely happy that he’d found her. But I was also worried because even though he said he’d found her, I was currently tied up in the back of his SUV.
That didn’t mean good things for me.
“Took some doing.” He cleared his throat, speaking as if I’d never said a word. “Asked around. Every night. Happened to run into some lowlife following a teenage girl at the grocery store. I stopped him, forced him to talk to me, and he got me in touch with his boss. It escalated from there, and I found out that they moved Cannel out of the city because of a perceived threat. Fast forward to now, and I’m trading you for her.”
My mouth all but fell open at his words.
“You know that they’re not going to just give you her, right?” I asked, sounding much calmer than I felt.
“I have to try.” He shook his head. “It breaks my heart, her being gone. Every single morning, I wake up and reach for her, and she’s gone. I can’t do it anymore. I have to try.”
My heart ached for him, but more so, my heart ached for Trouper.
He was never, ever going to recover from this. Not one of his best friends betraying him like this.
“What makes you think they even have her?” I tried to be rational about it.
He cleared his throat. “I made them send me a picture of her.”
I pressed my forehead into the seat, and the belt buckle of the seatbelt that should be wrapped around my body holding me in dug into my face.
“Are you sure that she was alive?” I asked. “Are you sure that it was her?”
Because Cannel had been gone for a while. I’d learned through my work that they normally got the abductees out of the area fast. Just in case someone was looking for them, they wanted to make sure that wherever they were holding them that the girl wasn’t seen.
Toot didn’t say anything for a long time, and I yanked on my restraints, hoping and praying that they would come free.
They didn’t.
I continued to struggle until we pulled onto a very bumpy road.
“Please, Toot,” I begged. “Don’t do this. This is not the way. I’ve been working hard on that case. I’ll get her back.”
Toot tensed. “You won’t. You’ve had a while now, Beckham. Your chance is up. It’s my turn now.”
I wanted to cry. To scream. To rail at him.
I knew that it wouldn’t help.
He finally came to a stop and there was a bunch of yelling.
Then the back door was yanked open and I was dragged out by my feet.
My head hit the base of the car door, and I saw stars.
When I next came to it was to hear arguing.
“…give her to me!” Toot bellowed.
“Get out of here, man,” I heard another male say. “She hasn’t been here in weeks. That photo was of the day we took her. It’s not my fault that you’re a complete dumbass and didn’t recognize that she was wearing the same shit she was abducted in.”
“Then I’ll take her back,” Toot ordered frantically.
I would’ve laughed had this situation been even remotely funny.
‘That’s not how it works, Toot!’ I wanted to shout.
Instead, I stayed silent, hoping that I was forgotten.
Spoiler alert: I wasn’t forgotten.
Not even a little bit.
“Beckham Spurlock,” I heard some random male say. “This was in her purse, do you think that it’s real?”
“It says FBI,” another murmured. “What did you bring us, Toot head?”
“She’s just a girl. She was a cop for our Halloween party.” Toot decided to lie.
He was really bad at lying.
Shit.
“It looks pretty freakin’ official,” someone denied his words. “You brought us a toy.”
“Oh, goody,” another male clapped. “Now, leave and don’t come back. We won’t be here when you come looking for us.”
“But my fiancée…” Toot said.
“She’s gone, man,” yet another male said. “Just give up. And don’t tell anyone. You’re boned now. We read up about you. Giving some girl, your buddy’s girl, to us in exchange for yours was a shitty thing to do. You wouldn’t want your friend to find out, right?”
A kick to the stomach had the breath leaving my body in a rush.
“Now get gone so we can have some fun.”
The worst feeling in the world was to hear that car start up and drive away.
• • •
Crying snapped me out of replaying anymore of that memory.
I hurried toward the room where Hiro was wide awake and smiled down at him.
I’d moved him to his own bed last night.
Not because I didn’t like him sleeping in the same room with me, but because the nightmares woke me up, which inevitably woke Hiro up.
The one person that didn’t need to worry about getting enough sleep—me—had the one perfect baby that slept through the night.
My mom said that I was lucky. That most people didn’t get that.