Someone screamed again and again. She heard crying.
And in the chaos she heard Emmy yell, “Mommy, no. You’re killing her!”
Trinity fought the pain and rolled over and blocked another blow from Steph’s foot with her arms, but her head spun and flashes went off in her eyes, making it hard to see and focus.
“Daddy!” Emmy yelled.
Steph grabbed Emmy’s arm and spanked her butt. “Shut up! Go to your room.” She spanked her again and shoved her toward the hallway with another hard blow to the back.
Emmy fell, got hit again, scrambled on her hands and knees, then rose to her feet and ran.
Trinity tried to get up, but could barely make it to her hands and knees.
“You are ruining everything!” Steph spat out and hooked her arm under Trinity’s and hauled her up, dragging her toward the entry. Steph was surprisingly strong. Maybe it was all adrenaline. That seemed to be the only thing keeping Trinity from passing out.
“You’re not taking my daughter.” She shoved Trinity into the entry closet. Off-balance, Trinity didn’t turn fast enough to escape and the door slammed shut, leaving her in the dark.
“She’s mine!”
Trinity went from one nightmare to another, her mind taking her back to being locked in the trunk with no escape when she’d been kidnapped. She clawed at the door and tried to turn the handle, but the door wouldn’t budge.
“Let me out! You can’t leave me in here! Please!”
“You can’t take her!” Steph screamed over Trinity begging at the top of her lungs, “Let me out!”
Her nails bit into her palms, and her fists ached from pounding on the door. She clawed and kicked at the wood and banged on the handle. She screamed and screamed and screamed until nothing came out of her dry throat. She could feel the tears gathered in her eyes and streaming down her cheeks, but she couldn’t see anything.
And then the only thing she felt was her heart pounding so hard she thought it might burst out of her chest, and she couldn’t get any air no matter how hard she tried to suck it in. She was suffocating in the dark where there was no escape.
And then the blackness swallowed her whole, and she fell into the nothingness.
Chapter Twenty-Four
At first, Jon was relieved to finally receive a text from Trinity, until he saw what it said. Then the pictures started popping up and he grew livid. He didn’t think he could be any angrier until he called her and heard Steph’s drunk-ass voice.
He didn’t know why Trinity didn’t say anything to him. She had to have her hands full with Steph and getting Emmy out the door with her.
But his heart nearly stopped when he heard a thunk and Emmy screamed, “Mommy, no. You’re killing her!”
He didn’t think. He ran for his car, pulling his keys out of his pocket the second he cleared the door and hit the path to the driveway. He was behind the wheel and peeling out of the driveway before he really registered he was on his way.
Emmy screamed, “Daddy!”
His heart shattered. She needed him and he wasn’t there.
The screams echoed in his ears along with the thuds and the slam of a door.
Nothing prepared him to hear Trinity’s wailing voice plead with Steph to let her out.
Everything seemed to happen at once and all on top of each other as the miles passed by in a blur. His mind had trouble following him trying to keep the car on the road, listening to what was happening to Trinity and his daughter, and him having to make the devastating decision to put the call on hold so he could conference in 911. Somehow he managed to hold it together when the dispatcher answered.
“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”
“My ex is trying to kill my girlfriend.”
“What is the address of the emergency?”
He rattled off Steph’s address. “Hurry. Please. My four-year-old is in the house, too. I have an open line to them.” He tapped his screen to put all three of them on the line together like he did with so many of his business calls these days.
Trinity screamed one last time, “Let me out!” Then everything went silent.
“We have an officer two minutes out.”
That wasn’t fast enough.
Why couldn’t he hear Trinity anymore?
He was too late.
“Where are you, you little brat?” Steph yelled in the background far away from the phone. “Come out of there right now, Emmy!”
Emmy didn’t answer. At least he couldn’t hear her say anything.
“Sir, who is in the house?”
“Emmy is my daughter. Steph is her mother. Trinity is my girlfriend. Please, you have to help them. Emmy said her mother was killing Trinity and now I can’t hear her at all.”
“The officers just arrived. Do you know if Steph owns a gun?”
“I don’t think so.” He didn’t know. And he should since his daughter lived in the house.
“I said come out of there, Emmy!” More distant pounding.
“I think Emmy might have locked herself in the bathroom. I told her to do that if she ever felt unsafe.” Why did he have to tell his four-year-old something like that?
Thank God he did.
Something crashed closer to the phone.
“Police! Get down on the floor!”
For a second Jon breathed a sigh of relief. Help was there.
“Down on the floor!”
“I didn’t do anything,” Steph slurred, her voice disgruntled and defiant. “This is my house. She tried to take my kid!”
Jon relayed what really happened. “Steph went home from work sick and said she was picking up my daughter early. I tried to call them to be sure everything was okay. She didn’t answer, so I sent my girlfriend over to check on Emmy. When Trinity arrived, Steph was passed out on the couch, drunk and stoned based on what the pictures she sent me show. She texted me that she was bringing Emmy home with her. I called when I received the pictures and heard Steph tell Trinity she wasn’t taking Emmy. Then Emmy screamed that her mom was killing Trinity. So tell me, is Trinity alive or dead!” His voice shook and he prayed as hard as he could that she was alive.
Oh God, please.
“The officers have one in custody. Your daughter is locked in the bathroom. Alone, she says. Once officers have her out, they’ll search the apartment. We have an ambulance standing by outside.”
Those ominous words squeezed his heart. “Trinity’s cell phone is somewhere in the apartment. If the officer can find it, I can talk Emmy out of the bathroom.”
“Just leave her in there to rot,” Steph yelled to the officers in the house.
“I told you to keep your mouth shut,” the officer ordered.
The dispatcher came back on the line. “One of the officers is searching for the phone now.”
Jon tried to listen to every little sound. The officers’ voices in the background talking to Emmy, though he couldn’t really make out the words. Steph grumbling incoherently. The shuffle of footsteps. The creak of . . . a door maybe.
“Found her. She’s bleeding and unconscious. I feel a pulse. Ma’am. Ma’am. Wake up. Are you all right? There you go.”
Jon thanked God for the officer’s patient and kind voice and how he relayed everything to the dispatcher, even as Jon overheard it on Trinity’s phone at the same time.