Bleu looked at the cash and papers then looked at me again. “You better come back, alright?”
I nodded.
“Not just for her—but for me too.”
She didn’t have a suitcase, so I packed one of mine.
Clothes, shoes, her bows, and most of her stuffed animals. Coloring books, colored markers, stickers, stuff that would keep her busy so Bleu wouldn’t lose his mind trying to keep her entertained. She had a couple books she liked, but that was her least favorite hobby. She was like me—liked to do things with her hands.
When it was done, I zipped up the suitcase and set it on the floor.
“Daddy?” Her quiet voice came from the doorway to her bedroom. While I’d packed, she’d visited with Bleu, being a lot warmer to him than she’d been to me all week.
I didn’t look at her. “What is it, sweetheart?”
“What are you doing?”
I kept my eyes on the suitcase.
“I’m sorry…please don’t go.” She immediately burst into tears. “Please don’t leave me. I’m sorry, okay?” She sprinted into me on the floor and latched on, like the ground disappeared beneath her feet. Her little chest pressed against me every time she gasped for breath. “I won’t do it again.”
“Claire—”
“You’re leaving me like Mom…”
My heart was glass, and she threw a brick, shattering it. I almost called the whole thing off. “Sweetheart.” I pulled her away from me so I could see her heartbroken face. “I’ll never leave you. Don’t ever think that, okay?”
“You promise…”
I nodded. “Cross my heart…hope to die…”
“Stick a finger in my eye?”
I nodded again.
“Then what are you doing?”
I remained kneeling on the floor as I rubbed her arms, our eyes level. She was tall for her age, but I was enormous compared to her, so taking a knee was the only way I could make her feel equal. “I’m getting Constance back.”
Her eyes immediately lit up. “You are?”
She looked at the suitcase. “I’m coming too?”
“No. You’re going to go on a little trip with Uncle Bleu until I get back.”
“Oh…”
“It’ll just be a couple days.”
Her eyes fell, and she looked devastated all over again.
“Sweetheart?”
“I’m scared.”
“There’s nothing to be scared of—”
“It’s a really scary place, Dad. I…I don’t want you to be scared.”
Her heart was so pure, I couldn’t believe it. Far purer than mine. “Daddy doesn’t get scared.”
“Everyone gets scared.”
Losing my girls was the only thing that frightened me to my bones. “I don’t.”
“Constance must be so scared…”
I shook my head. “Was she scared when you were there?”
She shook her head.
“She’s okay, Claire. But she’s going to be more okay when I bring her back.”
She gave a nod. “I still…I still don’t want you to leave.”
“I know, sweetheart. You have no idea how hard it is for me to leave you. Just dropping you off at school in the mornings breaks my heart. I wait all day until you come home so I can hear about your day. But we both need to be brave—because we need to get Constance back where she belongs.”
Her lips trembled for a moment before she gave a nod.
“You’ll be good for Uncle Bleu?”
She nodded.
“Good.” My arm circled her and brought her into me. Her head dipped onto my shoulder as her arms wrapped around my neck. I held her there as I resisted the tears in the backs of my eyes. I’d never cried in my life—until I had my daughter. Now the tears were easy to provoke. All she had to do was say she loved me, that she missed me, that she didn’t want me to go…and I was a puddle on the floor. “I love you, sweetheart.”
“I love you too, Daddy.”
Twenty-Three
Benton
I stood on the sidewalk and watched the taillights glow in the dark. Bleu pulled away from the curb and drove off, moving farther and farther from where I stood. My eyes stayed on the truck until it turned to the right—and then it was gone.
Claire was gone.
Bartholomew came to my side, and the second my daughter was gone, he lit up a cigar and let the smoke rise to the cold sky. “I’ll give you some time.”
“I don’t need time.” I turned back to the apartment. “Let’s get to work.”
Bartholomew followed me back inside the silent apartment, the sounds of Claire’s absence as loud as a trumpet, and the depression sank a bit deeper. It reminded me of those terrible months when she was gone, when I feared that it would only be me from now on.
I grabbed the scotch and fell into a chair at the dining table.
He joined me.
I gave a loud sigh. “How are we going to do this?”
“We only have two options.” He held the cigar between his fingertips as his elbow rested on the table. “We hit them with everything that we’ve got. Or we sneak in—just a couple of us.”
“If we hit them hard, they’ll see us a mile away.”
Bartholomew nodded. “I know they have scouts in cabins farther away from the camp, so they’ll report us before we get there. I know they’ve got a stockpile of weapons at their disposal, some serious shit.”
“How do you know this?”
“I talked to their arms dealer. Got the inventory.”
“RPGs?”
He sucked on his cigar as he gave a nod. “Could shoot down our choppers before we even land. If we take the Hummers, it’ll be more of the same. We can let the men go first and we pull up in the rear, so they’ll die instead of us.”
“And if we sneak in?”
“Horses.”
Neither plan was great. A couple men weren’t enough to overthrow that camp, but if we came with guns blazing, they’d shoot us out of the sky like clay pigeons. “What should we choose?”
“Do we know where they keep their weapons?”
I shook my head. Even if I could ask Constance, I doubt she’d know.
“Do you know where her cabin is?”
I shook my head again.
“We could do surveillance for a while. Live in the woods.”
“I suppose.”
“Neither is a good decision. Because if we get caught on our own, we stand no chance to get away.”
True. “We could start a fire along the edges of the camp.”
“We have no idea which way that fire will go. Might go the wrong direction.”
Fuck. “I remember Constance saying something about a church…”
He took a drag of his cigar as he stared at me.
“It’s the only place where the women go that they can’t be followed. The windows are covered.”
“What are you thinking?”
“We get in there and give them weapons. There’ve got to be at least twelve. They can hide the guns under their gowns.”