Total pages in book: 16
Estimated words: 14553 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 73(@200wpm)___ 58(@250wpm)___ 49(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 14553 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 73(@200wpm)___ 58(@250wpm)___ 49(@300wpm)
The intruder sniffles and cries. “Okay, fine. Someone named Sam, Sam Rogers, hired us. We’re supposed to grab the kid and meet up later.”
“How many more of you are there looking for the kid?” I ask him.
“It’s just us two. That’s it. That’s all I know.” He whimpers and lets his head rest on the ground. The adrenaline is wearing off.
Sirens blare in the distance, and Aiden storms out of the garage. I follow him outside just as the police arrive. He paces in a circle while the officers get out of the car. There are only two, but that’s more than enough to haul these guys away.
Aiden tells them what’s happening but leaves out the information we got from the one intruder, who’s now unconscious. The police thank us for our effort and leave us with the two perpetrators in the back seat of their squad car.
“So, are you going to tell me who Sam Rogers is, Aiden?” I ask him once we’re inside his car.
“Jeremy’s mother, Samantha,” he growls.
“What? I thought she didn’t want anything to do with you or Jeremy.”
Aiden’s jaw clenches, grinding his teeth as we drive at breakneck speed back into town. “She doesn’t. It doesn’t make sense why she’s trying this kind of shit now.”
“Where are we going?” I ask him. “And can we slow down?”
“There’s a gated community just outside of Avonia. Her mother has a house out there. It’s where I caught her the first time.” Aiden grimaces, white-knuckling the steering wheel as he continues speeding toward our destination.
“The first time?”
He snaps his neck, glaring at me for a moment before he refocuses on the road. “The first time I caught her cheating on me. She fucked the landscaping guy, and I saw through the window. I think she enjoyed knowing that I watched her.”
“So if she’s there, what do you have in mind? Police or would you like to handle it on our own?”
“I’d like to handle it myself—”
I cut him off. “No, you don’t. Aiden, listen to me. Technically, she’s only been implicated. We looked at the security footage from the school. She’s not in any of it from the past week. Although, I’d like to go back further and look. But if you see her in this state, you’re liable to kill her.”
“So what?”
“What about Jeremy, Aiden?” I ask him with the hope of getting through. I need him to dial back his anger to be reasonable. “I can take care of it. When we see her, let me handle it, Aiden. Please.”
I touch his hand on the gear shift, but he remains silent. The rest of the drive is quiet until we pull up to a security booth outside of some cookie-cutter townhouse neighborhood that looks like it was pulled right out of the 1950s.
Aiden talks to the guard, who immediately lets us into the community. We drive for a minute or so before turning down one dead-end street. He pulls the car into a driveway and shuts it off.
“Who lives here?” I ask him, hoping this isn’t the house his ex happens to be inside.
“No one. I rent it out and a few other houses here. I bought it years ago so my private investigator could use it to spy on Sam and the people she cheated with. The house she stays in is two streets over. There’s a shortcut through these yards.”
He doesn’t wait for me as he checks the clip in his gun, holsters it in his waistband, and stalks between two houses. I stay about a foot behind him as he weaves around hedges and stoops down once we’re close to the house he undoubtedly plans to break into.
“It’s this one right here.” Aiden’s voice is low. “Thank you, Lana.”
“Don’t thank me yet. Let’s see if she’s in there and take it from there. Thank me after all three of us leave this place alive.”
I tip my head forward, giving him a signal that I’m ready to go inside if he is. Aiden skulks toward a side door and tries slipping a key off his keychain into the lock. When it doesn’t work, he nods.
“It was worth a shot to see if she ever changed the lock,” he says.
“Let me take a crack at it,” I tell him, and he steps aside. I pick the lock easily and let us inside. The inside is normal enough. It’s nowhere near as big as Aiden’s home or his parents, but that’s a good thing.
We take our time, quietly moving through the house. My heart races as we get closer to the sound of two people talking. The woman’s voice is loud and clear as she says, “What do you mean they were arrested?”
“I mean, I saw them getting hauled away in the back of a police car. They’ll probably call me for bail and a lawyer,” a deeper voice replies to her. “Sam, this isn’t what I signed up for. You said we were getting your kid from his abusive father. The kid looked fine, and now my people are behind bars. I’m out of here.”