Love Me Again (Stonewall Investigations Blue Creek 1)

The road evened out, the trees opened, and the abandoned farm appeared in front of me like a ghost on the edge of an ocean-side cliff, reenacting its final leap onto the jagged rocks below.

It wasn’t the house that made me pump the brakes, skidding to a jaw-clenching stop in another torrent of dust. It was the car parked off to the side, between two trees and a rotted-down shed: a broken and old Honda. The same one that had been caught on my neighbor’s security cameras the night of that bloody threat on the wall.

I was at the right place. Charlie was here.

The farmhouse was still a ways down the road. I slowly pulled off, driving into the same bank of trees the Honda had used to try and hide. Hopefully the element of surprise would still be on my side, but I couldn’t count on that. Whoever had Charlie might have been keeping an eye on the road. I unholstered my gun, clicked off the safety, and got out of the car, slow, every gravel-crunching step deliberate. I listened, trying to catch any little sound beside the soft rustle of branches and the clashing symphony of robins and seagulls. Anything that could give me a one-up over whoever was inside those run-down walls.

Nothing. I moved in closer, sticking close to the trees, keeping my eyes on the farmhouse, primarily the two doors and three windows that I could see. There used to be a second floor, but that had long been blown away by a particularly rough storm, along with the fence that used to surround the property, now only clinging to life in four-foot-long stretches.

I reached the car. I aimed my gun at the driver’s seat, clearing it, before moving on to the back, clearing that as well. I pressed my back against the vehicle and focused on how I’d get into the farmhouse without getting caught. The last time I came, I remembered there being an entrance around the back that had half a door. I could easily reach over and push open the door without having to break anything or make any noise.

My breath dropped into my lungs as if weighed by anchors. Never had the stakes felt so high. Charlie’s life depended on me getting in there without ringing any alarms. I stayed in a low crouch as I made my way across the dirt road, ignoring the locked front doors and going around the building. I held my breath, trying to listen through the cracked wooden walls but, again, not able to make out anything substantial.

I reached the back door. So far, so good. Back against the wall, I leaned around the corner and peeked into the dark and dust-filled room. The only light came in from the broken door, illuminating a strip of the room and nothing else. In my previous visit, I’d determined this had been the kitchen, which meant there weren’t too many places to hide. I pushed open the door and stepped in, gun held outward, eyes raking over every corner of the room. It took a moment for me to adjust, blob-shaped shadows quickly taking more solid forms: an old table cracked in half, an abandoned and cobweb-covered refrigerator, dirt-stained and permanently yellowed granite counters.

But no Charlie.

I resisted the urge to call out for him. To let him know that I was here and that he’d be safe.

I couldn’t make false promises. Charlie wasn’t safe until I got him out of here.

Next room happened to be a storage room. I stepped on something that cracked under my shoe, sounding like a bomb in the relative silence of the abandoned building. I froze. Listened. Hoped to all fucking hope that I wasn’t heard.

No one came running after me. No gunshots rang out, or screams. Everything still stayed quiet. I hadn’t fucked it all up.

A deep breath helped steady me as I moved through the shadow-infested storage room. A cockroach scurried up the doorframe as I slowly walked into the next room, expecting to see the same as I’d seen in the last two rooms: nothing.

Instead, I saw everything. Charlie. My Charlie. He sat in the center of the empty living room, head lolled forward and a blindfold tied around him, hands and feet bound.

But he was breathing. He was alive. I hadn’t lost him.

Something came over me. I threw all caution and logic to the wind. The path between Charlie and me could have been littered with bear traps and I still would have run directly to his side. Not even a pool of piranha and hammerheads would have stopped me from getting to him.

“Charlie, Char, Char, hey, hey, it’s me. I’m here. I’ve got you, baby, I’ve got you,” I crouched down and whispered to him, untying the blindfold and dropping it to the ground, gently touching his face, watching with relief as his eyes slowly fluttered open.