She met Rinda’s eyes and then dialed Josh Sykes’s cell phone. Once again, nothing. “Oh, pick up,” she ordered, as if the kid could hear her. She was shaking inside, scared to death. When Josh’s disembodied voice asked her to leave a message, she did. “Hi, this is Jenna, Cassie’s mom. I’m worried about her. She’s not here at the house and I thought, make that I hoped, she was with you. Please call me back as soon as you can.” She rattled off her phone number before hanging up and dialing a final number.
A woman’s rough voice answered. She sounded as if she’d just woken up. “Hello?”
“Mrs. Sykes? This is Jenna Hughes. I’m looking for my daughter. I was hoping to talk to Josh.”
“He ain’t here right now. Don’t know when he’ll be back, neither.” She paused, and Jenna heard the click of a lighter, then the deep intake of breath. “I figured he was with your daughter,” Wanda Sykes said, and the tone of her voice hinted that Cassie was the bad influence of the pair.
“I don’t know where either one of them is.”
“Don’t that just figure.” Another long drag of her cigarette. “You know, I been tryin’ to rein him in, but he don’t listen to me, ’specially when it comes to your daughter. I told him to keep his distance, that she ain’t his kind, but would he listen? Hell, no. Never did have a lick of sense. Too much like his old man. Only interested in drinkin’, smokin’, and gettin’ himself some.”
Jenna was stunned. She’d never met this woman
, and yet Wanda was more than willing to spill her guts. “Listen, when Josh comes in, or calls, would you have him phone me?”
A cackling, sarcastic laugh that ended with a coughing fit. “Oh, I’ll tell him, if it’ll do any good and if I’m awake. Sure, I’ll tell him.”
“Please, leave him a note if you’re going to go to bed.” How could Wanda not be worried sick?
“Didn’t you say you left him a message on his cell phone? He’ll get back to you.” She hung up as if Cassie’s whereabouts was of no concern.
“Idiot woman. Doesn’t she know there’s a madman running around abducting women?” Jenna muttered. Without waiting for Rinda’s response, Jenna raced up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time, the feeble light of her flashlight bobbing in front of her. She found the shotgun beneath her bed, the shells in her nightstand. She loaded the gun, clicked on the safety, and headed back to ground level where Rinda was adding wood to the dying fire. Red embers glowed and a few flames began to lick at the new chunks of fir.
“I’ll come with you.”
“No.” Jenna glared at her friend. “Absolutely not. Stay here. I’ve got my cell. If I need you, I’ll call.”
“If it works.”
“Yeah.”
“Tell me you’re not going to do anything foolish,” Rinda said, spying the shotgun. She was sitting on the edge of the hearth, the embers in the fireplace behind her finally catching fire to crackle, hiss, and cast shifting golden shadows through the room. “Tell me you’re going to take Shane’s advice.”
“I’m going to find my kids,” Jenna said. “That’s what I’m going to do.”
Rinda’s gaze slid to the shotgun. “With a gun?”
“For protection. Or if some creep’s got the girls.”
Rinda snorted. “Do you even know how to use that thing?”
“Well enough,” Jenna said, and headed outside to the night where the wind blasted, the snow and sleet slanted from the sky, and somewhere, oh, God, somewhere, her children were.
“Sheriff Carter?” a male voice said over the crackle of static on the cell phone connection. Carter turned his back to the wind and the accident, a jackknifed semi and a small car smashed like a tin can. EMTs were working on the survivors, the M.E. had been called for the fatality. “This is Officer Craig, OSP. We were on our way out to the Hughes place, but we got caught up with an accident here on the highway. Two injured, one critical. A woman trying to have a baby. The EMTs are on their way, but we won’t be able to get out of here for at least half an hour.”
Damn! Carter checked his watch. The unit should have been at Jenna’s by now.
“I’ve called for backup, but the department’s stretched to the breaking point.”
“I’ll handle it,” Carter said.
“We’ll get there as soon as we can.”
“I know.”
Carter hung up and walked to the scene where Lieutenant Sparks was taking notes. “Do you need me for anything?” he asked, and Larry looked up, dark eyes assessing.
“What’s up?”