I hug her. It feels so right.
“Tell me what happened next. Last night and this morning.”
“Last night, when we got back from the Emergency Room, we finished half a bottle of bourbon and watched a bunch of trashy reality TV. We didn’t really talk, I think we were both just kind of numb, but we also just needed company, you know?”
“I know. Sometimes it’s hard and sometimes you just need someone to be there.”
“Right.” She breathes another sigh and sits back on the sofa.
“We can take a minute if you need it.”
“No, no. I woke up, and she was making breakfast. Then her daughter, Josie, went off to school. That’s when he showed up. Switchblade. And he had a gun. He bashed the crap out of my face and then, when I woke up, they were gone. I know he took her and I know that, whatever he’s got planned for her, it’s just awful. You know how he got his nickname? He got it because of the things he likes to do to women.”
I can’t help myself, I sit down beside her and I pull her into a tighter hug.
“We’ll find her, Violet. Before that sick piece of shit can do anything to her. And then we’ll make every one of those bastards pay.”
Then, just for one perfect moment, she leans forward and kisses me on the cheek.
“Thank you. You can be nice when you’re not a total dick,” she says, smiling.
I laugh. “Don’t mention it.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t. I doubt anyone would ever believe me, anyway.”
Standing up, I look around the room, finally able to focus on something other than the overwhelming urge to comfort Violet. The living room shows obvious signs of a struggle — tables and chairs are overturned, pictures that used to hang on the wall are now shattered on the floor — and it’s clear that Kendra did not go away without a fight.
Then my eyes catch something off about one photo on the floor. Damage inflicted after the fall. Feeling my stomach sink, I pick it up and give it a closer look.
That sick motherfucker.
“Did you search the rest of the house?” I say. “Is there anything missing? Not just of Kendra’s, but of her daughter’s?”
“Why?” She says, her voice tight with worry.
I turn the photo around and show her — it’s a photograph of Kendra with her daughter. A recent one, from the looks of it, as the Kendra sitting in the shattered frame looks exactly like the one who was at the bar last night — same hair length, color, same laugh wrinkles around her eyes, and even the same outfit. But there’s one very significant part of it that’s been sliced away and taken: her daughter.
“Josie,” Violet gasps.
“Where is she?”
“At school,” she says, then she checks the time on her phone. “But she gets out in thirty minutes. Do you think he’d really…?”
She stops, unable to say the words.
I nod.
“Whatever Switchblade has planned for Kendra, it’s something sick enough that he needs to hold the threat of harming her daughter over her head. We need to get to her. Right now.”
Chapter Seven
Violet
There’s a moment when I arrive at the school with Crash and two of his club brothers, Mack and Snake, where I come to a stop so abrupt that Crash almost bumps into me. It’s right outside the main doors to the elementary school, with children playing in the fenced-off playground during their end-of-day recess, and the sound of other children — en route from one class to another — flowing out of the open main doors to the school. It’s a moment where I feel like an entirely awful friend.
“What is it?” Crash says, barely stopping in time to avoid hitting me. There’s alarm in his voice and I see him subtly reach for his gun.
“This isn’t going to work,” I say, struggling to get the words out through the growing cloud of dread that’s been fogging my brain ever since I realized that, not only is my best friend in the hands of a monster, but her daughter is on that monster’s hit list.
“What do you mean, lass?” Mack says.
“I mean, I’ve never picked Josie up from school before.”
“So?” Crash says. “We go inside, we find her, we bring her home with us. It seems simple enough.”
I’m not surprised he doesn’t get it.
“No, it’s not that simple,” I say.
Crash gives me a confused look. As does Snake. Mack, however, is wearing a frown.
“What do you mean?” Crash says.
“I’ve never picked her up. Schools don’t just let people wander in and grab whatever child they want. You have to be on a list,” I say.
“She’s right, Crash,” Mack says. “Sophia and I have been scouting daycare spots in Lone Mesa for Matty. And the security precautions childcare places have to take nowadays is shocking. The things we got away with as kids, like my mum letting me wander alone through the markets in Dublin, just don’t happen nowadays.”
Crash shrugs, undeterred, and takes a step around me and toward the open doors to the school.
“We can’t just stand around out here with our dicks in our hands, waiting to find the right kid,” he says.
“Brother, do you realize what you just said out loud?” Snake says, mouth open and an enormous grin on his face. “And in a school?”
“Say it a little louder and you’ll wind up on some kind of
