“Shut up.” Josh bounced the tip of the gun up and down. “Shut up!”
She saw the muscle in his jaw clenching.
A moment before she hadn’t cared if he shot her. She’d almost wanted it. But now—now they could go get Josh Jr.—
“Let’s go get him back. I know where he is,” she said.
“Get him back? You gave away our baby?”
Mason lolled back against her thighs and took a breath to launch into another wail. Josh didn’t look at the kid. His focus remained locked on her, the gun in his hand growing steadier.
Kim’s jaw slowly creaked open.
He’s going to shoot me.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Charlotte moved through the patch of pines beside the house in front of which the minivan now parked. The plan hadn’t been to get out of her own car, but then a man she assumed to be the woman’s husband came out of the house looking agitated.
Maybe agitated wasn’t the right word.
He’d looked mad.
The two argued and then the woman ran towards the house, the man striding after her.
It looked like the woman was holding a baby. Someone had been crying and it sounded more like a child than the adults.
The whole thing made Charlotte uncomfortable. She didn’t want to interfere in the lives of others, but she also didn’t want to sit on the curb like a lump if someone needed help in the house. If not the woman, maybe the child. What if that was the Bennetts’ baby? What if the woman was the kidnapper? Did the husband know? Is that what they were arguing about?
The woman almost looked as if she’d been running a baby away from the man. She’d held something against her chest.
A terrible thought crossed Charlotte’s mind.
Maybe he regretted the kidnapping and wanted to get rid of the evidence.
That last thought propelled Charlotte out of her Volvo. Her over-active imagination had taken the scene to its most extreme result, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen. She swallowed and shut the door quietly behind her.
I have to do something.
As she crept from tree to tree, the argument began anew inside the house. The words were too muffled to make out, but it was clear two adults were yelling over the almost constant wail of a baby.
Time to pick up the pace.
As Charlotte scurried to the rickety fence surrounding the property, she heard a bang and the screaming grew louder. The baby’s cries sounded as if they were just behind the fence. The man’s roars were less muffled. The bang she’d heard had a familiar smack to it...
Screen door.
That was it. The familiar bang! of a springed screen door closing behind someone. Not a threatening sound, and it meant the argument had spilled outside again.
Good. Their outdoor location would make it easier to keep an eye on things.
Charlotte spotted a gap between the rotting fence boards surrounding the property’s back yard and pressed her face against it to peer through with one eye.
The woman she’d been tailing stood in the middle of an overgrown patch of grass holding a baby to her body. Even at a distance, Charlotte could see her cheeks glistening with tears. The woman’s mouth reminded her of the cartoons she’d seen as a child, where the animated characters’ lips were made from rubber bands, arcing and twisting in ways a normal mouth couldn’t really bend.
Except when someone was crying, apparently.
The man stepped onto the porch.
“Answer me!” he barked.
Something’s in his hand.
Charlotte pressed her face harder against the fence, trying to get a better view, and felt the pattern of the wood pressing into her flesh. The man’s hand swung, obscured, behind a plant sitting on the edge of a wooden deck.
Did I see something in his hand?
She hustled along the fence line searching for a peep hole offering a better angle. Finding one she thought could work, she pressed her eye against it.
Now she could see the man from the front. Her gaze dropped to his hand.
Gun.
The man had a gun.
Charlotte felt her stomach twist into knots and she glanced back at her car.
Where her gun sat.
As usual.
Why don’t I ever have it when I need it?
She knew why. She didn’t like walking around with a gun. Sure, it was a necessary tool of her trade, but she felt weird marching around with a deadly weapon strapped to her body. It seemed so pessimistic.
But today...today might have been a good day to be a little pessimistic.
She did have her phone.
She dialed 911.
“911, what’s your emergency?” said the dispatcher.
Charlotte lowered her voice and covered her mouth with a cupped hand as she spoke into the phone. “There’s a man with a gun here.”
The woman on the other side of the line inquired about her safety.
“I’m safe. Can’t talk,” she said, trying to keep talking to a minimum.
Charlotte racked her brain for the address of the house. She’d seen it from the curb… what was it…
“745 Cornflower Court. Hurry.”
She left the phone on and placed it on the ground.
Now what?
She wanted to distract the man from potentially killing someone, including her, but she couldn’t just pop up from her side of the fence like a puppet. If she startled him, he might swing that gun on her and fire before she had a chance to talk him down.
On the other hand, she couldn’t remain crouching on her side of the fence until he shot someone, either.
The woman spoke, interrupting her planning.
“It isn’t Josh Jr. I swapped him.”
What?
The words stopped Charlotte as easily as a bullet from that gun would have.
She is the kidnapper. That’s the Bennetts’ baby.
