Turn Back Time Page 17

  “I’ll get the milk.” Ariana ran to the fridge.

  He stuck the cookie in his mouth, grabbed a plate, and started piling the cookies on.

  “You could use a spatula, you know.” Mom arched a brow.

  “Real men use their hands. Ow.”

  Mom shook her head. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were still twelve.”

  He shrugged and brought the plate to the table. They sat and ate cookies with the milk while Ariana talked about a science project she was working on.

  The timer beeped. Mom set her glass down. “I’ll get those.”

  A whiff of chocolate chip cookies blew on them as the oven opened.

  Ari turned to Alex. “So, when are we going to do something with Mom again? It’s been so long since the three of us did something together. Why?”

  He took a deep breath. That was a really good question, and he didn’t have an answer. “I’m not sure, but we’ll definitely have to make that happen.”

  Ari bit into a cookie and sighed, looking deep in thought.

  “What are you thinking about?” Alex asked.

  She turned to him. “I just wish Mom was here.”

  “I think she’s busy with work.”

  “She’s at lunch with Casey.”

  Alex froze mid-bite. Was Casey a dude or a lady? “Who’s Casey?”

  She shrugged. “A friend. From work, I think. I’m not really sure.”

  “That’s nice.” Alex bit slowly into the cookie, trying to act casual. What if Casey was a guy? And worse, what if he was potentially more than a friend?

  Alex needed to pull himself together, and fast. He whipped his phone out from his pocket and found the browser app.

  “What’cha doin’?” Ari leaned closer, trying to see the screen.

  Mom glanced over, her eyebrows raised.

  “I’m going to sign up for the police academy.”

  Shock

  Nick rolled out of bed, his head in a fog. His body cried out for more sleep, but he was determined to make it to the gym before heading into the station. He’d stayed up late video-chatting with the kids. Parker had been so excited to tell him about landing a lead in the school play, and Nick hadn’t wanted to interrupt him.

  The daily calls after dropping the kids off had really helped to build on the progress he’d made while they had been visiting. Ava had even opened up to him about a guy she thought was hot. Nick knew she was testing him, so he’d just smiled and told her that was great. Anything to keep her talking to him.

  He stretched, pulled on some sweats and a V-neck, and then headed into the kitchen for an energy drink. “Breakfast of champions.” Once that was empty, he headed for the condo’s gym and worked out until he was dripping sweat.

  It felt good to get some cardio in after so long. The last week he’d buried himself in work, barely giving himself enough time to eat and sleep.

  Once back at his place, he noticed a missed call from Alex. He probably had more questions about the academy. Alex had been calling him daily, wanting to know this or that since he’d signed up for the next session. Nick would call him back later. He needed to get into the station after a quick shower.

  Before leaving, Nick sat on the couch with his laptop to check Chester’s transfer. Every morning and night, he looked for an update. Each time, he walked away disappointed. It had been nine days since the transfer had been approved, but who was counting?

  He was losing hope for finding Lottie and the others. It had been three weeks since the disappearances started, and there had been no new ones in quite some time. Nick had gone to visit Chester the week before, hoping that the news of moving to a new prison would get the lowlife talking, but he’d just sat there with his arms folded and a smug grin on his ugly face. The jerk wasn’t going to tell Nick a thing until he was sitting in a lower-security facility.

  Finally, the page loaded. Nick nearly dropped his laptop. It bounced off his lap, heading straight for the floor. He grabbed it and stared at the screen. His mouth dropped open and his pulse raged through his body.

  Chester’s transfer had been scheduled. It was actually going to happen—but that wasn’t the surprising part.

  He was scheduled to move that afternoon. In a matter of hours.

  Nick squinted at the words, making sure he had read them right. He had. The notorious kidnapper and murderer who held the key to potentially solving the huge missing persons case was getting his transfer that day.

  If Nick played his cards right, he could possibly talk with the slime ball that very day. It was unlikely with all the paperwork and red tape, but it wouldn’t stop him from trying. They had over a dozen missing people! That was more important than anything else.

  He closed the laptop and threw all his things into a bag. This would be a busy day, and hopefully the day he finally learned what Chester knew about the cult who had taken all those people.

  Realization

  “You want to join us for lunch?” Lucy smiled at Macy from the doorway. “We’re going to that Mexican place off Roosevelt Way.”

  Macy’s stomach turned at the thought of one of her favorite restaurants. “Thanks, but not this time.”

  “Oh, why not?” Lucy frowned.

  She tapped her pen on her desk. “I have a lot of paperwork to catch up on.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Next time.” Macy forced a smile. “I might be coming down with that stomach thing going around. I don’t think the food would sit right with me today.”

  Lucy took a step back. “I don’t want to get that. If you need to leave early, feel free.”

  “Thanks. I might just do that.”

  “Hope you feel better.” Lucy gave a little wave and left, closing the door behind her.

  Macy yawned as fatigue squeezed her. Was she actually coming down with something, or was it all the stress she’d been under? In two days it would be Thursday—three weeks since she and Luke realized Lottie was missing. Three weeks Jonah and the other leaders had probably been torturing her, if they’d let her live that long.

  Macy’s throat squeezed at the thought. Maybe she had her dates wrong. She flipped through her day planner and counted. Nope. Not wrong. Thursday would be three weeks. The time had gone by in a massive blur, both feeling like it had been much longer than it really was and feeling like it had just happened yesterday.

  She let go of the pages, letting them fall as they did. A wave of nausea ran through her. From stress or a stomach bug? She glanced down at the planner, which had fallen to the previous week.

  Macy froze, staring at her note for that Thursday. Her period should have started that day. She did the math. Five days earlier.

  Stress could cause a delayed menstruation, right?

  What if her nausea and lack of appetite had nothing to do with either stress or a bug?

  Could that even be possible? She and Luke had barely done anything other than snuggle the last few weeks. They’d been under so much turmoil from Lottie’s disappearance.

  Her head snapped up. There had been that one night they’d gotten romantic. When had that been? She closed her eyes and tried to remember the events of that day. That was when they had gone to the station to identify the missing community members. Then she and Luke had gone home and reconnected. She flipped through pages again.

  Sixteen days earlier. The room spun around her. How could this happen now, of all times? They’d been trying when things had been good and nothing had happened. But when they were both stressed out to the max, then they’d accomplished it?

  Unless she was wrong. Maybe it really was just stress. Either way, she needed to let Luke know what was going on.

  She picked up her phone and pressed the button. The screen remained black. She pressed three more times. Then she remembered seeing the low battery warning earlier, but she hadn’t been able to plug it in then. It was dead now.

  Macy reached for her office phone, but then realized she didn’t have Luke’s n
umber written anywhere. It was in her phone.

  That was probably for the best. She shouldn’t give Luke any unnecessary stress—what if she wasn’t pregnant? Macy needed to run to the drugstore and grab a test. If—and only if—it was positive, then she’d tell Luke.

  She set the phone next to the charger and grabbed her purse. Everything spun around her again. She took several deep breaths and then headed for her car. Her mind raced out of control on the short drive to the store.

  After paying for the test, she hurried into the public bathroom not wanting to wait until she got back to the office, or worse, home.

  The three minutes in the stall seemed to last an eternity and a half. Time had never moved so slowly while she waited with the stick behind her back.

  Finally, she brought it in front of her. Two blue lines formed a cross—no, a plus. It was positive. She and Luke were going to have a baby. At the worst possible time.

  The ground seemed to wobble underneath her. Macy pressed her arms against the sides of the stall and took deep breaths until her legs were steady again. Dizziness swept through her.

  She needed to call Luke. Macy slid the test back into the box and dug around her purse, unable to find her phone. Right. It was sitting on her desk, still dead. She needed to get back to the office and charge it since she’d forgotten before. Then she could call Luke as soon as it had enough energy to turn back on.

  The drive back to the clinic went by in a bigger blur than the drive to the store. She parked in her normal spot, stumbled into her office, and dropped her purse on the floor behind her desk. She reached for the phone, but knocked it onto the ground.

  What she really needed was a quick nap. She closed her door and the blinds before crashing onto the couch. Her heavy eyelids closed, allowing her to fall into a deep sleep.

  Allies

  Lottie looked around the circle. Now they had eight in the group, and they still agreed they needed at least nine. They had one of the men and all the women prisoners except Rebekah, who sat not far away watching them from the corner of her eye. Days had passed before Rebekah had moved from the spot where she’d been thrown by the guards. She’d been slowly creeping closer.

  One of these days, she would have to make the choice to join. Either that, or she’d have to stop scooting their way. Whichever she chose, she’d have to decide soon. They’d been in there for weeks, some claiming more than a month.

  The noises from the construction had dwindled in the last couple days. That could only mean one thing. Soon, the trials would begin. Any escape plan would have to be made before then.

  Jayla leaned closer to Lottie. “What if we don’t get nine? Is eight enough?”

  Lottie glanced around, making eye contact with each of them. “What do you think?”

  “We might have to,” Thomas, the one guy in the circle, said.

  “You can’t convince any of the other men to join us?” Sydney asked.

  He shook his head. “I’ve tried. They already think I’m nuts.”

  “Don’t they want to get away?” Kinsley asked.

  “We can’t tell them that’s our plan until after they join us,” Lottie said. “What if they try to stop us?”

  “They might, anyway,” Kinsley said.

  “But if they know what we’re doing, they might want to help,” Sydney replied.

  Lottie glanced back over at Rebekah, who seemed to have scooted closer again. “They might also join us when they see us trying to make our escape. But that’s not a risk we can—”

  Click.

  Click.

  Without a word, everyone scrambled to their places against the wall. Rebekah even moved to a different spot than where she’d been sitting.

  Click.

  Click.

  Click.

  Lottie’s heart thundered against her chest. She prayed the guards were bringing food and not whips. Beads of sweat broke out along her hairline. It was only a matter of time before she fell victim to a harsh beating.

  The door opened, and the guards came in with the trays of food. The smell of the soup wafted over. Lottie was grateful for it—the meager nourishment was what had allowed her to slowly build her strength back up—but at the same time, she really wanted something else to eat. Sure, there were worse things to complain about—the impending trial would lead to their certain deaths, for starters—but eating the same meal three times a day for weeks on end was no easy task. Sometimes it was hard to choke down simply because of the constant repetition.

  As the man with the kind blue eyes made his way over, Lottie’s stomach turned. At first, she couldn’t get enough of the soup and bread. Now she’d almost be willing to eat dirt just for a little variety. That was probably part of Jonah’s plan to wear them down and make them more agreeable.

  Blue Eyes stopped in front of Lottie and handed her the bowl. His fingers lingered on hers for a moment before letting go. He was sending her some kind of message, but she didn’t know what exactly. He glanced around and then spoke in a low voice. “I managed to get extras in your soup this time.” He handed her a piece of bread, stood up, and went back to the other guards.

  Lottie brought the bowl closer. It was filled with chicken and vegetables. Her mouth watered at the sight. She sipped and took in as much food as possible. If she took too long to eat, the other guards would force her to give the uneaten food back before she could finish. By the time she’d scarfed it all down, she was stuffed. With all the extras, it was about twice as much as she had grown used to eating.

  When the guards gathered the empty bowls, Blue Eyes came to her first instead of last. He wrapped both hands around hers and stared into her eyes with a striking intensity. He glanced around and then leaned close and whispered, “I’m working on a way to get you out.”

  Lottie’s eyes widened.

  “It’s going to take a few more days,” he continued. “Jonah has this place—everything in the community—sealed tight. Just don’t give up hope.”

  She nodded, her heart thundering. Part of her wanted to tell him she was working on something too, but she couldn’t get her mouth to get on board.

  He took the bowl and quickly gathered the others. As he walked back to the other guards, he glanced over at her and gave a slight nod. She blinked twice in response, fearing that even a nod would give away the fact that he was trying to help her. They left quickly, with none of the other guards noticing Blue Eyes giving her any attention.

  Lottie kept her gaze averted, not wanting to circle up just yet. She was trying to make sense of what she’d just been told. What was he doing? How did he think he could manage to get her out? What about the others? She didn’t want to leave them behind—she couldn’t. It wouldn’t be right. If anyone should leave, it should be one of the others. Most of them had children at home. Lottie had been given her time with Luke, and now had Macy as a second child.

  Sydney, Jayla, Rebekah, and some of the others were the ones who needed to have priority. Not only because of their young children, but because they also stood a better chance of escape. They were young and nimble, whereas Lottie had a lot of aches and pains that could easily hold her up.

  Sighing, she pressed her ear to the wall.

  Silence. The construction had stopped.

  If the courtroom was completed, that meant only one thing.

  The trials would start soon. And they would bring worse terrors than any beating.

  Anger

  “Don’t forget to carry the five.” Alex pointed to Ariana’s math problem. “Try the next ones on your own, okay? I’ll be right back.”

  She sighed. “This is so hard.”

  He ruffled her hair. “You can do it.”

  Ari scrunched her face. “We’ll see about that.”

  “Want to make a bet?”

  She shook her head.

  “Five cookies say you can do the whole row before I come back.”

  Her eyes lit up and then fell. “You don’t have five cookies.”


  “Clearly, you haven’t found my secret stash.”

  “You have a secret stash?”

  Alex whistled and gave her his most innocent expression. “Maybe. Wanna make that wager?”

  She stared at her sheet and then back up at Alex. “What happens if I don’t get them right?”

  “That’s not going to happen, so don’t worry about it. Get to work.” He winked and then headed to his room and returned Nick’s call. “What’s up?”

  “You might want to sit down,” Nick said. “Wait, you’re not driving, are you?”

  “No.” Alex sat on his unmade bed. “What’s so urgent that you wanted me to call right away, and now sit for?”

  “I thought you should know that Chester is in the process of being transferred as we speak.”

  “Say what? Now?”

  “Yes. It’s good news, Alex. He’s agreed to tell us what he knows about the cult once he’s in a prison closer to his family.”

  “And closer to Macy.” Alex’s voice was practically a growl.

  “He’s not going to escape the prison, Alex. It may be lower security than the one he’s leaving, but it’s still secure. Nobody has ever escaped from there.”

  A tight knot twisted Alex’s stomach, and along with it, a cutting feeling like something was really wrong—or would go wrong. “I don’t see how you can do this to Macy. She’s already having setbacks because of Lottie’s disappearance. I can’t imagine what having her kidnapper closer to home will do to her.”

  “If it helps us find Lottie, I’m sure she’ll be glad.”

  “Then what?” Alex demanded. “Do you send him back to the prison he deserves to be in?”

  “That’ll depend on him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If he acts up, the warden won’t hesitate to send him back. He has a reputation for not putting up with anything. The man runs a tight ship, and he’s proud of that fact.”

  “You’d better be right.”