“Of course,” Sloan hurried out of the room.
“Where was he this time?” Margo asked, reaching her arms out for Evan to bring the beloved family pet closer to her. She took one of his front paws in her skilled hands and looked closely at the deep, bloody cracks there. She winced sympathetically.
“About twenty-five miles north of here,” Evan answered. His voice was gruff with emotion. The coydog represented physically how emotionally tattered they felt in their search for Meg. They were no closer to finding her than they were three months ago. She’d been swept off the face of the earth.
Chapter 47 Shards of Glass
Creed was dressed and ready inside five minutes. The soldier in him was functioning now. His face was stone, eyes scanning their surroundings, predator-like.
They had done this before and were practiced at it.
Farrow would climb a tree or get to some other high point and lie in wait, sniper rifle at her eagle eye. She was their life insurance. Creed would go through the front and Alik through the back. The boys would sweep the targeted building in silence. They tried to avoid engaging anyone so their search was stealthy. If someone on the premises was roused, they were spared every effort to walk away. Out of the eleven locations Greg Burns had given them as possible leads, Creed had to disarm and subdue three people and Alik two. No one had been killed, yet.
They never knew what they were going to find when they went to an address. This night was no different.
The chateau sat far back from the beach, but the scent and sounds of the ocean was thick in the air. The three metahumans sat in their black rental car and watched the home for the first hour. Seeing no movement or lights, they decided it was time to begin their search. Farrow climbed the nearest leafy palm with the agility of a gymnast. A thumbs-up was her signal that even through her scope, everything looked good to go.
“Okay, Farrow says it’s clear. You ready Creed?”
Alik had allowed the soldier his silence since their talk earlier. He knew his brother was hanging by a thread of hope and truth be told, he was a little afraid of what would happen when that thread snapped.
Creed nodded once and pulled his black ski cap over his face. His gun was loaded and secured in its holster. Even so, Creed preferred to handle matters with hand to hand combat. Alik wondered if he felt it was fairer to the humans they may encounter.
Alik pulled his mask down and quietly opened his car door. Creed was already out and jogging up toward the side of the front door to peer into the window beside it when he stopped.
Something on the ground caught his eye.
Alik broke routine to sprint to Creed to see what he was looking at.
Glass.
Broken shards of glass were all over the ground.
Both boys looked up and saw a window that had been sitting in the shadows of a cluster of vines that crawled up and around that side of the house. The window was boarded up.
The boys exchanged a worried glance and ran to the front door together.
After peering in the windows and seeing no movement, Alik went to work on the lock, quickly picking it using the techniques Evan had shared with him years ago. Once inside, Alik hesitated, looking for an alarm panel he may have to disarm, but Creed couldn’t have cared less if the whole Italian police force was on their way. Nothing was going to stop him from getting to that upstairs room with the broken window.
If Meg were held against her will, there would damn well be signs of a fight, Creed told himself as he took the stairs three at a time.
Finding no alarm, Alik wasn’t far behind him.
The house looked like it was packed away for the off-season. White sheets were draped over furniture making them glow bleached and ominous against the boys’ flashlights.
Locating the room wasn’t difficult.
“I can smell her,” Creed whispered frantically.
Alik took a deep breath as they stood in the abandoned room. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely,” he said as he walked toward the white, gauzy curtains that hung long and still over the boarded window. He lifted the fabric to his nose and inhaled.
His eyes flew open and nostrils flared at what he smelled. “Oh my God, she was here,” he nearly moaned when his joy turned to heartache. “I smell her on these drapes: Lilies and strawberries. Damn it, Alik. I smell her blood.”
Alik took the thin gauzy drapes in his hands and inhaled deeply. “I smell her, too. She was definitely here, in this room. These drapes touched her—probably her hair—that’s where her scent is the strongest.”
“This is the closest we’ve gotten to her, Alik.” Creed’s voice sounded equal parts joyous and terrified.
“It is,” Alik had pulled his mask back from his face and was holding the curtain between his fingers, deep in thought. “Why was she bleeding?”
“What?” Creed’s voice nearly broke in his emotional panic.