“I’m no spring chicken. But I can sit a watch with the best of them. Even now.” She tossed the magazine aside. “Go on. Time’s wasting.”
“Thanks.” Before he went in the bathroom, he moved over toward his mom’s closed bedroom door, pressing his ear against it. He didn’t hear anything. Satisfied, he went back to the bathroom and stepped in.
While he peed, he tried to maintain the sense of euphoria the sex brought on but found it slipping away. True—Natalie was safe. That was the only thing that mattered. She was safe and away from her father. Even in foster care or whatever system they’d place her in, she’d be safer there than out on the road with a maniac. But she’d be going anytime, maybe forever. He felt the hole in his heart growing and spreading like a crater.
He flushed and then washed his hands. He paused for a moment before the mirror and studied himself. His hair stood up and his eyes looked puffy and tired. Other than that, no real differences. Would people at school see he’d lost his virginity? Would Mike and Syd know when he sat down at the lunch table on Monday morning? If they didn’t, he would tell them. Maybe not right away, but eventually he’d tell them.
He reached for the knob. He heard a noise in the hallway. He pulled the door open, the adrenaline shooting through his body like ice water. He stood in the hallway listening, and then moved back to his bedroom. The door was shut. He could have sworn he’d left it cracked when he went to the bathroom. He pushed in. The bed was empty, the clothes gone from the floor.
Jared spun, and he saw Detective Poole at the end of the hallway.
“She’s in the kitchen, Romeo. Getting a glass of water. I’m using the little girl’s room if you don’t mind.”
“Sure.”
Jared went to the end of the hallway, scratching himself absently as he went. He had decided to turn around and wait back in bed when he heard the thump from the back of the house.
He waited. Head cocked.
He heard it again. And something like a muffled cry.
“Natalie?”
He ran for the kitchen and the source of the noise. When he entered he saw Natalie’s dad, William Rose, and he held Natalie by the arm, trying to drag her through the back door and out of the house.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
William Rose stood in the doorway, his hand clamped around Natalie’s arm. Jared saw the brute force exerted through the man’s hands as he squeezed her flesh. He saw the ugly, offending lips that sneered his way.
“She’s my daughter, and we’ll be leaving now,” he said.
Jared spoke with the simplest clarity. “No.”
His heart pounded and his hands shook. He felt a strange, jangling electricity in every part of his body, something that compelled him to move forward into the kitchen, his steps cautious and catlike.
Natalie looked more resigned than scared. Tears covered her pale face, but she seemed in control of her emotions. She wasn’t pulling against her father or fighting him. She didn’t scream.
“It’s okay, Jared,” she said. “I’ll just go with him.”
“No,” Jared said again, moving closer.
“Stop right there,” her father said, holding out his free hand. It was meaty and thick, like a fat holiday ham stuck on the end of his arm. His voice sounded like ground glass. “You’re going to get hurt, boy. If you don’t step off, you’re going to get hurt real bad.”
Jared heard someone behind him. He didn’t turn, didn’t take his eyes off Natalie and her father, but he knew Detective Poole and his mom had arrived and stood in the doorway. He heard his mother gasp, heard her breathing grow heavier as she watched the spectacle unfold.
Detective Poole spoke into a radio, requesting—demanding—backup. “We have a hostage situation.”
Jared kept moving forward. He stood ten feet away from them. If he lunged forward, moving as quickly as possible, he could be on the man. He was about to when Natalie’s voice stopped him.
“I’ll go,” she said again. “Just let me go. No one else will get hurt.”
“Jared,” his mom said. “Get back. Let the police handle it.”
William Rose stood in the doorway into the backyard. He gave one more tug, pulling Natalie with him. But then Natalie gripped the door. She locked eyes with Jared.
Detective Poole came up next to Jared. She had her gun drawn. The overhead lights reflected off the black metal barrel.
“She’s right. Get back.” Poole’s face looked determined, steely. A far cry from her usual grandmotherly appearance. Jared didn’t doubt that she could—and would—use the gun. “Sir,” she said to William Rose, “let the girl go.”
“She’s my daughter.”
“Let her go and get down on the floor. We don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
“Jared, back up,” his mom said.
“Sir, get down.”
“I love you,” Natalie said.