Her Christmas Guardian. Shirlee McCoy
her stomach and ready to collapse, but she was going to look in the house anyway, because she didn’t know what else to do.
The door swung open on creaky hinges. She’d been meaning to oil them, but time had got away from her—all the busyness of going to work and being a mother had made anything extra nearly impossible to do.
She walked into the dark living room, inhaling stale air and silence. No sound of Lucy giggling. No soft pad of little-girl feet on the floor. No squeals or cries. Nothing. The house felt empty and lonely and horrible.
Her foot caught on something, and she fell forward, would have hit the ground if Boone hadn’t grabbed her arm.
“Careful,” he said.
“There’s something on the floor. I think it’s the couch cushion.”
“How about we turn on a light. Then you’ll know for sure,” Stella said drily.
The light went on, illuminating a room that had been taken apart. Couch cushions slashed and tossed on the floor, books torn and flung away. Photographs ripped from walls, their frames smashed. Lucy’s little stuffed bear near the fireplace, its stuffing hanging out like entrails.
She started toward it, but Boone grabbed her arm. “Not yet.”
“What—?”
“Take her outside.” Boone cut her off, his face hard, his expression unreadable.
That was it. A quick sharp command, and Stella grabbed Scout’s arm, started dragging her back toward the door.
Only she wasn’t going, because this was her house, her daughter, her problem to solve. No matter how sick she felt, no matter how scared she was.
She yanked away. “I need to check Lucy’s room,” she mumbled, more to herself than to either of the people who’d brought her home.
“Not going to happen, sister.” Stella tightened her grip, dragging Scout backward with enough force to nearly throw her off balance. She had a choice. Go or fight. Normally, she’d go, because she was a rule follower, the kind of person who’d never take a stroller on an escalator or park in a no-parking zone. She didn’t try the grapes at the grocery store before she paid for them or take fifteen items into the twelve-items-or-less line.
But she had to find Lucy. Had to.
And if that meant fighting, that was what she was going to do.
She yanked her arm from Stella’s, tried to run through the living room and into the hallway beyond. It should have been easy. She jogged nearly every day, sprinted after Lucy all the time, across the backyard, through the local park.
But her legs didn’t want to move, and she stumbled forward, moving in what seemed like slow motion, the hallway so far away she wasn’t sure she’d ever get to it.
“Not a good choice, Scout,” Boone sighed.
Next thing she knew, she was in his arms, heading back the few feet she’d managed to go. Outside again, the cold November air stung her cheeks, and she wasn’t even sure how she’d got there, where she was going, what she was looking for.
Lucy.
She zeroed in on the thought and held on to it, because she couldn’t seem to hold on to anything else.
“Put me down!” She wiggled in his arms, trying to free herself. He just held on more tightly, striding to the SUV and opening the door. He set her in the backseat, leaned down so they were eye to eye.
“Do us both a favor,” he growled, “and stay there.”
He closed the door and walked away. She would have opened it and followed, but Stella was right there, hips against the door, back to Scout.
Scout slid across the bucket seat, reached for the handle on the other side, heard a soft click and a beep. She tried the handle. The door wouldn’t open. She climbed over the seat and into the front, pushed the button to unlock the doors. Nothing.
Someone tapped on the window, and she looked out, met Stella’s eyes. “Not going to open, sister,” Stella called through the glass. “We’ve got a special lock system for situations like this.”
Like what? Scout wanted to ask, but Stella turned away, her attention focused on the edge of the property and the oversize trees that lined it.
Standing guard?
That was what it seemed as though she was doing—putting herself and her life on the line for Scout.
Why?
It was another question Scout wanted to ask.
Later.
First, she needed to find a way out of the SUV and back in the house. Lucy might not be there. Wasn’t there. She admitted it to herself, because living in a fantasy world wouldn’t help her get Lucy back. She had to be practical, had to be smart, had to trust that her daughter was okay and that they’d be reunited eventually.
If she didn’t, she’d fall apart. That wouldn’t do anyone any good.
She pressed a shaky finger to her temple, the bandage scratchy and thick, the throbbing pain of the wound it covered making her stomach churn.
“Concentrate,” she muttered, looking around for some other method of opening the doors.
Maybe the hatchback?
Hadn’t she seen something in a survival show about unlatching trunks from the inside? Was it possible to do the same with the hatchback opening of an SUV?
She crawled back over the seat, her stomach heaving as pain shot through her temple. Cold sweat beaded her brow, and her entire body seemed to be shaking, but she managed to get to the back section of the vehicle. She felt around for a mechanism that would open the door, found nothing.
Two police cars pulled into the driveway, lights flashing, sirens off. Scout stayed where she was as several police officers ran past. She didn’t think they saw her lying on her side in the back of Boone’s SUV. She doubted it would matter if they did. They weren’t going to let her out of the vehicle, and Stella hadn’t budged from her place near the passenger door.
Lights splashed out from the windows of the little rancher she’d lived in for three years. She knew each window, each light. Named them silently as they flashed on. Dining room at the side of the house. Her room in the front. Lucy’s room. Behind the house, trees butted up against the night sky, the canopy of the forest illuminated by moonlight. She knew exactly how far the kitchen light would spill out from the window above the sink, knew just how much of the backyard would be painted gold by it.
Her heart thudded painfully as shadows moved in front of the window. Somewhere, her daughter was sleeping in a strange bed, in a strange house, with strangers all around.
Best-case scenario, she was.
Worst-case scenario...
Scout refused to put a name to it, refused to allow herself to imagine anything other than her daughter lying in bed crying for her.
She closed her eyes, trying to pray, wanting to pray. Her mind was empty of anything but fear and sorrow and the aching pain of her injury.
A car engine broke the silence of the night, and she managed to crawl back over the seat. She sat there as a small Toyota pulled up behind the police cars. Scout knew the car. It belonged to her landlady, Eleanor Finch. The police must have called to let her know there’d been a break-in at the property.
Eleanor got out of the car, but she didn’t approach the house, just stood and stared at it. Maybe this was old hat for her. She owned a number of properties in River Valley. Most of them were a lot more impressive and lucrative than this one. Scout figured that was why she’d been willing to do a rent-to-own contract on the rancher. It didn’t rent for enough to make it worth Eleanor’s while to keep it.
She hadn’t ever