“Did he hurt you?”
“No…Dad…he…I’m okay.” She looked up at him with her wide green eyes. “Really.”
His voice cracked. “You’re safe, now. Oh, God, you’re safe, little girl. I won’t let anything like this ever happen to you again! I swear.”
She was crying, too, clinging to him as he, still holding her, climbed to his feet. Around them the firefighters snaked hoses, started pumping water, barked orders. The horse barn was ablaze, flames threatening the garage. Firefighters trained nozzles on the roofs of the surrounding buildings. Gallons of water shot into the air, wetting down the roof of the house, garage and kennel, while firefighters battled the flames roaring in the stable.
“Hey you,” a female firefighter yelled, pointing their way. “Get out of the way! Is there anyone else here?”
“Shannon,” Travis said, looking around. His heart lurched when he didn’t see her and realized that all the stock was set free. “She’s here—”
“No! He’s got her,” Dani blurted out.
“What?” God, she looked thin and pale. It was all Travis could do not to hold her and rock her and forget everything else.
“He took her away.”
Oh, God no! “What do you mean?” he demanded, but he knew, deep in his soul, he knew what his daughter meant. Abject horror clawed at him.
“He’s got her!” Dani said, her eyes filled with a wisdom far beyond her years. Travis’s blood turned to ice. “The woman with the curly red hair, the one in the picture…She’s my mom, isn’t she?” Her little chin was thrust out, her eyes pinning him, daring him to lie, looking so much like Shannon, his heart cracked.
“Yes,” he admitted, thinking how desperate Dani had been to find her birth mother and now that she had, Shannon was missing, in the clutches of the psycho who had abducted her. For a second he felt as if his entire world had collapsed. Having come this far, having found his daughter, knowing Dani was safe, only to lose Shannon. He squeezed Dani as if afraid she would vanish into thin air.
“The Beast has her. We have to save her!”
“We will, honey. We will,” Travis vowed, hoping that, as water ran beneath his feet and the air was filled with the stench of damp, charred wood, he wasn’t lying.
Santana pinned Dani with intense eyes. “Who’s the Beast?”
“The psycho!” Dani clarified as if Nate was an idiot. “That weird pervert who tricked me!”
“Shit,” Nate said.
The female firefighter, her face already streaked beneath her helmet, her expression severe, bore down on them. “Is there anyone in the house or any of the buildings?” Silhouetted by the backdrop of angry flames hissing and sparking to the heavens, she looked from one to the other.
“No.” Travis shook his head.
She glanced at Nate for confirmation while firefighters shouted, yelled orders, and dragged hoses through the soggy mud and trails of water, all the while spraying great flumes upon the buildings. Dogs barked wildly, horses shrilled and the lights of the engines strobed the night.
“No one,” Nate shouted over the din. “Everyone’s out. But there’s a woman missing. Shannon Flannery. The owner of this place.” Nate pointed to Dani. “This is Dani Settler, the girl the police have been looking for. She says that the guy who abducted her brought her here, used her as bait to get at Shannon, then abducted her.” His face was hard and set, a mirror of the firefighter’s as he stared down at Dani. “Isn’t that right?”
“Exactly.” Dani nodded and her fists balled.
Travis’s heart tore. He held his daughter tighter. “You’re safe now,” he whispered, though fear for Shannon nearly strangled him. Where had the monster taken her? Was she alive? He thought of Oliver and Mary Beth and Blanche. The madman wouldn’t be satisfied until he’d killed Shannon, too. Oh, God, they had to find her. Had to!
The female firefighter stared down at Dani. “I think you’d better tell that to the police. I’ll call the station and make sure whoever’s in charge is told.”
“Detective Paterno,” Travis said, feeling the minutes passing by too quickly, knowing that with each passing second, Shannon was being dragged farther away. “Just let Paterno know what’s going on. We don’t have time to wait.”
“Who kidnapped you?” Nate asked Dani.
“The Beast. I don’t know his name, but he had a picture of her and he…he took her. He’d planned it for a long time.” She looked up at her father. “I was the bait. But he didn’t want me. He wanted her.”
“Where did he take her?” Nat
e demanded.
“I don’t know. But…I think to the cabin,” she said.