Page 95 of Little Girls Sleeping

Cisco bumped his wet nose against Chad’s hand as if to remind him he was there with him, that they’d find her.

“What’s up?” he said, looking down at the jet-black dog with wolf eyes. “I know, I’m scared too.” He looked around and remembered the many times they’d hiked and camped in the area growing up. He’d loved her then and nothing had changed.

Cisco kept his eyes fixed on him.

Chad knew that the dog had seen more combat conditions than most humans. He wondered too if Cisco sensed they were embarking on a fight—a fight to find Katie and save her life.

Looking back at the landscape, he whispered, “Where are you, Katie?”

Fifty-Four

“You should have left things alone,” Charles Rey said, never moving the barrel of the gun away from Katie’s face. “I warned you… I warned you to leave these cases alone, but you didn’t listen.”

Katie blinked a couple of times and then took her eyes away from the gun and watched Charles’s face as he spoke. She immediately noticed a white bandage wrapped tightly around his upper right arm, speckled with drops of blood.

Good boy, Cisco.

“Why couldn’t you just let them sleep?” he said. He lowered his head and mumbled, “Sleep… sleep, my pretty ones…”

“You know I can’t do that,” she replied, running through every type of escape scenario she could think of.

“I’m not wasting any more time allowing you to undo everything I’ve done. You made your decision. You’re responsible for your own predicament, right here, right now, and you will have to pay.”

“You may not believe this, but I do understand,” she said.

“Shut up!” His anger rose and unleashed; he seemed unable to control it. “Shut up!”

“I know how you feel,” she gently pushed.

“You don’t know anything! Have you seen what’s going on in the world, everywhere, even right here? It sickens me.”

Katie nodded.

“You know that girl’s parents had swinger parties? Abuse. Lust. Greed. What kind of environment is that for children? It gets worse every day. Every time I turn on the news I see children who have been victims, who have seen terrible things.”

While he was speaking, Katie tightened her abdominals and tried to sit up.

“Stay right there!”

She slowly leaned back, trying not to bruise her head any more than it already was.

“I know you, Katie. Smart. Capable. Tough. I always liked you. But your smarts have gotten you in this situation. I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to do it…”

“Do what?”

The shotgun wavered slightly. “I didn’t want to trap you and that nice deputy in the barn to die. I honestly didn’t want to…”

“I believe you. If you let me go, I’ll do everything within my power to help you. My uncle will do everything he can to help you—I can promise you that.”

Charles laughed, a hearty deep belly laugh.

Katie tried to sit up again, but Charles pushed the barrel of the gun toward her face.

“Stay right there, girlie.” Holding the weapon steady, he said, “I think for all your smarts you underestimate me. That’s why you couldn’t figure out the case. It was staring right at you, I was even helping you.” He laughed again. “Get up,” he said, waving the gun.

Katie hesitated.

“I said get up.”