Page 95 of The Fragile Ones

The last thing Chief Osborne said was, “Please don’t hurt him…” and then he died.

Katie tried to resuscitate him for almost ten minutes, but she knew deep down it was too late.

She leaned back against the couch, exhausted, and let the realization sink in. It made sense that Mason followed her to try and scare her away, because they were getting too close. He’d killed his own father, the man who took him in—so obviously was very troubled. A bit of his psychological disposition began to come to light.

Katie sat and listened to the storm gaining momentum outside, and lost all sense of time until a cold nose nuzzled her cheek.

“Cisco,” she said and hugged him.

“Hey,” McGaven said, coming down the stairs. “Mason knows this area well and already had a head start on me. I lost him.” He looked to Chief Osborne, the broken entertainment center, and back at Katie. “You okay?”

Katie nodded, not able to speak. The exhaustion of trying to bring a wounded man back to life—too many similarities to the battlefield—had left her emotions raw.

McGaven offered a hand and pulled Katie up. “Did he say anything that will help us?”

“Mason is his adoptive son and he didn’t want us to hurt him. And he said there’s another girl—no name or location. I don’t know if that meant there was another kidnapping, or what.”

McGaven gaped for a moment while the new information settled in his mind.

Both Katie and McGaven turned around to see Officer McKinney standing there, eyes fixed on his boss.

“What are you doing here?” McKinney demanded.

“Whoa, take it easy,” said McGaven, keeping a keen eye on the officer’s hands.

“What happened?” he said, looking at his boss. “Who killed the chief? Mason?”

“What makes you say that?” asked Katie.

“Did he?”

Katie nodded. “Yes.”

“I knew it. With everything that has been going on. I knew something like this would happen.” He turned and sprinted up the stairs.

“Hey, wait!” said McGaven, running after him.

Katie grabbed her jacket and slipped it back on as she waited for McGaven. Her cell phone was in the pocket; she pulled it out and dialed her uncle. It rang, but then the call went directly to voicemail. “It’s me. Chief Osborne is dead inside his residence. Killed by his adoptive son. Gav and I are going to try and find him. There’s the possibility another girl had been abducted…” The connection went dead. “Let’s hope he gets his voicemail,” she said to herself.

McGaven came back, breathing hard.

“Where is he?”

“He’s gone.”

“This investigation is getting even more complicated.”

“Do you think that McKinney knew what was going on?”

“I think he suspected and now he’s angry,” said Katie.

McGaven looked around. “Let’s see what we can find here that might tell us where he went.”

“Okay.” She didn’t want McGaven to see that she was really shaken by the events, but the best thing to do was to forge ahead. It was what she always did in the middle of combat—and no doubt this was a battle—so she kept going.

Cisco circled and barked as he sensed the heightened energy in the room.

Katie walked around the basement room but there wasn’t anything that stood out to her. She climbed the stairs with weak legs. Joining McGaven, she looked around, trying to make sense out of the chief’s house.