Page 38 of You Can Make Me (Carnival of Mysteries #28)

Twenty

C ooper

I had the urge to check on Denny just as a shrill alarm sounded. Shutters slammed down over all of the windows and the doors locked.

Dane jolted in his seat, then jumped up. “Come on. We need to get into the panic room.” His phone was buzzing wildly in his shaky hand.

“Jesus,” Ryan said, as he and Kal stood. “I know he warned us when we did a practice run, but fuck me, that’s loud.”

“Denny!” Once the shock wore off, my heart lurched. I stood and grabbed my cane. I should have gone with him.

Dane put a hand on my bicep to stop me. “He’s the one that set this off. Come on. We have to get inside and then we can see what’s happening.”

“I’m not leaving without Denny.” I pushed his hand away and kept walking toward the front door. Kal blocked my path.

“It’s done. The house is locked down. Please, Cooper. Come with us.” He moved to my other side and grabbed my elbow.

Dane pulled his phone away from his ear and handed it to me. His skin had gone stark white.

I snatched the phone from him and shouted, “Who is this? What’s happening?”

“Cooper, it’s Walter. They took Denny. You need to get into the panic room right now, you hear me? I’m on my way, LAPD is on their way. Dane knows what to do.”

Fire ignited in my veins.

Instead of falling apart I was shaking with rage. This was not happening.

“You better find him, goddammit. He’s my everything, Walter!

You and Gene have to find him.” I wanted to fight off my new friends, but I handed the phone back to Dane, who put it on speaker and let the others guide me down the stairs, into a relatively large room with couches, a kitchenette, and a large screen.

The side of the house was partially cut into the hillside, and I imagined this panic room was actually in the ground.

“We will. He’s got the panic button on him. We’re tracking him. Dane, baby, I love you. I’m coming.”

“I know what to do. I love you, too.”

Dane shut the door behind us and pressed his hand to a keypad on the door.

The lock snicked into place. My ears popped from the change in pressure.

My heart felt cut off, like I’d left it outside.

I hadn’t been away from Denny in months and his absence was tangible.

I had to stay furious or I’d break into pieces without him.

“Walter updated the security on this house, and especially this room, in case of something like this happening,” Kal began in a calm voice.

“He’s been preparing for it. The room has been fortified to withstand fires, floods, earthquakes, and human invasion.

There’s enough food and water for up to ten people to last two weeks minimum, probably longer.

There’s a bathroom and a water source that can’t be tampered with.

We’re safe here. The police will come, and the alarm company will negotiate with them. Walter will be here as soon as he can.”

I put my hands on my hips and breathed out. Ryan was sitting at a control center, furiously pounding on keys.

“Can you bring up the camera feed?”

“Yeah, one sec.” Ryan kept working while Kal moved around the room, checking the temperature and the gauges for the generator.

I’d interviewed folks about panic rooms, and even seen some while working on a piece about preparing for wildfires in California’s vulnerable places.

I wasn’t worried about us. I was terrified for Denny.

Please let him be okay.

“This is from a few minutes before Denny got up to check the door.”

The screen popped up to show six different views from around the house. He sped up the feed and we watched as two cars pulled up. A familiar-looking guy stepped out of a silver SUV. He wore a polo and khakis, a badge and gun, and a scowl on his face.

“That’s Dax.” Dane’s voice shook when he spoke. “Why would he come here? Walter’s barely speaking to him.”

“And who the fuck is that guy?” Ryan asked, when the second guy got out of a beat-up two-toned Chevy pickup, probably from the eighties. He wore a flannel buttoned up to the neck despite it being hot out, a white hardhat with no logo, baggy jeans and work boots.

“I don’t know.”

Dane sucked in a breath beside me as the two men talked to each other and Dax handed the guy with the hardhat a weapon.

Dax approached the front door and knocked, but the other guy disappeared from view of the camera.

A minute later, Dax’s whole countenance changed.

He leaned down to look in the doorbell camera.

He spoke—I was frustrated that there was no sound—and then backed up a few steps with a friendly smile on his face, which brightened more as Denny stepped forward into view.

He had a hand on his gun as he approached Dax.

Then Dax’s smile fell, they both went to draw, and the hardhat guy stepped out of the bushes and Tased Denny.

“Shit,” Ryan said. “Tasers fucking hurt.”

I yelped as Denny hit the ground, but he was moving. He hadn’t blacked out.

The two men jumped, which must have been when the alarm sounded. It looked like they argued, neither noticing Denny slide something into the back of his pants before going completely still.

“That must be the panic button,” Ryan said.

“Walter texted. The alarm company has the footage and they’ve put out BOLOs on the cars and the two men.”

Dax grabbed Denny’s gun, then he helped hardhat guy load Denny into the truck, where they duct taped his hands and feet before slamming the door. I flinched, even though I couldn’t hear it. I felt it in my soul, being cut off from my love.

“This can’t be happening. This can’t…” I touched the screen as the car drove away, and the truck went the opposite direction.

“Come on, come on…there has to be a way,” I said, trying to control my ire. “Can you access the tracker in the panic button?”

Ryan turned his chair to face me. I didn’t want his sympathetic look. I wanted action. “I think Walter can do that with his app.”

“I can’t sit in here and do nothing while they take Denny away. I have to do something!”

“Dane,” Kal said, but I wasn’t done fighting.

“Let me out, then. You stay here if you want, but?—”

“Cooper, I know you’re worried?—”

“Dane—”

“They left, you saw them! Let me out?—”

“Dane!”

I turned to give Kal a piece of my mind for interrupting…but then I looked at the coffee table next to him.

The Ouija board sat there, the planchette sitting in the middle of the board.

The four of us stared at it in the amplified silence of the room.

“Did you bring that in here?” I asked Dane, wondering how he would have had time to grab it.

“No. After I used it with Denny, I put it in the ottoman upstairs.”

“Did you, Ryan?”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “I didn’t. But I think it’s clear what we need to do.”

My gaze darted between the three men as they had some sort of nonverbal conversation.

“Cooper, sit down. Please,” Kal said, gesturing to the couch. “If the board is here, it’s meant for us to use it.”

I let him lead me to the couch when all I wanted to do was scream and claw my way through the door. To Denny. Who was gone.

“I’m sorry, Cooper,” Dane whispered. “This is my fault. If Walter hadn’t asked you two to be here while he was gone…”

The pain in his voice cut through my fury.

I reached out and took his hand. “No, Dane. This is the fault of Virgil Evans and his co-conspirators.” My gaze dropped to the board. “Will it feel like my dreams? It’s awful in my dreams.”

“Not when we go together,” Kal said softly, as he sat on my other side. “He can’t hurt you.”

“Yes he can.” Tears poured down my face, but I wiped at them in a huff. “If he hurts Denny, he will. Can we stop him?”

“We’re gonna try,” Dane said, the corner of his lips turning up.

“I’ll be the lookout,” Ryan said. “Give me your phone, Dee Dee. I’ll keep Walter posted.”

Dane handed him his phone, then the three of us stared at the board.

“Whatever you do…” Dane started

“Don’t let go.” Kal finished.