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The hole in Trevor’s lower rib cage was tiny. Smaller than a pencil eraser. And it hadn’t bled much. But what was going on inside him? Was he bleeding internally? He had no way of knowing. He felt okay so far. Perfectly fine, actually. Maybe a little lightheaded. The hole was three or four inches to the left of his solar plexus. Had that one little round of buckshot hit anything? What was back there? The liver?
He couldn’t believe she’d shot him. He should’ve looked inside that closet before letting her get a sweater. Big mistake on his part. Totally screwed everything up.
He wasn’t sure why he’d come out to the garage. Maybe it was time to hit the road. Right now he was in the driver’s seat of the Impala. They keys were in the ignition. He’d found them hanging on a pegboard in the kitchen.
What would Caril Ann do if he left? She probably wouldn’t be able to hear him start the car, because the bedroom was at the rear of the house. She wouldn’t see the headlights, either, or he could leave them off until he reached the county road.
How long would she stay in there? A long time. She’d think he was waiting for her somewhere in the house.
He could be hundreds of miles away by daybreak. The cops wouldn’t be looking for an Impala.
They cruised slowly past the driveway in Bobby Garza’s SUV and proceeded for several hundred yards, until the sheriff pulled to the side of the quiet county road and parked.
They had a plan. Solid, but simple.
Lauren would approach the house from the front. Garza would approach from the rear. Marlin would check the garage.
It was 1:22 in the morning.
Earlier, Renee’s father, Joel, had verified that his mother had recently gone into an assisted-living facility and her home was empty. He consented to a search of the property, with no limitations. He told them where a key was hidden and gave them a verbal description of the floor plan. He mentioned that they never bothered locking the door to the detached garage, so they wouldn’t need a key there.
Now Marlin, Bobby, and Lauren were preparing to exit the SUV and approach the eight-acre property. No moon tonight. No artificial light emanating from any sources. But they had an advantage they’d be using shortly: night-vision goggles. They would also use earpieces with their radios so the transmissions wouldn’t give them away. Each of them was carrying an M4 rifle.
“I’m not a big fan of splitting up in a situation like this,” Garza said, “but in this case, I don’t want to waste a single minute. If she’s in there, I want to get her out ASAP. And I don’t want to give him a chance to slip away. So we’ll need to stay in touch on the radio. We all on board with that?”
“Absolutely,” Lauren said.
“You bet,” Marlin said.
“If you see or hear anyone inside the house, just pull back and alert the others. Then we’ll probably need to get SWAT out here. We’ll check all the windows first—see what we can see—and just listen for a few minutes at each one. Marlin, if you can see into the garage, that’ll be a big help. If there’s nothing in there but Grandma’s Impala—no truck—then we’ll know we’re probably on a wild goose chase.”
“Will do.”
“Y’all ready?” Garza asked.
“Let’s do it,” Lauren said.
They stepped from the SUV and gently eased the doors closed.
Marlin pulled his NVGs into place and turned them on, casting everything around him with a greenish glow. He watched as Bobby and Lauren did the same and made necessary adjustments. Then Bobby gave a hand signal and they proceeded in single file along the county road and up the driveway, toward the house. After another one hundred feet, they branched off in different directions, moving stealthily through the darkness.
Marlin could see the detached garage no more than sixty feet away now, to the left of the house. No sign of movement outside. The garage had one large retractable overhead door in front—the south side—for the two vehicle bays. To the right of the overhead door was a regular door with a small window built into it. There were no other doors or windows in the three other walls.
Marlin was trying hard not to get his hopes up. Odds were good this was a waste of time. Garrett Becker had done his best to provide useful information, but what he’d shared was a guess, and nothing more.
Lauren Gilchrist reached the steps to the wide front porch and paused for a moment. Listened. Heard nothing. Earlier, Joel—Renee’s father—had told Marlin there was no alarm system. No motion-activated lights. Nothing to trip them up and alert anyone inside to their presence.
Lauren slowly mounted the wooden steps. Reached the top. Waited a moment. Went left to a window that opened into the living room, although, like every window in the house, it was blocked by curtains or blinds. She stood and listened for two minutes. Silence.
She quietly stepped to the front door and stood to one side. Paused again. No sounds from inside the house.
She continued to the right side of the porch, to a window that opened into the kitchen. Both sides of the blind let her see a small sliver of the room with her NVGs, but there was nothing to see. No movement. She waited a full three minutes.
Quiet.
Bobby Garza was desperately hoping to hear something. Anything. A flushing toilet. Somebody coughing. Music. A TV show. Footsteps on a hardwood floor. The sound of an incoming text.
But he was hearing nothing.
The first window he reached was the bedroom on the back left—the northwest corner of the house. There were only two bedrooms in this small house built more than seventy years earlier. One bathroom. Just over one thousand square feet in total. Tiny by today’s standards. The garage had obviously been added later, to the west of the house.
Strange what runs through your mind in these moments.
Garza stood outside that window so badly wanting to hear a voice—but the voice didn’t come. So he moved to the second window—the bedroom on the back right. Northeast corner of the house. Waited a full minute.
That’s when he heard it.
“Trevor?” the voice said. Muffled, but audible. A young girl.
Caitlin. She was in there.
Curtains completely blocked the window. Garza couldn’t even see a sliver on either side. He put an ear close to the glass.
“You gonna talk to me or what?” Caitlin asked.
If Trevor answered, Garza didn’t hear it.
“I think I’m about to fall asleep again,” Caitlin said. “I bet you’re getting sleepy, too.”
Garza tried not to jump to any conclusions, but that did not sound like the type of thing an abducted person would say. Had the situation been misunderstood by everybody? Had Caitlin willingly run away with Trevor Larkin? If so, that could change how the SWAT team approached the situation. Caitlin could actually be a threat, instead of a person in need of rescue.
Garza waited for several minutes, but Caitlin said nothing more. He eased himself away from the window. He needed some distance from the house before he could risk talking on the radio.
Marlin was standing outside the garage door—the one with a window built into it—just listening. Hearing nothing.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t see anything through the slatted blind, either, although there was a small amount of light escaping through it—enough that he removed his NVGs. Where was the light coming from? Perhaps some kind of power tool or other device was plugged into an outlet. Weed eater. Leaf blower. Something Joel hadn’t bothered to unplug. Or maybe it was just a basic nightlight.
Marlin waited several minutes, but he heard nothing inside.
Joel had said the door wouldn’t be locked, because there wasn’t much crime out this way. He didn’t bother. Naïve, but not uncommon.
It was a good, solid door. Metal. Opened inward. Hinges on the left. Knob on the right. Marlin grasped the doorknob with his left hand and—
Garza’s voice—urgent but tempered—came through Marlin’s earpiece.
“Just heard the female subject through one of the rear windows—the northeast corner. Pulling back now. We need to talk ASAP.”
“Copy that,” Lauren replied.
Marlin used his free hand to key the microphone clipped near his shoulder and quietly said, “Same here.”
Marlin was elated—but what did Garza want to talk about? He obviously had something he wanted to share—something he didn’t want to say on the radio.
Marlin’s hand was still on the doorknob. He’d go meet with Bobby and Lauren, but first, it made sense for him to take a quick look to confirm that the Ranger was parked inside the garage. The SWAT team might need or want that information. Always good to know where any potential getaway vehicles were located.
He turned the knob and slowly swung the door open.