Kidnapping in Cameron Glen by Beth Cornelison

Author:Beth Cornelison
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2022-03-18T15:54:51+00:00

* * *

Swallowing hard, Emma stepped into the dusty foyer of the house on his heels. Moving from the sunlight into the unlit home felt like walking into the bowels of a cave, of a dungeon. She shivered involuntarily and inched closer to Jake as he crept forward. In the living room, a sparse few items of ratty furniture lined the walls. “Hello? Anyone home? We need to borrow a—”

The clacking sound of a shotgun being racked greeted them. Emma froze but for her fingers curling into the shirt on her husband’s back.

Jake spun toward the sound, raising his pistol in a two-handed grip. “Don’t.”

Floorboards creaked as a middle-aged woman with a long-barrel that was almost bigger than she was appeared from the adjoining room. “I know how to use this.”

Emma gawked at the frail woman with frizzy blond hair and sweatpants that were at least one size too large for her. Skinny arms with sun-weathered skin shook as she pointed the weapon at them.

“We don’t want trouble,” Jake said. “Put the gun down, ma’am.”

“Not so long as you got that thing aimed at me,” she replied, her voice thin and scratchy, a smoker’s rasp.

Emma held her breath. She wasn’t ready for Jake to disarm, not knowing who else might be in the house or what other weapons.

As if echoing her concerns, the squeak of a door and quick thump of footsteps preceded the appearance of a teenage boy behind the woman.

“Who are you?” he asked angrily. Though he was tall enough to pass as an adult, the boy’s face, still soft with rounded features and marked with acne, skewed Emma’s age estimate down. His hair was the same sun-lightened blond as the woman’s and needed to be combed.

“W-we don’t want trouble,” Emma said, raising her hands, but staying half-behind Jake. “See...we got lost and needed to use your phone.”

“Ain’t got a phone,” the woman said, “Now, go on and git.”

In a soothing voice, Jake said, “Nobody needs to get hurt. Just set the weapon on the floor and move back from it.” He eased forward a step or two. Slowly. Smoothly.

The double barrel of the shotgun had begun to droop, but when Jake moved toward the thin woman, she jerked it up again. “Stop there. I’ll shoot ya.”

“I’ll take it, Mama,” the man-child said, stepping forward to take the shotgun from the woman’s hands. She passed it to him silently. The muzzle’s aim never left Jake and Emma. “Y’all need to leave here ’fore I fill you with buckshot.”

“We’re not leaving until we get answers,” Jake said. “Put the gun away, and we’ll talk.”

“I don’t have nothing to say to you.” The boy’s eyes narrowed. “And I will shoot you if you don’t leave. Right now!”

Jake shook his head slowly, stayed calm. “We’re looking for someone and have reason to believe—”

“I said leave!” The boy straightened his back and tensed his arms as he stared down the sights of the shotgun.

Emma saw the impasse and scrambled mentally for a way to shift the standoff in their favor.

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