Gone (Deadly Secrets #2)(75)

“Alec.” Frantic, Raegan pulled on Alec’s elbow, desperate to get him to let go, but he was so strong she barely nudged his arm. “Alec McClane. This isn’t the way. Let her go.”

“No,” he snapped, “it’s the only way she understands.” He focused in on Charlie with menacing eyes, his voice turning to a low growl. “I’m sick to death of you and my father fucking with my life. Tell me what he was moving.”

“Brats,” she gasped. “Like you.”





CHAPTER SIXTEEN


Alec stilled. For a heartbeat, he didn’t move. Wasn’t sure he’d even heard the right words. “Like you”? She couldn’t have meant that the way it sounded.

When Charlene gasped, he loosened his hold, his heart suddenly beating faster, sweat slicking his skin in the cool air. Against his arm, Raegan tugged at his elbow again, trying to get him to let go, but he ignored her.

He couldn’t focus on anything but the sorry excuse of a human in front of him. “What did you say?” he whispered.

Charlene glared up at him even as she struggled. He wasn’t hurting her—not yet anyway. She was the biggest faker on the planet. He’d learned that long ago. But he was ready to start hurting her if she didn’t tell him what he wanted to hear. “You heard me.”

The hold on all that rage he’d locked deep inside over the years bubbled up and over. Jaw tight, he tightened his fingers around her throat and squeezed.

Charlene’s eyes flew wide when she realized he meant business.

“Alec!” Raegan yelled, pulling harder on his arm.

“Okay!” Fear lifted Charlene’s raspy voice an octave. Alec loosened his grip, just enough so she could talk. “I said he was movin’ brats like you for that rich bitch.”

Raegan’s hand dropped from Alec’s arm. He knew her mouth was hanging open. Knew she was staring at the woman pinned by his grip, in utter shock, but he couldn’t react. Didn’t know what to trust or believe. Wasn’t sure he’d heard that right. Slowly, mostly because he didn’t trust himself, he released Charlene, but he didn’t step back.

Charlene, ever defiant, rubbed at her wrist and glared up at him again. “Oh, don’t you go gettin’ all high and mighty. I might not like that bitch very much ’cause she looked down her nose at me, but yer father knew she was doin’ the world a whole lotta good. Those kids came from crappy homes. She saved ’em, found ’em good families. And John was makin’ nice money doin’ it ’til you got arrested and sent to juvie. Then you ratted him out, and it all turned to shit.”

Moving children . . . Finding them homes . . .

“You got nothin’ to complain about, neither,” Charlene snapped, taking one step to her left, closer to the trailer’s door. “He saved you from one a those shitty homes. Brought you to me ’cause I couldn’t have no kid a’ my own. But you was always an ingrate. Even as a toddler. Always had this hoity-toity attitude, just like that bitch. Didn’t surprise me none when you turned on your daddy. I told him you was gonna do it one day. He done gave you a better life than you deserved, and you shit all over him.”

Alec’s pulse turned to a whir in his ears, and his skin grew hot and tight as the impact of her words sank in.

Moving children . . . Finding them homes . . . “Makin’ nice money doin’ it . . .”

His vision turned red, and a rage like he’d never known whipped through his veins. He slammed his hands into the side of the trailer, inches from Charlene’s head. “Did he take my daughter?”

Charlene jerked back, her eyes filled with true fear as she scrambled back, trying to slink away. “I—I don’t know.”

“Tell me!”

“I don’t know!” Her voice trembled as she pressed her hands back against the siding. “I swear it. I only seen him a handful a times since he got out a prison. I didn’t even know you lost your kid ’til last year. ’Fore I could ask him about it, he was arrested again on that probation violation. He was just trying to find work. He wasn’t doin’ nuthin’ wrong. I tried to ask him ’bout it the other day when he was here too, but he wouldn’t talk.”

“Where did he go?”

“I—I don’t know.”

Alec lurched forward and grasped her by the throat again. Charlene gasped. This time, Raegan didn’t even move at his back. “If I find out you’re lying to me—”

“I ain’t. I swear. He was actin’ all nervous when he was here. Rantin’ about that rich bitch makin’ him do stuff he shouldn’t be doin’.”

“Moving more children?” Alec asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t think it was that. He was only good at that before ’cause he had that big truck, ya know? It was easy to pick up kids on his delivery route, throw ’em in the back, and take ’em to the drop spot without anyone knowing. He ain’t got that truck now, not since he got outta the clink. He said he was doin’ somethin’ else. Somethin’ he didn’t like. Somethin’ he said was gonna get him in trouble with the cops if they ever found out.”

For the first time since they’d arrived, Alec looked back at Raegan. And in her eyes he saw disbelief, shock, and horror.