The house was locked but the alarm was disabled, which didn’t seem odd at the time but after the five of us searched all three floors and the shitty cellar with absolutely no sign ofLeonor or her dad, my anxiety was back full force and the lack of safety precautions seemed like a giant red flag.
Especially when I started to notice how off things felt.
The mansion wreaked of bleach.
Not my bleach, the kind I buy by the pallet at the hardware store, but another brand that can damage wood or cloth if you aren’t careful, which is how I found one teeny, tiny drop of blood in Pierre’s office upstairs. I followed the scent, noting everything out of place on the way, and eventually the slightly askew position of the desk and stronger chemical odor had me on all fours under that antique monstrosity freaking out over the plank of wood with a bleach spot on it.
A bleach spot next to an almost imperceptible speck of blood.
I saw it, though, and I tore through that fucking mansion like the OCD bastard I am after that looking for anything else in the same wheelhouse.
But there was nothing.
Not one goddamn clue that Pierre or Leo were ever here and that led to the five of us essentially laying out a half assed grid of the property and heading out in search of our family.
Which is why I’m doing everything in my power to keep myself from running through this decaying field as I slowly walk into the woods toward the swamp. I’m not going to risk missing a clue or overlooking something far more sinister because my anxiety is out of control and I’m one wrong move from a total meltdown.
It’s bad enough that I called Franc six times between the back door and my current location.
He might hate Leonor but he’s pretty neutral when it comes to Pierre, and at the end of the day he’s a goddamn cop so if he can’t do his job because of the people involved, the small shithead Italian needs to find a different line of work.
Franc’s on his way, though.
Might even be here for all I know.
I told him the guys and I were fanning the back of the property the best we could so he told me he would send some of his men in behind us while another group spread out from the front porch to tackle the sides and down to the road.
Good fucking thing, too.
If he fought me on this, if he even tried, I’d be in front of his captain so fucking fast ready to show off those photos of my brother and his boss’s wife from five years ago. Franc thought an alley was a good place for him to carry out his affair but it was on the other side of Inked in Sin and when I left my appointment only to catch him in the act, you better believe I had Ash pull his security footage for me.
Franc doesn’t know I have them but I keep them in my safe just in case my big brother decides to be a bigger dickhead than he usually is. And denying my request to help look for Leo would definitely warrant pulling that shit out to show the world.
Hopefully he’s here because the closer I get to the swamp there more…
My thoughts stop just as abruptly as I do when something small catches my eye.
A piece of fabric, small and black, stuck on a branch in a way that I wouldn’t have seen it if it wasn’t for the breeze. It kicked up at the exact right time and the movement caught my eye.
Taking one careful step, I start searching the area around it, looking for the source or anything similar, trying to see if this is just a fluke or actually a piece of…
There.
I move a little quicker when I see a second piece of torn material, definitely from a t-shirt, and when I’m close enough to practically smell Norm’s cologne on the fabric, my stomach bottoms out at what lies just beyond it.
Drag marks.
Clear, very distinct drag marks along with broken branches and… and…
Oh my god.
A clump of bright red hair.
I don’t even realize I’m running until I roll my ankle, sliding on a patch of loose dirt, barely catching myself on a tree as I pull out my phone and power through the pain.
But I can’t focus.
My hands are shaking too hard to hold my phone still to unlock, and I’m too fixated on searching the area in front of me to even look down at it.
