Page 77 of Trick or Treat

He was starting to get a bad feeling. Lindsey wasn’t the kind of person to let Trick worry needlessly. Her not picking up or returning his calls was causing alarm bells to clang loud in his head. Maybe he was overreacting but he wouldn’t be able to rest until he saw with his own two eyes that she was okay. He picked up his phone and dialed Jackson.

“Trick. What’s up?”

“Not sure. Lindsey was supposed to be here almost an hour ago and she’s never made it. I’ve tried calling her twice and it goes straight to voicemail.” He didn’t need to say anything further. Jackson read him perfectly.

“You want to bring your kids over here and we’ll go look for her?”

“Yeah. That’d be great.” He disconnected and pocketed his phone. He grabbed the remote and turned the television off. “Come on. I’m taking you guys to Jackson and Calliope’s so I can go look for Lindsey.”

“Do you think something happened to her?” Keegan’s voice cracked a little as he asked. Fuck. He’d scared his son. He settled his hand on Keegan’s head and lightly ruffled his hair. “Not sure, son. She may have had car trouble and her phone might have died. She’s probably sitting in her car wondering what’s taking me so long to come help her. Let’s get your sister and head out.”

Calliope had his kids and Ryder sitting in front of the television with a huge bowl of popcorn. They were getting ready to watchThe Christmas Chronicleswhen he and Jackson left.

He made a bee line straight to Walmart hoping she’d just run into someone in the store and got to talking. That thought had him remembering the last time she’d been at the store and run into someone. Kurtis, her friend from high school, had been a total dick. Trick didn’t need a bad feeling to tell him Kurtis was bad news, it was obvious to anyone who got within ten feet of him.

He cruised up and down the parking lot aisles until he found Lindsey’s car. He parked behind her car, hopped out and met Jackson at the driver’s door. They could clearly see her purse in the other seat. There was no good reason for her purse to be in her car with Lindsey nowhere in sight. His bad feeling was now gnawing at his gut. He looked toward Jackson. His expression grim, he shook his head. “Not good.”

“Does your cousin still work here?”

“Yeah. Hang on.” Jackson pulled out his phone, called his cousin who worked security and explained the situation. He told them to come inside, come to the back and he’d get them in so they could look over the videos together.

“Jason,” Jackson shook his cousin’s hand. “Good to see you. Been a while.”

“Yeah. It has.” He took a seat in front of a wall of video screens. “Have a seat.” He waved absently toward the two chairs next to him. Jackson sat down, but Trick was too nervous, so he stood with one hand on the back of Jason’s chair and one on the console in front of him.

“Okay. Give me a second.” He answered the ringing phone, quickly responded to whoever was on the other end of the line and hung up. “Sorry. Do you know where she’s parked?”

“Yeah. She was by the C3 sign. White Honda Civic.” Trick watched as Jason pulled up the camera in question.

“What time do you think she went missing?”

Trick gave him an estimated time frame and held his breath. He was amazed as Jason went to work. He flew through the footage.

“What does she look like?”

“Auburn hair, midback, around five six.”

“Okay. Here we go.” Jason zoomed as he found Lindsey walking to her car with something in her cart. She opened the trunk and placed the box inside. “What was that?” he wondered out loud.

Jason zoomed in. “Looks like she bought a booster seat.”

Trick got a little choked up at the thought that she bought a car seat for his girl. Of course, with Michelle out of the picture for a while, Lindsey would more than likely need to pick Reagan up from time to time. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of that sooner. He would have bought one for her.

Jason zoomed back out. They watched as she opened her door and tossed her purse in the car at the same time a van pulled up behind her. She turned to the van, frowned and seemed to be listening to someone inside the van. She took a hesitant step forward. They could see her talking to someone. She took another step closer to the van.

“No. No. No. Lindsey, don’t do it. Don’t get too close to that van.” Trick growled. Damn it! She disappeared from the view of the camera and the van drove away. Her car door was closed and she was nowhere to be seen. “Fuck! Someone in that van took her.”

“Can you zoom in on the license plate, Jason?” Jackson asked. He took a screen shot of the plate number and the van. They’d have to get Tuck’s friend, Kylie, to check it out. They’d used her to run background checks on possible employees, but that was it. Tuck and Kylie had grown up together because their mothers were best friends.

“Hey, Jackson,” he caught them before they left his office. “I have to report this.”

“No. Don’t. We’ve got this.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m sure. We want to take care of this. Don’t call the police.” His cousin wasn’t ignorant to the ways of the Sons of Redemption. He’d been around long enough to hear the stories floating around town and he also knew that the Sons liked to get justice for themselves. His cousin smiled and nodded his head. “Got it.”

They made it as far as the parking lot before Jackson had his phone out and was contacting Tuck. From the loud music playing in the background, Jackson figured Tuck was at the clubhouse. Perfect. “Hey, Tuck. I need you to do me a favor. I need you to call Kylie and have her meet us at the clubhouse.”

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