Page 47 of Beneath His Robes

“I’ll…I will get your son back, Miranda. Just hold on tight for me, okay?”

She smiled, and I reached down to squeeze her hand in my own. I waited with her until the ambulance arrived. My mother went to the hospital with her, and I walked around the trailer, trying to find signs of Jack.

The coward had run away after using his wife as a punching bag.

Once the police were alerted to the situation and I got the text confirming Missis Saint Clare was okay, I realized I needed to follow him.

Where should I even look?

I didn’t know anything about the life he lived in Las Vegas, much less where he would be in that massive city. Our town was so simple, lame in its predictability, but at least easy to navigate.

I felt awkward walking around in Missis Saint Clare’s bedroom, but I was out of options. I checked everything, from her dresser to piles of dirty laundry strewn across the floor. If Miranda had access to Ronan…where would she hide it?

I was wasting so much time, but there was no way of roaming around Vegas in the hope of randomly coming across him. It was worse than a needle in a haystack.

“C’mon Miranda. Where would you put something special? Where do you hide things from Jack?”

Putting myself in the mind of an abuse victim was strange, but I was hopeful it would help. There were all kinds of cracks in the foundation of the small trailer. Some had been recently fixed, and the edges were much cleaner, leaving a strange mark to show the healing in the foundation.

Ronan had fixed all this. He was always fixing things. Even when they were forever broken, he still managed to find beauty in them.

Finally, my eyes scanned a section of the flooring that had not been fixed like the rest, and I zeroed in on the area.

My fingertips slid over the grimy floor, trying to feel for any type of…

There! A hitch.

The floor came away like a hinge, and a small hole revealed underneath. There wasn’t much there. Her tiny treasure trove was filled with odd herbs and a pipe, but underneath all those was a small stuffed animal. I recalled this from my own childhood.

Ronan had slept with that thing for years.

What was the name?

Captain Carpers.

Seeing that ratted deer, with so many missing appendages and eyeballs, survive all these years gave me a weird sense of hope. I sniffled and continued to search the area. There were baby pictures of Ronan and the rare photo of Miranda in a picture with a true smile on her face.

What a rare find.

I had never seen a single photograph of Ronan’s childhood unless my family had taken them. Even today, my family still had photos of us in our youth, from hunting to bartending non-alcoholic drinks for extra cash.

Finally, the last thing, hidden farther away from the rest, as if it were her most cherished possession of all, was a card. I frowned, turning the card around in my grip. It was a card from Vegas of a…strip club.

What is this, Miranda?

Confusion growing, I read a small written signature that made my heartbeat flutter in my chest.

Ronan.

None of this made sense.

Was Ronan bartending here?

Did he go back to our youthful roots and create a profession out of selling drinks?

Confused and anxious, I put back her little box of secrets and made my way out of the trailer. It wasn’t until I got into my car that I realized I was running after all…

And it was straight back to Ronan.

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