Page 34 of Flashback

“We’ll have the best chance at talking to Ethan if I go, and you know it.”

Dang it. She was right. He calculated the distance to the steps. “Fine. But the second it gets iffy, you’re out of there.”

She waited until he was in place, his position in the grass obscured by a scraggly bush, before stepping up the porch steps and knocking on the door.

Ray’s voice from inside was loud but muffled. Still, no one answered the door. Allie knocked again, louder this time. Dakota watched through the branches. The front door squeaked when Jen opened it and faced Allie. The woman’s eyes widened slightly, and she quickly looked behind her.

“Who is it?” Ray yelled from somewhere in the depths of the house.

“It’s nothing. I…I’ll take care of it,” Jen answered him in a shaky voice. She stepped onto the porch and almost closed the door behind her. She dropped her voice. “What are you doing here? You should leave.”

“I got your call, Jen. Are you okay?” Allie kept her own voice low.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You called me.”

“I didn’t. It must’ve been the?—”

“Jennifer! Who is it?”

Jen jumped and closed her eyes a second before yelling in the doorway. “I’m taking care of it!”

Movement sounded inside. Jen visibly tensed.

Allie reached for her hand. “Are you in trouble here? Where are the boys?”

Jen pulled away. “Like I said before, the boys are fine. They probably…called you. As a jo?—”

The front door swung open and Ray appeared. His eyes were bloodshot. A blue-violet bruise was already showing around his eye where Dakota had socked him earlier.

“You! What are you doing here?” His voice roared. He shoved Jen aside.

Before Allie could say anything, Dakota came out of hiding. But he would keep his temper in check this time. “Calm down, Ray. We just want to talk to Jen and the boys. I have some questions about something they found in the forest.”

Ray bristled as soon as he saw Dakota. “I told you to stay away from my family. Get out of here. Or else.” His voice wasn’t nearly as loud as before, but no one could miss the dark undertones of his threat.

But Dakota wasn’t going to back down. “Someone called Allie. We want to make sure everyone is okay. And I’d like to talk to the boys.”

“That’s not gonna happen. And if you don’t get?—”

“Ray!” Jen tugged his beefy arm back toward the house. “It’s fine.”

“Is it?” He turned his mean glare on Jen. “And what is this about someone calling her?” He pointed to Allie.

“It must’ve been a prank.”

Ray turned back to them. “There. No one called. And there’s no way I’m letting you talk to the boys, so you best get. You’re trespassing on my property.”

Allie pulled Dakota back before he could react the way everything inside him was screaming to—with a flying right hook.

Again, Allie’s strength took him by surprise. She managed to tug him down the porch steps to the crumbling sidewalk. “Kota, let’s go. We don’t want to cause any more trouble.”

He was dying to show Ray what trouble he could cause, but she was right. Jen and the boys would probably pay for it. He held up hands in surrender and stepped back. “We’re going.”

They got back in the car and left.

“We’ve got to get them away from him.” Allie squeezed the steering wheel, eyes fixed on the road, determination in every line of her face. “They can’t stay there.”

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