Page 45 of Cursed Fox

Now I had to go tell Nancy I had nothing. Not exactly the way I wanted our day to start.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Nancy

Jessie was missing. Her roommate said she never came home last night and Jessie wasn't answering her phone. That wasn't like my girl.

"I knew something was wrong. Why the hell didn't I listen to my instincts?" I asked no one in particular.

"You did listen to them, Mom. You just figured it was me Dad was going to come after, not Jessie. Not once did he threaten her. There was no way for us to know."

I heard what he was saying, but it didn't change the fact that I felt responsible. Jessie was missing, and it was all because I was focused on one child and not both of them.

"Where could he have possibly taken her?" This time I directed my question to Lex and Nolen.

Nolen had flown out as soon as I got word that Jessie hadn’t come home last night.

"The local police are out canvassing. They are aware of the situation, but no one has seen him in at least a week. He got firedfrom his job and the bank foreclosed on his home. The man is a fucking ghost," Nolen responded.

So basically everything he wanted to happen to us was happening to him.

"He's got to make contact at some point, right?" I knew I was grasping at straws, but I couldn't just sit there and do nothing. That wouldn't bring Jessie back to me. "What if we go to her? He couldn't have taken her far."

I hoped not anyway. And without money, Thomas's options had to be limited.

"We can be there in five hours," Lex assured me.

"I want to go," I said with as much conviction as I could muster, "but someone needs to stay back with Jimmy. I'm not leaving him alone."

"Mom, I'll be fine. I can have one of the guys from the team stay with me if that will make you feel better."

I shook my head. "No. It has to be Nolen." I looked at the man and pleaded. "You can stay with him, right?"

"Absolutely. But are you sure you don't want someone else with you and Lex?" He looked concerned.

"There's no time. We need to get going." I couldn't explain why the sudden urgency, but everything in me was telling me we had to move fast.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Jessie

"Who are you?" I asked when the bag was pulled off my head. I tried to move my arms and legs, but quickly realized they were tied down to a chair. I felt like I was in a bad B movie with a very low budget, and the actor playing the kidnapper really couldn't act. The guy didn't even have the sense to cover his face. That could only mean one of two things. He was either an amateur who didn't know the first thing about kidnapping. Or he planned to kill me.

Time to lay off the crime scene documentaries.

"I'm hurt." The man chuckled and put his hand to his chest. "You don't even recognize your own father?"

I looked at the greasy, semi-short man in front of me and couldn't fathom how he could be the same man I knew as a little girl.

"My father walked out on me when I was a kid. Why would I bother to remember him?"

My mother always said my attitude was going to get me in trouble one day. And when my so-called father's face got beet redlike he was seconds away from stroking out, I realized today just might be that day.

"You always did have a mouth on you," he snarled. "I told your mother she should've just swallowed you."

Lovely visual. And I meant that in regards to my mother ever touching the man in front of me, with his shaggy gray hair and splotchy white beard. His beer belly and slouchy posture did nothing to help his cause. He was a train wreck with saggy skin. Nothing at all like the silver foxes I saw on book covers every time I went to the bookstore.

"Then why am I here? It's obvious you didn't want me or Jimmy, so why bring me here. I was doing just fine without you in my life."

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