Page 70 of Rescuing Josiah
Unable to stop, the need to find Chelsea so strong he could barely breathe, he turned back to the bedroom and began tearing it apart. Every cover stripped off the bed, he checked under it and in the closet, but Chelsea wasn't anywhere to be found.
“Don’t think she’s here, brother,” Rocco said, his voice far too calm for Josiah’s liking.
“Then where the hell is she?” he roared again.
“She wasn't in here when the shots were fired,” Gumby said from the bed. The man had picked up some of the covers Josiah had thrown on the ground, and he was sticking his fingers through two holes.
Bullet holes.
Ace knelt and picked up one of the pillows, pulling out some of the stuffing through another bullet hole. “Two shots. They thought you were both in here.”
“Means your cover wasn't broken,” Phantom added. “If they knew it was you two specifically, they would have made sure you were both dead. Instead, it looks like they just opened the door and fired head shots and chest shots, then moved on to the next room.”
“No signs of a struggle either,” Gumby added, dropping the blanket back onto the bed. “So I don’t think they shot, realized she wasn't in the bed, saw her, and then tried to grab her. If they tried, she would have gone down swinging. Besides, if she hadn't been in the bed, they likely would have just shot her.”
“I don’t think Chelsea was in this room when they fired the shots,” Ace agreed.
“She was supposed to hide in the linen closet, that was the plan,” he muttered as though repeating it might make it more true. It was obvious that Chelsea had disregarded the plan, but that didn't help him figure out where she was.
“What would make her change her mind?” Rocco asked.
Josiah just shrugged as he paced anxiously around the room. The fear brewing inside him was too much, and add in anger that Chelsea might have decided to just walk out of there, knowing the risks, knowing it would kill him to lose her, and he was pretty close to losing his tentative grip on control.
“There has to be something,” Rocco pushed. “Chelsea is a smart woman. She’s not reckless, and she cares about you. Ifyou two had worked out your plan, she wouldn't have done something different unless she had to.”
“What would she have done if she realized what the guards were doing?” Ace asked.
“Hidden,” he said immediately. She had no weapon, so it was really her only option. “If they were going room to room, they had to have used a silencer, though. Otherwise, they would have set off a panic, had frantic couples running everywhere. Unless Chelsea was already in the hall when the shots were fired, I doubt she would have realized anything was wrong. Even if she’d hidden when the door opened, she wouldn't have just gone running off. If she was looking for a place to hide, then she had one. The linen closet. Only we all saw she wasn't in it.”
They were going in circles and not doing anything to find Chelsea.
She had to be somewhere.
“Has Desiree Tilly been located yet?” Josiah asked.
“No,” Rocco replied. “Alpha Team is rounding up all the medical personnel. We took out the guards on the way in. They might have been able to shoot sleeping people, but give them people who shoot back and they were useless.”
“Could Chelsea have gone looking for you?” Gumby asked.
“She knew to hide until I came to her,” he answered. “I know she wanted to do more, but she understood that without a weapon there wasn't much she could do. She didn't like the plan, but she wouldn't have just thrown it away for no reason.”
“Yet she’s not in the room or the closet,” Ace said, stating the obvious and holding up his hands, palms out in a placating gesture when Josiah growled at him. “I know, dude. You're scared. But she has to be here somewhere. Like Rocco said, Chelsea is smart, whatever she did, she did for a reason. All we have to do is figure out what that reason is.”
Dragging his fingers through his hair, Josiah stormed over to the window, trying to rack his brain to figure out something that would have been so important to Chelsea that she would abandon their plans, knowing he’d be terrified for her when he got to the closet and didn't find her waiting in it.
“You said that so far Desiree Tilly hasn’t been found,” he said.
“Right,” Rocco agreed.
“But you took out the guards, and Alpha Team is dealing with the medical personnel,” he said, more to himself this time than the others.
“Guards started shooting at us as soon as we approached the mansion. Rex and Bubba are still clearing rooms, but we haven’t had a chance to check every single place someone could hide. If Chelsea felt the linen closet had been compromised, she could be anywhere in here,” Gumby said.
Actually, he wasn't so sure Chelsea was anywhere in the mansion.
The guys were right, something had Chelsea change course tonight.
While Chelsea was smart, she had one pretty big weakness. Her heart. She loved too much sometimes, cared too much.
