The Trap

Chapter 1

Chapter One

What was that sound?

The ringing came from a distance as Billy Jo stared at the arrogant redhead. He seemed to look right through her…

When she jolted awake, she realized it was her phone ringing from somewhere in the apartment.

Mark Friessen had been in her dreams.

She tossed back the covers, and her bare feet hit the icy floor in the pitch black. She flicked on her bedside light and hurried out of the bedroom. Her cell phone was on the island in the kitchen, and the screen was lit up when she landed on it.

“Hello?” she said, then cleared her throat, still feeling the cobwebs of sleep and her anger at how Mark had looked at her. The red digital clock on the stove read 1:10 a.m.

“Ms. McCabe, this is the program director from DCFS. I’m filling in for Grant. I apologize for calling at this late hour, but we have an emergency.”

She didn’t recognize the voice. What had he said his name was?

“I’m sorry, who is this?” she said, shivering as she strode back to her bedroom, where Harley was curled up asleep on the bed, half under the covers she’d tossed back. He didn’t stir.

“Lane Fuller,” the man said. “Again, I apologize for the late hour, but a report has come in about a child in trouble. I need you to immediately pick up the child and arrange for emergency placement.”

Her hand went to her head, and she brushed back her hair, which she knew was sticking up everywhere. She grabbed her ratty plush gray housecoat and shrugged one arm in as she hurried back into the kitchen, then flicked on the bright overhead light. She blinked, her heart thudding with the familiar warning that came at her every time she woke in the night.

“What happened?” she said. She spotted her bag and juggled the phone between her shoulder and her ear as she pulled out the pen and notebook she always kept tucked inside. She instinctively rolled her shoulders, feeling the chill of the night.

“Not sure on the details. All I know is we’re to pick up the kid. The name here is…” The sound he made was cold and unfeeling, and she couldn’t shake the suspicion that he possessed the familiar trait of too many in this business. She’d become accustomed to the desensitization, just something it seemed came with this job. Otherwise, it could eat people up. She, though, still saw the eyes of all the children, the hope that dimmed there, every night before she slept.

Maybe that was why she felt haunted now.

“Ah, here it is,” he said. “Whitney Chandler, and here’s the address.” He rattled it off, and she scribbled it down, wondering whether this job ever got easier.

“And how old is the child? Did something happen? The parents…?”

“I told you this is all I have. It’s just an emergency placement. Go get her, find a bed for her tonight, and you can iron out all the details in the morning,” he said. Then he hung up, and Billy Jo just stared at the disconnected phone, glancing at the time again and wondering why it seemed emergencies happened only in the middle of the night.

She hated this. Worse, she hadn’t even met the child but could already feel her anguish.

She pulled on thick socks and opted for sweats and a sweatshirt, then ran a brush over her hair, hearing the rain pattering on the roof. She reached for her heavy warm raincoat and shoved her feet into her lined rainboots, then quickly searched up the address. It was a part of the island that she knew was rural and dark.

Great, just perfect for a late-night visit!

“Seriously, why does the bad kind of s**t have to happen after dark?” she muttered, pissed off. There was something about the night that always had her on edge.

Billy Jo reached for her phone, seeing Mark’s name in her contacts, and could feel the unease. It was just a dream, she reminded herself as she thumbed past his name. She opened Pam’s contact and dialed, then put it on speaker and listened to it ring once, twice. Then it went to voicemail.

“Ah, dammit… Pam, it’s Billy Jo. I need you to get up. I got a call from some guy filling in for Grant, and I’m doing an emergency placement. There’s a kid in trouble. Not sure of any of the details, but I need you to find me a bed for her tonight…” She heard the beep and knew she’d just been cut off.

She reached for her bag and then opened the drawer in the kitchen island to pull out a flashlight to tuck into it. As she strode to the door, the phone to her ear, dialing Pam again, she held the notebook open to the address.

“What!”

At least this time she answered.

“This is Billy Jo. I just left you a message. Sorry to call in the middle of the night.” She pulled open the door and flicked on the outside light. The rain was heavy, pounding down, making everything impossible—seeing, driving, just being out in it. “I just got a call from the program supervisor. I think he said his name was Lane. I have to pick up a kid in trouble.”

She rattled off the address and then tucked the notebook in her coat pocket as she stood in the open doorway, her hood up. Then she stepped out and pulled the door closed, the rain pelting down on her. “Look, I’m driving out there now, so find me a bed if you can. Call me back and let me know where to take her.”

The way Pam sighed on the other end summed up exactly what she was feeling. “I’ll see what I can find. Why is it that it seems these calls happen only in the middle of the night?”

Hadn’t she just thought the same thing? She didn’t answer, remembering her nights in foster care, lying there in the dark. That was when everything bad could and would happen.

“Oh, and Pam, whatever place you find, try to make sure I won’t have to worry that I’m pulling this kid from one bad situation and sticking her in another.”

“I’ll do my best,” was all she said.

Billy Jo hung up and tucked the phone in her bag, then made her way down the steps, the rain making everything difficult. She splashed through the puddles to her new Nissan and yanked open the door, then tossed her bag in across to the passenger side and climbed in.

She should have brought a towel, as the water dripped off her. She stared at the outside light and started her car, letting it warm for a second before flicking on the heat and pulling down the darkened driveway to the road.

The wipers were on high, whirring back and forth so fast as she gripped the steering wheel, trying to see, but the rain came down so hard that they couldn’t clear it fast enough. Worse, the fog had settled in, and she white-knuckled the steering wheel.

“Damn, I hate nights like this,” she said as she struggled to see, searching for the faded white lines on the road as she rounded a bend. The road was treelined on both sides now, and she slowed as the water splashed under her wheels. She turned right and had to flick on her high-beams, seeing darkened driveways, some with numbers, some without.

“114, where are you?” she said over and over, slowing to a crawl, seeing trees and driveways, only two with numbers by the road. “Sometimes I really hate this island.”

She slammed on the brakes when she spotted a small sign with an address in white letters, realizing she’d gone too far. She pulled out her notebook and flipped to the page with the address, remembering the directions she’d pulled up, feeling uneasy because of the night and the quiet.

With her foot on the brake, the car idling, she reached for her phone in her bag and saw that it had only one bar of battery left. How had she managed not to charge it when it had been plugged in and supposedly charging in the kitchen? Or had it?

“Stupid, stupid, Billy Jo.” She made a rude noise and tapped the phone to her forehead. Her frustration only added to the unease in her stomach, that sick feeling she didn’t think was ever far away. “Come on, keep it together,” she muttered as she rummaged through her purse for her charger, which wasn’t there. “s**t! i***t!”

She slapped the steering wheel, then forced herself to pull in a breath and put her car in reverse. She flicked on the rear wipers and backed up until she stopped at a rutted treelined driveway she was positive had to belong to the house she was looking for. She flicked off her high-beams when the fog had her seeing a sea of white—and then she saw it, a darkened house with what looked to be an older pickup parked out front.

She squeezed the steering wheel with both hands and pulled up beside the truck, then took in the house, a small two-story. She thought she saw a light on upstairs. At the same time, she’d expected someone to be there already.

The police? That would be Mark, who she again reminded herself was both arrogant and unhealthy for her wellbeing. The dream had been a reminder that she was depending on him in ways that would end up breaking her.

She turned off her car and picked up her phone, but when she went to call Pam again, the phone flashed from one bar to no service. She lifted it and moved it until she saw the bar again, then pulled up Mark’s number and wrote a quick text: Got a call to pick up a kid in trouble. Wondering if you received anything? Here now, but no one else is…

Her thumb hovered over the send button. She wanted to kick herself for doing exactly what she shouldn’t be. “Nope, nope, not happening,” she said as she deleted the message. The battery was now in the red.

“This is just great, Billy Jo,” she said under her breath. “Pam can’t even call you now to let you know where to take the kid, and where are you but in between crazytown and creepyville?”

She opened her door and gave it a shove, then reached for the flashlight in her purse. She stepped out right into a puddle, the rain still pouring down. She closed the door and flicked on the flashlight, her breath fogging as she started past the truck to the three wide steps up to the front door. Solid wood and no doorbell.

Her hand was wet and cold. She fisted it to knock, feeling the hair rise on the back of her neck and that same sick feeling she’d had as a kid, when everything had always gone from bad to worse. It was the strange doors she remembered so vividly: old, worn, dirty, marked up or scraped and patched. Strange doors leading to strange people and houses, and a feeling of desperation and anger that never went away.

Billy Jo forced herself to knock on the wooden door and took another second to see where she was. There was no one around. Rain was the only sound she heard as she pictured her uncharged cell phone in the car. Then she knocked again, and this time she knew someone was on the other side of the door. It was just a feeling.

“Hello? Can you open the door, please? My name is Billy Jo McCabe, with DCFS. We got a call about…”

She heard the click of the door being unlocked, then the squeak as it opened. She was suddenly aware of a faint light on the other side—then a clang of metal. She focused everything on that sound of a gun being c****d, a sound she knew too well. She stared in horror, seeing everything and nothing as she reminded herself to breathe.

Someone with a raspy voice said, “Well, then I guess you’d better come in.”

At the icy chill that ricocheted straight down through her, she realized her mistake. She was there alone, with no backup, no help. As she stared at the steel of the gun and the pale hand holding it, she knew that whatever this was, she was in over her head.