Crouching down, Jake carefully scooted across the yard and over to where he could see the light on inside. It was likely a bedroom, but the window was covered with cheap blinds. Still, he had a small sliver of a peek inside. And what he saw sent a jolt right through him: Piper! He’d found her. He couldn’t believe it. She was right there in front of him, sitting on a bed, back to the window, arms tucked around her legs in a tight ball. Judd said something to her with a scowl, turned off the light, and then shut the bedroom door.
With his adrenaline kicking into high gear, Jake raced over to the back patio door. This time, he wasn’t sneaking around. The patio door wasn’t locked. Not that it mattered—Jake would have knocked the damn thing down to get inside right now. Judd was in the process of sitting in his recliner again. Opening the door, Jake rushed into the house ready to do whatever necessary to rescue Piper from this nightmare—and from this monster of a man.
From his recliner, Judd McGee turned at the unexpected intrusion, muttered, “What the hell . . .”
But before Judd could even make a move, Jake lunged at him. They both toppled over the recliner onto the tattered carpet. Filled with rage, Jake jumped on top of Judd. His right fist hit the man solid on the jaw, knocking his head sideways. Jake followed that up with a left and then another right. Judd was not putting up much of a fight. He just tried to hold his hands up in front of his face to keep from being punched. The man smelled like he was drenched in alcohol.
“How could you do this!” Jake yelled.
“Do . . . what?”
No longer punching, Jake put his right hand around Judd’s neck and squeezed. “Who else is here?”
For the first time, Judd seemed to recognize him. “Coach Slater . . . what the . . . ?”
“Who else is here?” Jake repeated, squeezing harder.
Judd tried to answer through the choking. “What . . . uh, no one . . . I mean, only my stepdaughter.”
Jake heard a sudden scream come from behind him. He spun around, found a brown-haired girl around the same age and stature as Piper standing in the hallway with a look of horror on her face. And that’s when Jake realized he’d made a huge mistake. It was not Piper he’d seen through the crack in the blinds. It was a different girl. And she looked terrified at seeing a strange man choking her stepfather. Jake quickly pulled his hand away from Judd’s throat. How could he have made that mistake? Did he only see what he wanted to see through the blinds? Had his fear and panic tricked his own mind and led him to make a foolish assumption?
Jake stared back down at Judd. “Piper isn’t here?”
Judd was massaging his throat. “Who . . . ?”
“My daughter!”
“Why the hell would your daughter be here? What’s wrong with you?”
The man’s speech was severely slurred. He was clearly drunk. Jake felt his entire theory about Judd swiftly unraveling on him. Given the man’s current state, and the fact that he had his stepdaughter home with him, Jake thought it was highly unlikely Judd could’ve been the same guy who’d snatched Piper earlier. And that’s when a new wave of fear overtook him. If not Judd, then who? Where was his daughter?
“I’m sorry,” Jake said, standing up. He then turned to the girl. “I’m so sorry. Don’t be afraid. This was a terrible mistake. Everything is going to be OK.”
Without explaining himself further, Jake hurried toward the front door of the house. Once outside on the front sidewalk, he felt all his emotions boil to the surface. Feeling sick again, he hunched over and vomited what little he still had left in his stomach.
FIFTEEN
Jake parked his truck in an empty lot in front of a closed hardware store. His heart was still racing from the mix-up at Judd’s house a few minutes ago. He hoped his actions wouldn’t traumatize that little girl for life. Jake had acted rashly and now questioned his own judgment. He’d beaten up an innocent man. Jake wondered if Judd had called the police on him right after he’d left. Just in case, Jake decided he should change things up yet again. Opening the black theater kit, he found a second small bottle of adhesive removal. The instructions said to gently dab it behind the fake hair with a brush and gradually peel away the fake facial hair. He did just that until the mustache was gone. To replace it, he chose a salt-and-pepper gray goatee set. Just like before, he used the spirit gum to apply the new facial hair and then studied himself in the rearview mirror. The goatee was slightly off-center, but serviceable. He didn’t need to make it perfect.