Half-Past Dawn Read Online Free PDF Page B

thought stabbed at his heart.
    “Where are my girls?” Jack spat out, his voice desperate. He raced past Frank, up the stairs again, into their bedroom, looking around. Everything was in place; he checked the drawers, the closets, as if he would find some clue. He had no idea what he was looking for as he searched under their beds. He stopped and looked at the innocence around him, their toys, their books, the stuffed animals on their beds.
    With all of his focus on the night before, on Mia, Jack had forgotten about his daughters, always thinking them safe, out of harm’s way. His mind filled with panic, the feeling a parent gets when a child is hurt or in pain, when a child gets momentarily lost in the supermarket, but this was far worse.
    Frank arrived upstairs. Standing in the doorway, he looked at Jack, with no answer but a face filled with equal panic.
    The sound of a closing door broke the moment. Jack looked out the front window to see a dark blue car at the curb, and a man walking up to the front door.
    “Where did you park?” Jack quickly asked.
    “In the back,” Frank said as he peered out the window. The two raced down the stairs and into the kitchen, looking out the side window at the dark-haired man.
    “Reporter?” Jack asked as the man arrived at the front door.
    “No way. Looks like law. Just not sure which side he might be on.”
    The knock at the door was loud.
    Jack and Frank didn’t make a move. Waiting.
    The knock was louder this time, pounding. And the doorbell rang.
    There was no more knocking; the moment seemed to draw out. And then the door opened.
    With unspoken understanding, Jack and Frank stepped from the window and quietly slipped into the powder room. Through a crack in the door, they could see the man enter the house. He stood in the hallway, listening, eyes shifting around … and he disappeared. Frank slowly drew his gun.
    Jack could hear the man walking around, into the kitchen, opening the garage door. They saw him again, back in the hallway. He stepped into the den. Jack could hear him tearing open the drawers of his desk, opening the armoire and the file cabinet, papers rustling, things falling off the desk and the shelf. Then the room fell silent.
    And the man burst out of the den, heading upstairs.
    Jack and Frank stepped from the powder room and silently walked through the kitchen. Out of sight, they crouched on either side of the stairs. Waiting.
    The intruder came down the stairs, carrying something in each hand.
    Without waiting, Jack tackled the man hard into the wall, driving his fist into the man’s gut. The man dropped what he was carrying and drew back his fist, but Frank’s fist caught him first, square in the jaw, knocking him to the ground. Frank shoved his gun into the man’s face, ending any further struggle.
    Jack glared at the intruder, but his eyes were quickly drawn to what he was carrying. The file was thick, notations in varying pen and pencil covered the outside, and the header was labeled
Keeler
.
    Jack snatched it up.
    “What is that?” Frank asked.
    “Nothing.” Jack headed into the den and put the file away.
    “Interesting file,” the intruder said. “Keeping secrets from people?”
    “What’s in the file?” Frank asked again.
    “Nothing,” Jack said. “Just personal stuff.”
    But the file was quickly forgotten as Jack saw the other two things the man was carrying.
    “Why the hell would you take these?” Jack yelled at the thief.
    They lay there in all of their innocence on the floor. And Jack’s blood began to boil. He had bought them almost a year earlier, they were “just because” gifts, simple yet filled with meaning. Hope and Sara loved the two stuffed bears. One blue, one brown, they always brought smiles to their faces.
    Jack grabbed the man, hoisting him up. He slammed his head into the wall. “Why?”
    “They’re for your girls,” the intruder said. “To make them happy. To comfort them, give them something to play