The Becoming (11 page)

“I think I saw a sign back there that said something about Jasper,” Cade suggested. Ethan found Jasper on the map and started to measure the distance between it and Gadsden with his fingers.

“We want to avoid Birmingham itself,” Ethan said as he walked his fingers over the paper. “And the way I normally go to Mom’s takes us right through Birmingham. So we’re going to get off on Highway 69 just up ahead and cut up above Birmingham.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Cade said. She leaned down to the floorboard of the Jeep and retrieved the heavy black case at her feet. She set it across her knees reverently and ran both hands over the lid, nearly caressing it. “Can I have the key, please?”

“Key?” Ethan repeated. She seemed to be asking him for keys an awful lot lately. “What are you doing?”

Cade shrugged innocently and held out her hand to him. “Doesn’t hurt to be prepared, does it? Now, key please.”

Ethan sighed and shoved his hand in his pocket. He pulled out the silver key but didn’t hand it to her right away. Instead, he closed his fist around it and simply looked at her as the Jeep idled in the stalled traffic. She made an impatient face and wiggled her fingers. “You’re not going to get us in trouble, are you?”

“No, I’m not,” Cade said. “The permits are in the case, and I barely even have any ammo for it. It’s just a precaution, Ethan. Always be prepared and all that shit.” She waved her hand around flippantly as she said the last part and gave him a small smile.

Ethan snorted and shook his head ruefully. “You weren’t even in the Girl Scouts, Cade,” he pointed out. He surrendered the key. He didn’t know how he felt about Cade running around the state of Alabama with that rifle in her hands, but discomfort was definitely high on the list of possibilities.

“And you weren’t exactly a Boy Scout, but the idea still holds true, doesn’t it?” Cade said. She took the key with a look of almost unholy glee on her face.

“Why do I get this horrible feeling that I’m going to regret handing you that key?” Ethan asked. He tapped the gas pedal to ease the Jeep forward.

“Probably because you know me
entirely
too well,” Cade said. Her small smile turned into a wide, cheeky grin as she unlocked the case and flipped the lid open.

Ethan pulled the SUV to a slow stop in front of his mother’s house. The sun had barely begun to tint the sky, and it was difficult to see the house in the dim light. There was no light coming from it or any of the houses nearby, and the street was dark. The lack of light made Cade nervous, and she gritted her teeth as she leaned forward in her seat. She clutched the rifle in her hands for some level of comfort and looked around the interior of the car, checking the console and glove box for a flashlight. “You got a light, Eth?”

Ethan nodded and opened his door. “Yeah, there’s one in my bag in the back,” he said as he slid out. Cade opened her own door and eased slowly out of the Jeep. She lifted her rifle to her shoulder and swept the street as she squinted into the darkness. Her instincts screamed for her to get back inside the Jeep, but she refused to let Ethan go on alone. Nothing about the dark street felt safe to her, and any backup she could offer Ethan would be given without hesitation or request.

“What’s with the gun?” Ethan asked as he offered Cade the flashlight. Cade took it and turned it on. She shone it over the front lawn of Ethan’s mother’s house as far as the beam would reach. She didn’t see anything out of the ordinary—other than the oppressive darkness in the street.

“Rifle,” Cade corrected automatically. “And I’m just taking adequate precautions.” She spoke casually, but her tone didn’t do much to mask the nervous butterflies that kicked up in her stomach. She swallowed hard and curled two fingers around the flashlight to keep the beam ahead of her as she made her way to the front door. “Your mom can yell at me for waving a rifle in her face later. I’m just trying to keep us from getting killed right now.”

“Getting killed?” Ethan repeated. He followed Cade up the concrete walkway. “You think it’s that serious?” Cade looked back at him. Despite his words, she noticed his hand resting on the handgun he kept at his hip.

“That’s what my instincts are telling me,” Cade said as she reached the front porch. “And I learned very quickly to listen to my instincts in the IDF. They never failed me then, and I’m sure they won’t now. Get up here and open the door.”

Ethan followed Cade’s lead and drew his Glock from its holster. He pulled the keys out of his pocket and thumbed through them to find the right one. He only dropped the set of keys once in the attempt, and after he’d scrambled to pick them up, he slid the correct key into the lock, turned it, and pushed the door open with his foot. It swung open with barely a sound and revealed an interior that was just as dark as the street outside. “Who’s first?” Ethan asked.

“I’ll go,” Cade volunteered. She pulled the keys from the lock and tossed them back to Ethan before she slipped inside. She scanned the dark entryway as she shone her flashlight across it. “Where would your mother most likely be?”

“Probably upstairs in her room,” Ethan guessed. Cade frowned as she moved farther into the foyer to make room for Ethan to enter the house behind her.

“Leave the front door open,” Cade said. She dropped her voice to a hushed murmur, more out of an abundance of caution and instinct than anything else.

“Why?”

“Just in case we need to get out quick,” Cade said. “Because I actually have a sense of self-preservation.” She nodded toward the living room door. “I’ll check out the living room and kitchen. You hit the other rooms on this floor, and then we’ll go upstairs together.” Ethan let out a breath and nodded. Cade caught his forearm as he started to move past her. “Keep your eyes open and stay on guard,” she said. “You never know what we’re going to find here. It’s best to be prepared for the worst.”

Cade closed her eyes for just a moment as Ethan disappeared into the darkness of the house. His footsteps echoed faintly against the walls. Cade suddenly felt horribly alone. In the absence of the one distracting element she’d had since their flight from Memphis, Cade found her mind sliding back to thoughts of Josie and Andrew. Tears pricked at her eyes, and she bit down hard on her lip as she struggled to quell them. She shook her head as she forced her mind to focus on the task at hand. Shouldering her rifle once more, Cade moved on cats’ feet toward the living room, barely making a sound as she slid down the hallway to the door.

Cade had been to Ethan’s mother’s house before, when Ethan had dragged her along to visit his mother after his father’s death. The room looked almost exactly the same as it had the year before, though there were a few new pictures of Ethan and Anna lining the mantelpiece. She swallowed hard as she saw Anna’s smiling face frozen in the frames above the fireplace, and she forced her eyes away. She didn’t need to succumb to emotional impulses when she had work to do. Cade swept her rifle quickly over a room completely devoid of movement before she stepped inside and eased her way along the outer walls to the kitchen door.

Cade stopped short as she took in her initial sweep of the usually immaculate kitchen. What she saw by the beam of her flashlight made her eyes widen in surprise.

The kitchen had been the scene of a tremendous fight. Canisters of flour and sugar had been knocked over and their contents spilled across the counter and onto the floor. A bowl of cereal lay broken and clotted on the breakfast table in the corner of the kitchen. Chairs were overturned. The open back door let in the frigid air from outside. The knife block in the center of the island counter lay on its side. The largest knife in the block was missing from its slot. Cade shone her light around to look for it and spotted a pool of partially congealed blood near the stainless steel refrigerator. It was splashed across the wooden floorboards and spattered on the bottom half of the refrigerator. Cade was unsure if it was enough blood to indicate that someone had died there, but it was enough for her to dart back to the hallway to call for assistance.

“Ethan!” Cade yelled. “Get in the kitchen, quick!”

It took Ethan only moments to meet Cade in the kitchen doorway. Cade shone her flashlight’s beam around the kitchen to show Ethan what had prompted her to call out. Ethan stopped short two steps into the room and sucked in a sharp breath.

“Jesus, what happened?” Ethan asked, horror invading his features.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Cade said. She paced the room and took in the sight of the damage. “It looks like there was a serious fight in here. You find your mom?”

“She isn’t here,” Ethan confirmed. “I finished up downstairs quicker than I thought I would and checked out the second floor. No sign.”

Cade nodded to the open back door and paused in the doorway to look out across the back yard. A cold wind blew through her dark hair and inched up underneath her jacket and flannel shirt. She shivered violently. Her finger hovered over the safety on her rifle, ready to slide it to its off position at a moment’s notice. “Maybe she got out of here,” Cade suggested. “Think she might be at a neighbor’s or somewhere nearby?”

“Maybe,” Ethan said. His voice was heavy with doubt. “We should check it out.”

“Wait,” Cade said. She stepped out onto the back deck, her boots thumping hollowly on the treated wooden planks. She scanned the back yard again and studied the shadows for anything unusual. Her instincts still yammered at the back of her skull, clamoring for attention. Cade drew in a breath and stepped back inside. She shut the door firmly and locked it behind her. “We should wait until the sun comes up. I want to be able to see everything around us.”

“But my mom—”

“If your mom is at a neighbor’s house, then she’ll be fine for another thirty minutes,” Cade insisted. She skirted the pool of blood and went to the front door to close and lock it too. “And if she’s not at the neighbor’s house…” Cade trailed off and let the implication hang in the air.

“Then there’s nothing we can do for her,” Ethan finished.

Cade nodded and retrieved a chair from the kitchen. She set it by the front door and sat in it, studying the street outside in silence. She rested her rifle across her knees and took her hair out of its ponytail so she could put it back up more neatly. “You okay?” Cade asked Ethan after she’d snapped the elastic band back around her hair.

Ethan crouched on the floor beside Cade, resting on the balls of his feet. He dropped his forearms down onto his thighs and let out a slow breath. “I don’t know,” he admitted as he focused on the floor. “I’m still trying to cope with Anna—” He broke off as he said his wife’s name and shook his head. “And now maybe my mom too,” he added.

Cade caught Ethan’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “And Josie,” she said. She turned her head away from him and tried to look at the street outside the window again. The thought of the little girl hurt, so once again, Cade shoved it to the back of her mind where she could deal with it later.

Nearly an hour passed before Cade felt it was light enough outside. She rose to her feet and moved to the front door, unlocking it and opening it cautiously. “I’m going to go check out the neighbor’s house,” Cade told Ethan. He still crouched on the floor, his elbows still resting on his thighs. “If you want, you can stay here in case your mom shows up.”

Ethan hesitated and looked toward the kitchen doorway before he shook his head and stood. He drew his gun from its holster and slid the safety off. “No, I’m going with you,” he said. “Just in case you need some backup, you know? You’re good with a gun, but someone can still get the jump on you if you’re not expecting it.”

Cade smirked and raised an eyebrow. She rested her rifle against her shoulder, barrel pointed toward the ceiling. “You say that like you have no confidence in my abilities,” she said as she stepped out onto the front porch. She could feel her mood lifting as she had something to focus on, a mission to accomplish.

“I just don’t want you to get overconfident,” Ethan said. He followed Cade onto the porch and lowered his voice as they left the safety of the house and moved into the dawn-lit street.

“Eth, I was in the IDF for seven years,” Cade pointed out. “I was a marksman for most of that time. I’m pretty sure I have a lock on not getting overconfident at this point.”

Ethan chuckled, and Cade gave him a slight smile before she descended the front steps. Her brain settled into its old military mindset, and she eased her way to the street with all of her senses on high alert. There was no movement on the street, not a bird or a cat or a dog or a person. Cade knew that that was unusual for a residential neighborhood, and the very lack of movement drew her attention like nothing else. Cade sucked in a slow breath as she glanced back at Ethan. He followed her off the porch and down the sidewalk, his own gun in his hand. Cade nodded in approval and turned in a half-circle to sweep the yards on either side of them with her rifle as she walked toward the street.

“Where would she be most likely to go?” Cade asked Ethan as she paused in her journey to let him catch up with her. She kept her voice low as he stopped beside her. His green eyes squinted in the brightening dawn.

“Probably Miss Jemison’s house,” Ethan said thoughtfully. “They’ve always been pretty close. Mom might have thought to go there for safety in numbers or to see if Miss Jemison needed any help.”

“Where’s that at?” Cade asked. She followed his gaze down the street.