Page 3 of Crave

I had spenttwo hours alone in my son’s house, painstakingly examining every wall, opening every drawer, and scouring every square inch of the floor trying to find some clues as to where that lady took my kid. I wasn’t even sure what I hoped to find. I doubted she was dumb enough to leave her forwarding address. Even so, she must have had some help to pack.

I went to the back yard and saw a man in his thirties taking out his trash. I headed in his direction.

“Hey, buddy. My mom hadn’t heard from her friend in a few weeks so she asked me to come check on her, but she’s clearly gone. She left her cat here, too. Did she happen to tell you where she went?”

The guy eyed me suspiciously. “Lorraine didn’t have any friends.”

Lorraine. Hearing her name sent a chill through me. I didn’t know anything about the woman who was raising my son.

“They hadn’t seen each other in years.” I needed to give this guy a reason to trust me, so I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my wallet, flashing the guy my military ID. “I’m a Navy SEAL and wanted to make sure she was okay.”

He scowled at me. “Did you know that guy who murdered her daughter?”

Well, fuck. I knew I looked upset by the question but hoped the guy would just think I was disturbed about Tiffany’s death. “Yeah, I did. Guy’s a lying piece of shit.” And that was true. No matter if Joaquín was guilty or innocent, and I was leaning toward him being guilty, I would never forgive Joaquín for knowing that Mia had been raped and not telling me.

“Well, Tiffany was fucked up. What kind of woman never visits her son? That little boy of hers was better off without her. Great kid.”

I smiled. Hearing him say that my son was a great boy warmed my soul. I yearned to get to know him.

“Anyway, I don’t know where they went. A moving truck packed them up in the middle of the night, and by morning, they were long gone. She never told me goodbye.”

Fuck. I had been right. Middle of the night, packed up their stuff, and vanished. And I didn’t have a clue where they were or who this Lorraine woman was. “Thanks, man.”

I went back inside the house. I needed to call my commanding officer, Kyle, and have him run some intel. We could find property records, birth certificates, arrest records, something, anything that could lead me to my son.

I walked upstairs to get the cat. I wasn’t going to leave him here to die.

But then I heard a noise.

I grabbed my weapon and peered downstairs, prepared to find the grandmother, my son, or an armed intruder.

Instead, the barrel of a gun pointed right back at me.

And the person holding the gun . . . was Mia.