Chapter 62

SIXTY-TWO

Boyd found her on her knees. Screaming inconsolably. He quickly assessed the scene and got to work, checking for vital signs. Backup and ambulances were on the way, and he prayed they wouldn’t be too late.

He turned back to Lottie. ‘They’re alive. Come on. Help me.’

She was frozen. Face white with fear and shock.

He yelled, ‘Lottie! Now. I need help. Ambulance is on the way.’

She awoke as if from a sudden stupor and, hardly daring to breathe, crawled on hands and knees across the coin-littered floor to reach her girls.

‘Katie. Chloe. Dear God.’

She put a trembling hand under her younger daughter’s chin and lifted her head. Chloe’s eyes were closed and her mouth drooped on one side. Lottie put her face close. Skin to skin. She felt the soft breath ease from Chloe’s mouth. At last she could exhale herself. She did the same to Katie. Her daughters were alive.

But where had the blood come from? She ran quivering fingers through the girls’ hair until they connected with the wounds. Both had been bludgeoned. A strip of bloody timber lay in the corner of the room. Then she noticed a cut on Chloe’s throat, just beneath her ear.

Sirens screeched in the near distance as she held her girls close to her breast and shed tears of relief. Though she had no idea how badly injured they were, she was just thankful in that moment that they were alive.

‘Chloe was cut,’ she whispered.

‘She’ll be fine once the paramedics get here,’ Boyd said. ‘And Kirby will be fine too when whatever he was injected with wears off.’

She felt Boyd’s hand on her shoulder, and then the room filled with noise and people, and reluctantly she released her girls into the hands of the experts.

As she cried uncontrollable sobs. She felt as if her body was expunging the fear she’d been keeping under wraps since last night. And she didn’t know if she would ever be able to stop.