Page 80 of Guarding Truth
The bad guys were cleaning house and running.
Juliette and Noelle exchanged glances. Neither of them would go down without a fight. But before they could act, an explosion rocked the room. Juliette grabbed the back of Ivy’s chair to keep herself on her feet. The ground shook, and thick smoke filled the room.
Someone kicked the door down, and through stinging eyes, Juliette watched Alana burst into the room with a high-powered rifle.
“Freeze,” Matt shouted over the commotion. “Guns on the ground. Now!” Three police officers followed him into the room.
The men tossed their weapons down. Officers secured the two men, and Juliette relieved one of the security guards of his radio and clipped it to her belt.
Something pulled on her sweatshirt, and small arms encircled her waist. Juliette enveloped Ivy in a hug.
“Juliette, please find Uncle Caleb. You have to rescue him.” The girl now looked all of her twelve years of age. Tears trailed through the dirt covering her smoke-stained cheeks.
“That’s the plan, Ivy. I’ll get him back. Stay with Noelle and Alana.”
She nodded at Noelle, who nodded back. Noelle would guard Ivy until this was over. Juliette needed to find Caleb. Now.
“Matt, Theo Payne took Caleb at gunpoint.”
“Go, we’ve got this,” Matt said. “This warehouse is a maze, and I have officers searching every corner of this place. Join the search.”
She dashed out the door and stood in the middle of the warehouse. The offices where they were held lined the center of the facility. All around her, rows of metal shelving created long aisles, with a main passageway running through the length of the building.
“This placeisa maze.” Alana walked up behind Juliette and pressed a gun into her hand. “I’ll watch over things here.”
“Thanks, Alana. I have to find Caleb.”
While the police had breached the front of the facility, Juliette headed to the back. Theo would be plotting a way to escape.
She headed down one of the rows that almost looked like a road running down the center of the warehouse. The concrete floor showed wear and tear from forklifts moving packages to be shipped. To the left were rows of merchandise. To the right were the loading docks, some with trucks and some empty. The commotion grew softer the deeper she moved into the warehouse. Maybe she could commandeer a forklift, but where was she going?
How was she going to find Caleb in this labyrinth? There was no way she could check each truck or aisle. In the distance, flashlights flickered up and down from officers on search duty. But time was running out. She swung her gun out in front of her whenever she hit a new aisle.
Nothing.
Theo would need to find some way to get as far away from this place as he could.
She raced down an aisle and stared at the maze of shelving units, boxes, and the occasional parked forklift. They could be anywhere.
The situation was out of her control. She clenched her teeth. “It can’t end this way,” she whispered. “I love him too much.”
Caleb’s words rushed back to her.Sometimes we just need to stand still and let God fight for us.Instead of ignoring his advice, she embraced it and decided to do the one thing that seemed completely unnatural and illogical to her.
She stood still.
In the middle of a dusty aisle in a mile-long warehouse, she stopped running and set her emotions aside. “Okay, God. I’m standing still. I can’t do this on my own. I have to find Caleb. Please protect him and lead me to him.”
The radio she’d clipped to her belt crackled. An idea struck like lightning.
Theo had a partner, a woman, who had a radio. She’d heard the voice. Maybe she could trick Theo into revealing his location if Juliette pretended to be his partner.
It was worth a shot. She ducked behind a row of pallets shrink-wrapped to hold multiple boxes. She spotted a box cutter and stuck it in her pocket for future use. It might come in handy.
What was Theo’s radio name? If only she had an eidetic memory like Caleb and Ivy. Rough something.
Rough Rider?
It was worth a shot. She crinkled some of the shrink wrap, hoping it sounded like static.