Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 120186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
“She’s missing!” There’s something wild and feral in Emma’s voice, like an ice pick to my ear. “Where the hell are you? How long ago did you leave? Please, tell me she’s with you!”
My ear is ringing by the time she’s finished. “She’s not with me, but I doubt she’s actually missing,” I mutter before gulping down the rest of my drink.
“Why aren’t you here?” I’m about to tell her it’s not my job when she adds, “Her car is here. Her phone is here. She wouldn’t have left without it. She never leaves it.”
She’s right. The back of my neck prickles. “Maybe Saint picked her up.”
“I called Saint! She has no idea, either. And…”
Sitting up straighter, I ask, “And what?”
“I could explain, but it will be easier to show you when you get here. Please come! Get here! I need your help. Allie could need your help!”
She isn’t worth my help.
It’s obvious when the words freeze on my tongue that I don’t believe it. I might want to, but I don’t.
I toss back the rest of the whiskey before reaching for my wallet. “I’m on my way.” Dammit, Allie. Tell me you didn’t do anything stupid.
And if you did, tell me it isn’t my fault.
“Oh, thank God!” Emma meets me outside the house, standing under the light mounted over the front door. She looks like she’s about to fall apart, shaking and rocking back and forth. “I don’t know what I’m going to do!”
I can only be glad she caught me when she did, before I obliterated myself like I planned to. She’s shaking hard enough that her teeth chatter when I reach her.
“There’s probably an explanation.” I don’t believe myself. That’s the problem. It’s the sort of thing people say in a situation like this, trying to calm someone down.
“I want to show you what I found.” She leads me around the house to the old root cellar I know so well, and how the doors are thrown open.
The last time I used this entrance, I closed the door and replaced the broken lock, adjusting it to look secure. Shit.
“Did anyone else know about this entrance?” I ask. “Anyone here on the ranch?”
“Why would someone on the ranch—”
She stops. Her mouth hangs open. Her face goes slack. “No.”
“No, what?” I demand, taking her by the shoulders when all she does is stare blankly into the dark passage. “Answer me!”
Her head snaps back, eyes flying open wide. Reddened, touched by panic. “He couldn’t, though. Why would he?”
“Who, dammit?”
My harshness seems to snap her out of it. “Buck Davis. I fired him months ago, before Allie came home from school. I caught him…”
She shudders, grimacing. “He was in her room. Going through her drawers. I never thought to check down here. He tried to explain, but I wouldn’t listen. What explanation could there be besides the obvious?”
Nausea washes over me, twisting my guts. “Describe him to me.”
“Late forties. Graying hair. Always wears a Stetson hat.”
I’ve seen him. The day after the gala. And at The Rusty Nail. He’s the man who approached Allie and Joseph on the street. “Where does he live?”
“He lived here while working on the ranch but had a place. One of the old logging cabins.” She takes off for the front door, and I follow close, my heart pounding a steady, heavy beat. Allie. I left her. She was alone with no one to stop him. We assumed it was Lowry’s men outside the bedroom window that night. What if it was him? What if it was Buck all along?
I’m at her side as she tears open the bottom drawer of her desk, then flips through files at lightning speed. “Let me see, let me see… Where is it? Here!”
She pulls out a folder and slams it on her desk, flipping it open. “Here. His address.” She points with a shaking finger. I type the address into my phone while she mumbles almost hysterically. “I’ll never forgive myself for letting him get away with what he did. What was I thinking!”
“That doesn’t matter now.” All that matters is getting her back, which means first taking a trip out to Buck’s home to see if she’s there.
“Are you going?” Emma follows me from her office like a lost puppy, trailing close behind. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to find her.”
“I’ll call the sheriff—”
I give my head a shake once I reach the door. “No. I’m going to handle this, but it will be my way. Do you hear what I’m saying?”
She looks at me, obviously terrified and filled with dread. Tears spill down her cheeks. “Don’t let him hurt her. Please, if he has her, don’t let him.”
“I’m not going to.”
I’m also not going alone.
I’m on the phone before I reach the truck. Best-case scenario, he doesn’t have the first fucking clue about any of this, but that would mean no leads.