The pain in his voice broke me and wracking sobs shookmy body as I threw myself into Max’s arms. We held each other like our lives depended on it. It felt as if, in that moment, our embrace was the glue holding our broken pieces in place, and if either of us let go, we would fall apart.
Breaking through the sound of our collective sobs, Max’s phone let out a shrill ring. He hesitated to loosen his hold, but released me enough to reach into his back pocket and pull out his cell. I saw his eyes shoot wide with concern as he pressed answer and then switched it to speaker so we both could hear the conversation. He gripped my hand in his, both of us shaking so hard that I didn’t know where I ended, and he began.
Before we could speak, a voice answered.
“We’ve found her.”
A guttural cry wrenched from my soul as I bent forward and cradled my head in my hands. The sense of relief that flooded my veins was overwhelming. They’d found her. They’d found Charlie. Before I let myself drown in hope, I had to make sure she was okay. I needed to hear Sheriff Cortez say in clear terms that my girl wasn’t hurt.
“Is she okay?” I asked, clearing my throat through the thickness of emotion.
“Our forensic analysts were able to lift fingerprints off of Charlie’s crib and it came up as a match in the national database. The guy has a rap sheet a mile long. His name is Silas Price, and he’s a known drug dealer in Minnesota. I don’t know why we didn’t think to search your car before, but we found a tracker in one of the wheel wells. He’s been tracking your every move, Stella.”
Max cut in before Sheriff Cortez could speak again. “Emmanuel, with all due respect, cut to the chase. Can you tell us if our girl is okay?”
Hearing Max call Charlieourswas a shot of lightning to my soul. I never realized how much I craved the feeling of being wanted until that moment. I squeezed his hand in solidarity as we waited on bated breath to hear what Emmanuel had to say.
“We were able to locate our guy just outside of Firefly Cove at an abandoned warehouse off Interstate 285 near Atlanta. Patrol cars are over there now, scoping out the place. I wanted to update you with what information we have, but as far as they can tell, Charlie’s okay. They reported that there were multiple individuals coming and going from the property, one of which was a woman carrying a little girl matching Charlie’s description. I’ll keep you up to date as I have more information, but Max,” he paused, gaining our attention, “don’t do anything stupid.”
“Yes, sir.” Max gritted through a tightly clenched jaw. I could see the wheels turning in his mind as he formulated a plan, his brow furrowed in concentration, to find the warehouse and save our girl.
“I’ll call when I have more information,” Sheriff Cortez promised.
“Thanks.” Max clipped and hung up the phone, tossing it across the room. He paced from wall to wall, running his fingers through his hair.
“What are you thinking?” I asked hesitantly, knowing I probably wasn’t going to like the answer.
“I’m thinking that I can’t just sit by and wait while someone else takes their sweet fucking time to get our girl out safely.”
“I feel the same way, but Max, we can’t barge in there and break down doors. What if they’re armed? Someone could gethurt or worse, killed. I want to go in there and get our girl just as bad as you do, but we have to keep a level head.”
I wrapped my arms around his waist and laid my forehead on his chest. Feeling his heart rate slow and his arms come around me, I closed my eyes in contentment. Our girl was okay. Now, we just needed to find a way to get her home.
I held Max tight, knowing that this could very well be the last time I got to be in his arms. He was right. We couldn’t sit by and wait while someone else took their time rescuing Charlie.
Even though I’d just told him we couldn’t make any rash decisions, my mind swirled with plans. I knew that Sheriff Cortez and his team were doing everything they could to get to Charlie, but I also knew how unpredictable this scum bag was. After all, who lets a woman who saw what I did go, just to play a game of cat and mouse across half of the country?
I wasn’t going to let Max charge in there, guns blazing, and get himself killed. But, I wasn’t going to sit around with my thumb up my ass waiting for Emmanuel and his team to come up with a plan.
We had already passed the threshold that the experts expected to find a child alive. Every moment we waited was borrowed time. I needed to do something, but I couldn’t drag Max and his family into it.
“Let’s go update everyone and come up with a plan.” I said, knowing that a plan was already coming together in my head. I knew in my heart that as soon as the house was quiet and asleep, I’d be breaking his heart to put mine back together.
THIRTY
stella
We spentthe next two hours around the weathered kitchen table poring over ways to get to Charlie. The tension was so thick, you could have cut it with a knife as everyone held their breath, hoping for news. Sheriff Cortez hadn’t given us any further updates except a text or two confirming that Charlie was alive and well inside the warehouse.
We had figured out that the warehouse was a dilapidated paper mill right outside the city limits. That location offered ideal seclusion while remaining near a major city. Knowing what I did about this Silas guy, they still needed to move their product, even if they were set on playing games, and being close to a big city like Atlanta provided them the access to an entire network of underground dealers.
We assumed they were using the warehouse to move larger amounts of heroin. Though we had no clue how many total people were inside, we knew there was at least one male and one female. I couldn’t imagine two people handling an operation this large, but drug dealers were a crazy bunch of fuckers, defying logical explanation.
I hadn’t been blind to the backwoods dealings that Dean had been involved in. I kept my mouth shut, claiming that I loved him and he was just doing what he needed to support us. He had come home blitzed out of his mind enough that I knew the type of crazy we were dealing with.
Even though I had first-hand knowledge of how dangerous these people were, I was about to kick the proverbial hornet’s nest.
Terrified was an understatement, and I just hoped that no matter what happened, Max would understand and forgive me after this was all over.
