“Maybe one of the cleaners took it? Or Duffton? He would have come looking for me. Maybe he took it to play with? I swear to you! I don’t have it!” She hated redirecting suspicion to anyone, especially little Duff, but she needed to get out of this. Needed to get away from these men. Once she did, she’d call the police. Get them to go out to the Silver Buckle Ranch. Make sure the children and staff were safe and protected.
Her interrogator jerked his chin up, a signal to the man outside, and she came close to falling out of the SUV when her door opened. Her arm caught in a vice-grip, she scrambled to get her legs under her as the asshole hauled her from the vehicle.
Fight! Run! Yell!
A meaty hand clamped over her mouth. “One squeak and you die, right here, right now. Understand?”
She felt the press of a second gun and nodded her head as fast and hard as her legs shook. “She’s coming with us,” the first man said. “Zip tie her wrists and put her on the floor in the back of the truck.”
CHAPTERFORTY-ONE
“I can’t reach her,”Gray said, her voice infused with concern as she burst through Jamie’s open office door, Eve right behind her, Halia in her arms. “Summer’s not answering her phone.”
He looked up from the research paper he’d been reading, his eyes taking a second to adjust after staring at his laptop screen for the last hour. “What time is it?”
“Six o’clock,” Eve replied, rocking the baby back and forth. “She should be back by now.”
“She’s a slow driver.” Tamping down a hint of worry, he palmed his phone off the desk. “She’s probably on her way.”
“Yeah,” Gray said. “But she should pick up through the car’s speaker, right? She’s not answering at all.”
“Got your text,” Adam said, coming in through the door with Chase and Davis behind him. “What’s the emergency?”
“Summer’s not answering her phone,” Gray replied, leaning her back against Chase’s chest when he wrapped his arms around her from behind.
“Trying her now.” Jamie hit the call button and put his phone on speaker. One unanswered ring after another filled the quiet space until voice mail picked up, and an automated system suggested the caller leave a message.
“See.” Gray shook her head. “There’s something wrong.”
Unease building, he checked on the location of Summer’s secure phone. “According to the locator, her phone’s still at Buffalo Dave’s Bar and Grill.”
“Then why isn’t she answering?” Gray demanded, her voice rising with her panic.
“Could be she forgot her phone at the bar,” Chase said, kissing the side of her head, his calm suggestion meant to soothe her frazzled nerves. The last time one of her friends went missing, Tara Pisani had been taken from Gray’s condo and murdered. A victim of the JTT’s war on terror and a tragedy she still hadn’t recovered from.
“Maybe Jay can track her vehicle location,” Davis suggested.
“No need.” His own anxiety growing, Jamie slid his laptop closer. He’d made sure to have multiple ways to track Summer, and a couple of taps later, he verified the location of her new Range Rover. “Her SUV hasn’t moved from the restaurant since she parked in the lot.”
“So maybe she forgot her phone in her car instead, and she’s still in her meeting?” Eve offered, the doubt in her voice audible as she continued to pat Halia’s back in a steady rhythm.
“Maybe,” Jamie replied, concern making his insides knot as he opened the GPS app connected to the chip she wore. “I’m pinning her exact location now.”
“If her car and phone are still at Buffalo Dave’s, how’re you tracking her?” Adam asked, coming around the desk to see the laptop screen.
“I had a chip embedded in the medical alert bracelet I gave her.”
“Medical alert?”
“Yeah, she’s hypoglycemic.”
“Shit,” Adam replied. “I didn’t know she was hypoglycemic. Doesn’t that have the potential to be fatal if left untreated?”
“Yes.” His heart squeezed tight as he remembered Summer’s trembling fingers after their lunchtime rendezvous. Thanks to the sex they’d been having, she’d been burning through calories, and her regular eating schedule was off. She’d promised to drink some juice before she left, but he hadn’t made sure, and—
Fuuuck.He hoped to God she’d remembered.
His laptop pinged a notification as a flashing red dot appeared on the map. Smack dab in the middle of rural Montana, and about a hundred miles southwest from where she should be, Summer’s GPS location raised the hairs on the back of his neck.
