“She’s in an undisclosed location with a man who kidnapped her. Blood relatives or not, that’s a far cry from okay.” After withdrawing my cell phone, I snap a picture of the caller ID readout, then set the phone back onto the receiver. “I need to get over to Tucker and see if he has a location yet. Call me if she calls again.”
“We will,” my dad assures me.
As I try to walk past my mom, she reaches out and touches my arm. The contact is sudden, as is the jolt of panic that shoots through me. If I know a hug is coming, I can be prepared for it, but the random touches always push me closer to the edge.
Still, she’s my mom, so I try to take a deep breath and turn toward her, resisting the urge to pull away.
“Honey, she’s okay.”
Is she? “Yeah. Thanks for letting me know she called.” I step away now and make my way toward the front door, Delta on my heels. The sun is already beginning its descent, though sundown is still hours away. Every minute that passes without me knowing her location is another minute that she could end up hurt.
Who is this guy who drugged her? Is he really her brother? Then why the drugs? I’m betting the phone call was a proof of life for us. That way, we’ll think she’s okay and stop looking for her.
It won’t work.
The only way I’ll stop looking for Emma is if I’m buried six feet deep in the cold, hard ground.
I hop into my UTV while Delta jumps into the back. As soon as he’s lying down, I take off toward Tucker’s house. His wife, Alice, is sitting on the porch, a book in her hand. When I pull up and shut off the engine, she glances up and smiles at me.
“Hey, Dylan. How are you?” Her smile fades just a bit when she sees my expression.
“Fine.”
When I first met the woman who would marry my twin, I didn’t trust her. She’d been accused of murder, and all the evidence pointed toward her. But once we’d proven her innocence, she became one of the few people I’m comfortable enough around to really let my guard down.
Most of the time.
“You’re not, but we don’t have to talk about it,” Alice says. “Tucker is inside. In his office.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” She smiles softly, then returns her attention to her book as I make my way inside. Delta runs off toward Tango, who jumps up when he sees his brother. As the two of them start wrestling, I withdraw my cell phone from my pocket and step into Tucker’s office.
In true Tucker fashion, he doesn’t even notice that I’m here—something that’s not at all surprising. When Tucker is in front of a computer, the rest of the world doesn’t exist. I tell him all the time that he might as well be part computer for how thoroughly he ‘plugs in.’
“You got a location?”
He glances over at me. “Huh? Oh, no. Not yet.”
“How is that possible? You couldn’t trace it?”
“It wasn’t made over a cellular network. Whoever let her make that call didn’t want us to be able to find her.”
I hand him my phone with the photo of the caller ID on the screen. “This is the number. Can you track it using this?”
“Already got it from the call,” he says, tapping his computer. “So far, no luck. I’m sorry, Dylan, I’m trying.”
“I know you are.” But it’s not enough. It won’t be until she’s safely back in Pine Creek.
“She sounded okay. Calm, considering.”
“The man that came onto the call right as I was going into Mom’s, did you hear what he said?”
Tucker shakes his head. “Not at first. I came on right as you were threatening him. Nice move, by the way.”
I let the slight roll off my back. Should I have threatened him? Probably not. It’s better to keep everyone involved in captive situations calm—that way, no one makes any rash moves. “He said he was her birth father.”
“Whoa.” Tucker shakes his head. “What is going on?”
