Chapter 24
“What do you mean he walked out of here with her?” I demand, fury radiating through my body. Beckett is gone.
And no one knows where she is.
“He said that you were worried about her safety,” the uniform who’d been standing at her door claims. He’s sitting across from me and Reid in the interrogation room of my precinct.
My captain is just outside, doing what he can to try to track down Anderson.
After a call from Reid, the DEA raided Seymore’s house and found he’d vacated—in a hurry.
Every travel agency in the area is on high alert, and currently, Reid’s team is raiding the District 1 WSP office looking for any signs of anyone else involved.
They’re doing everything they can…but it’s not enough.
Officer Hasting appears to be genuinely distressed, and logically, I don’t think he knew anything was off, but right now, I want to tear him apart.
I shove up from the chair, and it flings backward, the metal frame banging against the floor. “If I had been worried, do you really think I would have left her there?” I snarl.
“Look, I’m sorry about Ms. Wallace, but I didn’t know—”
“Don’t hand me that!” I bellow.
Reid stands and puts his hand on my arm. “Take a breather,” he says. “I’ve got this.”
I want to refuse. Want to demand that I stay here until we have answers, but I’m a distraction right now.
A bomb about to go off.
And since I don’t trust myself not to do something stupid, I charge out of the room and slam the door behind me.
Riley Hunt is standing a few yards from me, phone pressed to his ear, his service dog, Romeo, right next to him. “Thanks, Tuck.” He ends the call and starts toward me, Romeo right on his heels. “Tucker was able to activate that burner’s GPS, but it died seconds after he got a location.”
“Where?” I demand, hope burning so brightly it almost kills the murderous rage battling for control.
His gaze darkens. “A back road in Mount Rainier National Park.”
“Beckett!” I call out. The storm makes my voice useless, though.
Two dozen Park Rangers are all out looking for her, alongside the officers who’d located Anderson’s car.
But it’s Romeo I’m watching.
He’d gotten her scent from the backseat of Anderson’s car and has been pushing ahead, not even flinching when thunder booms overhead.
He stops and drops his nose to the ground, then starts digging.
My heart plummets.
“Romeo’s got something!” Riley calls out over the storm. He’s only a few feet from me, but I can barely hear him.
Wind whips at the jacket I’m wearing as rain slicks my skin, having soaked through my clothes the moment I stepped out of the car less than half an hour ago.
Five hours. That’s how long she’s been missing.
I drop down and claw at the dirt right alongside Romeo until I pull out a shoe. The dog focuses intently on it, then drops to a seated position and whines at Riley.
I look up at him.
“It’s hers,” he says grimly.
No. “Then she came this direction.”
“Voran, Romeo,” he orders in German.
Romeo takes off again, so we follow through the trees. The last scent he’d caught had been near where a tree had fallen. From the scorch marks, it looked like lightning had taken it down only a few hours before we got here.
It gave me the hope I needed to believe that she might have gotten away.
Lord, please let her have gotten away. God, guide me. It’s so cold out here. Wet. She can’t survive for long.
Romeo lets out a bark and charges toward the right.
Riley and I follow, our firearms in hand, moving right behind the animal.
He barks again and starts pawing at the base of an old tree. I sprint forward and drop down to my knees. As I do, I get a flash of blue through a crack in the old tree.
“Beckett?” I call out as I peer inside. Thank You, God!
“She’s here!” I yell back at Riley as I holster my weapon.
She’s so far inside that I have to partially crawl in to get to her.
Cold mud seeps into my jeans, saturating my legs and the parts of my abdomen touching the ground.
Frustration consumes me when I realize that I can’t quite get in far enough to reach her.
Her body is trembling, eyes closed. Her hair is soaked, same thing with the hospital gown she’s still wearing.
“Beckett!” I call out again as I stretch my arm just enough that my fingertips graze her arm.
She jolts, and both eyes open to stare at me, wide and terrified. “Shawn?”
“I’m here, baby. Come on.”
Tears begin to fall down her cheeks as she crawls to me using her good arm for support. She’s muddy, her hair matted with blood. She makes it to where I can reach, so I gently pull her out the rest of the way, still on my knees as I wrap my arms around her.
“Thank You, God. Thank You,” I cry out as I hold her.
Romeo barks and rushes over toward her, tail wagging. “Hey, boy,” she says as she pets him gently with her free hand. “Hey, Riley.” Her voice is barely audible over the sound of the still-raging storm.
“Hey there, Becks,” he replies with a soft smile.
She rests her head back against me, clearly exhausted. “It was Anderson,” she says, trembling. “H-h-he grabbed me from the hospital.”
I shove out of my jacket and wrap it around her, then lift her into my arms. “We know.”
“He was the one who attacked me in the hotel room,” she says. “He was sent to kill me at your house because we got too close.”
Another wave of rage, only dampened by my desire to get her to safety. He’d been there. Right after he attacked her. My guess is he got to my house so fast after the shooting because he’d been the one to pull the trigger.
How did I not see it?
“Not just too close, baby, we figured it all out,” I tell her as we start walking.
She looks up at me, eyes wide. “You did?”
“Yeah, we—” A gunshot echoes through the trees.
Romeo snarls, and Riley drops behind a tree at the same time; I do the same.
Overhead, the storm continues to wage a war on the area around us. After setting Beckett down, I draw my firearm and peer out.
Another gunshot.
I dart back as bark flies off the tree I’m hiding behind.
“You should have stayed out of this, Shawn!” Anderson yells. “Then you would have—” He yells in pain, so I rush to my feet. Both Riley and I descend upon him as Romeo pins him to the ground, strong jaws wrapped around Anderson’s arm.
He lies there, staring up at me, a darkness in his eyes I’d never seen before. Riley kicks his gun away.
I level my firearm on him, my finger on the trigger.
I could squeeze gently and end his life the way he tried to end Beckett’s.
From what I know about Riley, he wouldn’t say a word, either. I’d get away with it. With killing the man who’d been my partner as he lay bleeding on the ground.
But that would only make me a monster, too.
Kneeling down, I remove the cuffs from his belt. “It’s over, Anderson.”
“That’s what you think,” he snarls. “But I’m just the beginning. He’ll send someone else.”
“Who? Thomes?” I question. “Or should I say Captain Seymore?”
His eyes widen.
“Yeah, we know all about it. As I said, it’s over.” I offer Riley a nod, letting him know I’ve got it now.
“Aus, Romeo,” Riley orders.
Romeo releases his arm, but before Anderson can do anything, I flip him onto his belly.
“Anderson Redmond, you are under arrest for the murder of Paul Jameson and the kidnapping and attempted murder of Beckett Wallace.” As I state his rights while cuffing him, Beckett comes out from behind the tree, her body shaking.
Even as hard as her expression is while she looks at the man who tried to kill her, there’s a light in her eyes.
A relief.
Because finally, ten years later, she has closure.