Chapter 18
KANE
“Where the fuck did her tracker go?”
Panic seizes my chest as I scan the laptop screen, searching for the blinking red dot that was leading us to Jess.
We’ve been following her signal for the last three hours as we’ve sped north into the Adirondacks, my fear growing bigger and more painful by the minute.
I’ve been trying to focus on the logistics of our rescue—discussing contingencies and possible motives and plans of approach once we get to wherever Jess’s captor is taking her. And she was taken. That’s one thing we’re sure of.
It was the first thing Leo discovered once he pulled up all the security footage at her lab. In the chaos of the fire alarm and subsequent evacuation, no one spotted a man sneaking out the back with a woman dangling limply over his shoulder .
Not just any woman. Jess.
My Jess. Unconscious. Vulnerable. In the clutches of an unknown enemy dressed all in black, a hoodie disguising his face.
Fucking hoodies. I’ve hated them ever since I became a cop and realized how effective they were at masking a criminal’s identity. But now it’s worse. Because this piece of shit has my Jess. He’s taking her fuck-knows-where to do things I can’t bring myself to contemplate.
But the terrifying thoughts keep trying to sneak in no matter how hard I try to block them. Horrible images of Jess hurt, violated, sobbing in fear and pain, wondering why I’m not there to protect her. Or worse?—
No.
The red dot. We need to get it back. We need to find Jess.
“Where the fuck is it?” I repeat, my voice close to breaking. “Her tracker was just there. We’ve been following her for hours. How could it just disappear?”
Cole tears his gaze away from the road to glance at me in the rearview mirror. “I don’t know,” he replies calmly, but with a thread of strain in his voice. “But we’ll figure it out.”
From the passenger seat, Leo frowns at the laptop balanced on his lap. “There was no sign of a malfunction with her tracker. It was working fine just a minute ago.” He pauses. “The only thing I can think of is?—”
He stops. Frowns again.
My stomach turns to lead. “All you can think of is what ?”
“That she’s someplace the signal can’t reach. ”
From beside me, Zane bites out a low curse. “Do you think it’s like what happened to Charlie all over again?”
“What?” I turn my attention to Zane. “What do you mean, what happened to Charlie?” Charlie—Charlotte—is the wife of another Blade and Arrow team member.
She went through some shit back before I moved to Sleepy Hollow, and I know she was kidnapped at one point, but I’m not sure how that connects to Jess.
“Charlie’s abductor had a jammer in his van,” Leo says. “So we couldn’t track her. But that’s clearly not the same situation here, since we’ve been on Jess’s trail since she left Sleepy Hollow.”
“Except an hour behind,” I snap. “A fucking hour. This fucking asshole could do anything to her in that time. We already know he hurt her. What else?—”
“Don’t jump to the worst,” Cole warns. But I don’t miss the sudden burst of speed as our SUV accelerates even faster, now a good twenty miles over the limit.
I’d be happier if we hit ninety, or even a hundred, but the logical voice in my head reminds me we won’t be any help to Jess if we get pulled over for speeding or get into an accident.
“How can you say that?” I retort. “Someone took her. They’re driving her into the damned Adirondack Mountains. Do you know how remote some of the places up here are? If he gets her to… Shit. It was one thing with her tracker working. But now…”
Icy fingers wrap around my heart; squeezing. Every breath is an effort. My pulse slams in painful drumbeats, each one echoing with the same haunting question.
How could I fail her?
Why didn’t I insist on more security? Or better yet, why didn’t I work harder to convince Jess to stay home? Why did I fold when she insisted on going back to work, even though my instincts were telling me to keep her at home?
But I know why.
Because I love her. And I wanted Jess to be happy.
And now…
I could lose her. She could be lost already.
All the crimes I’ve responded to—the assaults, the homicides—fly through my head at a dizzying speed. And in each of them, I see my beautiful Jess as the victim, the only woman I’ve ever loved. The woman I want to spend my life with.
Leo turns around in his seat to catch Zane’s gaze. “Pull up the tracking app on your phone. I want to check the satellite images again. See if there’s a location nearby that might have walls thick enough to block Jess’s signal.”
Zane lifts his chin at him. “Done.”
As Zane opens the app, there’s a hopeful moment when I think, Maybe her tracker will be back once it loads. Maybe Leo’s laptop isn’t working right and that’s why we couldn’t see her.
But seconds later, my hopes fall flat. Her little red dot still isn’t there. And we’re no closer to finding Jess than we were before.
“What’s around here?” Cole asks. He slows slightly as we take a sharp right, but I can still feel the wheels fighting for traction. “Any old military buildings? Bomb shelters? Being near Plattsburgh, shouldn’t there be some of those around?”
“That’s what I’m looking for,” Leo answers. “During the Cold War, there were a number of shelters built around here. And—” Pausing, his fingers fly across the keyboard. “Missile silos.”
I stop breathing for a second. “Fuck. Do you think…” Being from New York, I have vague memories of social studies teachers talking about the rich military history in our state, from Revolutionary War battle sites to ballistics testing sites.
And I know there are plenty of abandoned missile silos in the northern part of the state, but the idea of Jess being in one…
“Do you think?” Cole starts. “It would explain the tracker dropping off the map.”
“But how would we know?” I ask tightly. My molars nearly shatter from trying not to scream in frustration. “If we can’t track her, how would we even know if she’s there? We could end up on a wild goose chase while this fucker is?—”
“Kane.” A hand lands on my arm. Zane. He looks at me with compassion in his eyes. “I get it. We all do. When the woman you love is in trouble, it’s hard to keep perspective. But we have a lead. And if Leo can triangulate the nearest silo to Jess’s last known location…”
“But what if we go there and it’s a dead end?” I shoot back. I know damn well my arguments aren’t helpful and the guys are doing the best they can. But it’s hard to think clearly past the terror tearing at me from the inside out.
“There’s a silo five miles from here,” Leo announces. “I found a website that has a list of all the defunct silos, and there’s one listed near where we last saw Jess. So it’s possible that’s where she is. And if she’s inside, the thickness of the walls would definitely block her signal.”
Cole meets my gaze in the mirror again. “It’s your call. If you want to keep looking, we can. Or we can try the silo. What do you want to do?”
Shit.
I’ve never felt so unsure of a decision before.
The stakes have never been this high.
If I make the wrong choice, I could lose Jess forever.
Taking a deep breath, I try to force myself into the position of investigator and not the panicked boyfriend. I think about what I’d do if this was just a job.
I’d look at the facts. At what we know already.
Someone took Jess into the Adirondacks for a reason. If they just wanted to kill her and dispose of?—
Fuck. I can’t think it.
But they wouldn’t go this far to do it. Not when there’s plenty of places closer.
So this is all part of his plan. To go someplace remote, someplace where Jess would never be found. Someplace he couldn’t be connected to. Like…
An abandoned missile silo.
“Let’s go,” I reply after a few moments’ deliberation. My voice goes rough as I add, “This could be the biggest mistake of my life, but let’s do it.”
“Okay.” Cole glances at Leo. “Which way?”
Over the next five minutes, I second guess myself a dozen times. While Leo guides Cole along a narrow road that winds through the woods, I wonder if my choice just doomed her to death. If we’ll arrive at this silo to find it locked and no sign of Jess or her abductor anywhere.
Then we turn onto an even narrower road, and I spot something that brings me hope again.
Tire tracks in the snow.
Leo clicks away on the mouse pad for a second before reporting, “They got snow up here last night. A few inches. So these are definitely fresh.”
Hope takes flight.
“She could be here,” I blurt. “Shit. Drive faster.”
“We don’t want to give ourselves away,” Cole replies. “If he’s outside…”
But less than a quarter mile down the road, it’s clear he’s not. All we see is an empty car, mottled with brown and white from the dirt and salt on the road. And as we pull up behind it, I spot the next clue.
Footsteps. Heading into the woods. One set of them.
Which means either he was carrying Jess, or she’s still in the trunk.
Fuck.
FUCK.
“Gear up,” Zane says. He pulls an assortment of guns and knives from the duffel sitting on the seat beside him and hands them to Leo and Cole. I’m already armed, but I pull my Glock from its holster and check to make sure my taser is ready to go.
Less than thirty seconds later, we all pile out of the car.
Shoving procedure to the side, I run to the empty car and yank open the unlocked door, then trigger the trunk release.
Then I practically lunge around the car and towards the trunk with my heart in my throat, praying for the best and fearing the worst.
But the trunk is empty. And much to my relief, there’s no visible blood.
“It looks like he went this way,” Cole says as he gestures towards the woods. To Leo, he asks, “Is this the way to the silo?”
“It is,” Leo affirms. “About five hundred yards in. ”