Chapter 58
Scott paced the floor in the conference room at the sheriff’s office.
Another couple of hours and it’d be daylight.
He stopped in front of the map where Ben sorted out the different properties Amy had sent.
Eli owned property with his mother and individually, and it was painstakingly slow.
There had to be a quicker way to find Tori.
A text dinged from his phone on the conference table. He reached for it, and his watch lit up. Scott froze with his hand halfway to the table.
“Ben, I think I know a way to find her!”
The sheriff turned from the map. “How?”
“I never looked at the locater app again after we found her phone, but when we bought Tori’s phone, I had them sync the watch with it.” Scott snatched his phone and opened the app. “It’ll show her location even if she doesn’t have the phone with her.”
He tapped on Tori’s name and frowned. “Doesn’t give an address, but can you tell the location?” He handed the phone to Ben.
The sheriff tapped the phone screen to zoom out, then he turned to the map. “I bet that’s the Wallace old homeplace.” He pointed to a spot he’d circled on the wall map. “Right here.”
“How sure are you?”
“Ninety percent.” He looked at the phone again and pointed to another circle close by. “Or it can be here. Either way, the two properties are adjacent to each other. Let’s check them out.”
As they rushed out of the office, Ben called Wade Hatcher to round up the rest of the deputies and meet them at the Wallace property. “Come in silent and no lights,” he said.
He and Ben were thinking alike. If Tori was being held against her will, sirens could make Eli panic and maybe kill her so she couldn’t testify against him. “How long will it take to get there?” he asked as they jumped in Ben’s vehicle.
“Winding country roads . . . probably ten, fifteen minutes.”
Scott gripped the armrest and sent up a silent prayer that they were on the right path and that they would get there in time.
After ten minutes that seemed like an hour, he said, “How much farther?”
Ben turned onto a narrow gravel road. “We’re not far from where we’ll leave the car and hike in.”
He pressed his lips tight to keep from telling Ben to hurry. A few minutes later the sheriff pulled off the road onto an even narrower one and parked. “We walk from here, but give me a second to see where my deputies are.”
Wade Hatcher was closest at five minutes out.
Ben gave him instructions to follow the lane to the house, but unless he heard shots fired, to come in quietly.
Scott hoped there would be no gunfire. Then Ben grabbed what looked like an oversized black marker from a box behind the driver’s seat.
A flash-bang. The disorienting grenade with its blinding flash and 180 decibel sound could come in handy.
With the moonlight guiding them, they walked single file down the road until they rounded a curve and a vacant house with two SUVs parked out front came into sight.
“Eli’s SUV,” Ben whispered and pointed to a tan Infiniti. “I imagine the Escalade beside it belongs to Richard or Stephanie Livingston.”
They approached the house cautiously. Near the porch, they stopped and Scott cocked his head. Voices filtered from a room on their left. They veered to the left side of the house.
A dim glow emanated from the dirty window, and the voices were much plainer.
“I’m not telling you where the data drive is until you let Drew go.”
Scott’s stomach lurched. That was Tori’s voice.
“You don’t hold the cards here, honey. I do.”
He recognized Stephanie Livingston’s voice. She was near the window. If her back was to them, he could sneak a peek through the glass. He started to raise up when a man spoke.
“Tell her where it is, or she’ll kill him.”
Scott caught Ben’s attention. “Eli,” he mouthed. There were at least two of them.
Silence followed, then the woman said, “Either you tell me where to find it or I’ll blow your nephew’s kneecaps off.”
A twig snapped behind them, and both men whirled around. Wade. Ben nodded to his chief deputy. “Where are the others?” he whispered.
Wade held up five fingers. Five minutes out.
They didn’t have five minutes.