Chapter 44
Lincoln
I’m in a good mood when I pull into the driveway, already thinking about getting Harper into my arms. I’ll tell her all about how the fire alarm went off tonight because Tony burned popcorn in the microwave, causing us to spend a full hour roasting him about it.
It’ll make her laugh, and I love to see her when she’s happy like that.
She’s been stressed as hell, and I can’t blame her, so the thought of bringing a little brightness to her night makes me feel good.
I pull in, but before the truck even fully stops, something feels off. The patrol car that was there when we all left is parked at a weird angle, and when I squint through the window, I catch sight of the driver slumped over the steering wheel. Passed out or worse.
My stomach drops immediately.
I get out of the truck fast, moving before I can even fully process what I’m seeing. I rush over to the car, ripping the door open, checking for a pulse on the driver and the deputy in the passenger seat.
Neither of them are dead, thank fuck. But no amount of shaking or calling their names wakes them up. Drugged, then.
Fuck.
Panic spikes hard in my chest, and I turn and run for the house.
“Cash! Everett!” If they got here before me, maybe they were caught up in this. Maybe they know something. But there’s no answer. “Harper!” I yell her name, but no one answers back.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I get inside, and immediately I know something’s wrong. There’s a scuff mark on the floor and one of the chairs in the kitchen is knocked over. The blanket that lives over the back of the couch is thrown on the floor, a book scattered on top of it like it was tossed aside hastily.
My stomach is in knots as I climb the stairs, keeping my ears open for anything. The master bedroom door is wide open, light shining into the dark hall.
I step in carefully, noting that the sheets are half off the bed. The lamp that usually sits on the nightstand is shattered on the floor, like someone grabbed for it and dragged it off.
And worst of all, Harper’s scent is strong all over the room, but it’s not just hers. It’s mixed with something else. Something unfamiliar and sharp that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
“Shit. Cora! Cora, are you here?”
There’s a small sound from the closet, barely a whisper, and I run over, tearing the door open.
Something settles just the slightest bit at seeing Cora there, huddled under a blanket, tucked into a little nest in the corner. Her eyes are wide, and she clutches her ratty stuffed animal like it’s the only thing keeping her together.
“Oh thank fuck,” I whisper, reaching in to gather her up. Her small frame shudders hard as she clings to me, letting me scoop her into my arms. “Are you hurt?” I ask, and she shakes her head.
I check her over just in case, relief hitting me hard to see her alive and unharmed.
Footsteps pound on the stairs, and I whip around in time to see Cash and Everett come bursting into the room.
“What the fuck happened?” Cash demands. He takes one look around the room, and his expression shifts immediately.
Everett does the same, his investigation hat coming on as he looks everything over and his face settles into grim lines.
“It was Geoffrey,” he says. “It has to be.”
“I can’t find Harper,” I tell them. “Cora was in the closet, so she must have hidden her, but…”
“Fuck. I’ll go make sure she’s not here somewhere. And that no one else is either.” His face promises that if anyone is hiding in here, they’ll wish they weren’t before too long.
He dashes off and Everett pulls out his phone, starting to make calls. He calls in favors all across the county, pulling every contact and every string he can to see what we can do to find Harper.
I just keep a hold of Cora, stroking a hand down her back to try to keep her calm.
“Did you see anything?” I ask her, hating that I have to, but needing to know.
She swallows hard, still shaking. But she points toward the window, toward the back road that runs behind our property. “Bad man,” she whispers. “Mama scared.”
“Is that where they went?”
She nods, and my heart aches, thinking about her watching through the window as someone dragged the closest thing she has to a mother now away.
“We’ll get her back,” I murmur.
Cash and Everett come back in, and I tell them what Cora said. “The maps,” Cash says. “Of the property and the surrounding area. When we bought the place, a survey was done of the area. We can see if there’s a way to track them.”
Everett lets out a slow breath, controlled like he’s on the edge of losing it.
“Someone was in our fucking house,” he says.
“Either Geoffrey or someone who works for him. They came in here, and they—” He breaks off, clenching his teeth and his fists like he can’t say anymore.
Fury snaps in his eyes, but he glances at Cora and then lets out another breath.
“We know,” Cash says quietly. “Which is why we have to do what we can to find her. That’s the most important thing, right?”
“Right. Of course it is.”
Cash claps him on the shoulder gently, squeezing a little. “She’s tough. And we can see here he didn’t take her without a fight. She hid Cora first, and she fought to keep that fucker away. So she’s probably still fighting now.”
He’s probably right. Harper is tough. She was guarded and tough from the moment we met her, and her confidence has only grown since she’s been here. It’s not like she would give up the moment she was taken.
But every minute she’s gone, in that asshole’s hands instead of ours, her safety is at risk. We don’t know what he’s going to do or even enough about him to predict anything. We just have to find her before it’s too late.
We head downstairs and Cash spreads the maps across the kitchen table. He traces the back road with his finger, marking how it leads into the more densely wooded area of Silver Falls and then out of the town entirely.
There’s a fork at one point, one side leading toward the highway that would take someone out of the state entirely, and the other up toward the mountains.
“Do we think he’d try to leave with her entirely?” Cash asks.
“He wanted what he thinks of as his back,” I reply. “I doubt he’d go too far without it.”
“He’s probably going to try to get Harper to talk,” Everett says grimly.
None of us want to think too much about that.
“So probably staying close then,” Cash’s finger marks a path. “That still leaves us with a lot of ground to cover. We need to see if the cameras caught anything. If we can figure out if he had a car or was on foot, we can maybe put out an alert—”
He’s interrupted by Everett’s phone buzzing on the table, and we’re all high strung enough that it makes all of us jump.
Everett snatches it up and puts it to his ear. “Kane,” he says. He listens for a while and then nods. “You’re sure? How long ago? Okay, thanks. Yeah, I’ll let you know.”
When he hangs up, his eyes are simmering with anger. “Traffic patrol the next county over saw a car heading up toward the mountains about an hour ago,” he says. “Toward that old logging camp.”
“That hasn’t been used in years,” I say. Meaning it’ll be isolated. It’s already hard to get to, especially in the dark when the mountain roads get narrow and winding.
“Sounds like it’s the perfect place for someone who doesn’t want to be found,” Cash mutters. “It’s the only lead we have right now. Otherwise, we’re wandering around blind just hoping to find her.”
“We’ll check it out,” Everett says. “I’m putting more eyes on the house, so if he comes back here, we’ll know.”
“I’ll call Lainey,” I say, pulling out my own phone and stepping into the living room. “Get her to stay with Cora.”
Lainey picks up on the first ring, sounding confused that I’m calling so late. “Are you okay?” she asks. “You were working tonight, right?”
“I’m fine,” I tell her quickly.
“You don’t sound fine. What happened?”
“It’s Harper, she—” Something about having to tell my sister what happened to her friend and the woman I…
It’s just hard. The words don’t come easily.
Luckily, Lainey knows me well enough to know that something bad has happened. I give her the short version, not sure how much Harper has shared about her past.
“But,” she says, sounding horrified. “All the deputies and cameras and stuff. I thought she was supposed to be safe.”
“Yeah, we did too. Turns out this fucker isn’t afraid to drug some cops if it means getting what he wants.”
“At least they’re not dead,” she murmurs.
“Yeah, there’s that. Anyway, we’ve got a lead on where he might be keeping Harper, but we need—”
Before I can finish talking, she’s already on it. “I’ll be there in fifteen to watch Cora. Oh, she must be so worried. Poor baby. Just hang on, okay? I’m throwing on some clothes, and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Thank you. Everett’s going to have some more officers come watch the house, but… there’s a chance this guy might come back, looking for Cora while we’re gone.”
“Let him try to take her,” she says, her voice going sharp. “He’ll see what happens when he fucks with people I care about.”
That makes me smile for the first time since I got home to this mess. “Thanks, Lainey,” I say again.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll see you soon.”
She shows up in ten minutes, probably breaking every traffic law to get here quickly.
She comes in and immediately wraps Cora up in her arms, whispering to her while the little girl clings to her.
Still holding on to her, Lainey meets my gaze and then looks to Cash and Everett as well.
“Bring her back,” she says. “Go get your Omega.”
I nod and Cash gives her a weak version of his usual smile. Everett’s hands are still curled into fists, but he inclines his head and says, “We’re not coming back without her.”
We wait until more armed officers show up before we leave, and Everett talks to them for a while before coming back over to us. He has bags packed with anything we might need for this, and he tosses them into the truck, slamming the door hard.
Lainey’s words stick with me as we climb in and get ready to head out for this. I’ve slipped into the kind of determined focus that I get when I’m on a call, trying to make sure everyone makes it out alive. Cash and Everett are in a similar state, quiet and intense like I’ve never seen them before.
I know the same thought is going through all of our minds right now.
We’ll get her back. We have to.
There’s so much left unsaid between us, and it can’t end like this.
I never even got the chance to tell Harper that I love her.