Chapter 24
Monica gripped Connor’s shirt, and terror filled her bloodshot eyes.
He wiped the tears from her face. Joy filled his heart, but she still wasn’t out of the woods. “You’re safe now. Everything’s okay. Just calm down.”
Connor jumped out of the ambulance and scanned the crowd for Evelyn as Sanders hurled questions at him. “Listen, I’ll call you when I get to the hospital, okay? She’s not in any state to answer your questions right now. I need Evelyn so we can get out of here.”
“We need to go.” One of the paramedics hopped down and grabbed the edge of the door.
“Wait. The man who took my sister is after the woman I was with. I have to find her now.”
“Fine, but hurry.”
Connor searched for Evelyn. His pulse quickened. Dozens of sets of eyes stared back at him, but none of them were the kind brown ones he needed to find.
“Evelyn?” He shouted her name, pushing through the spectators.
“Sir, we need to leave. Now.”
Connor spun to face the paramedic. “I can’t find her. Did you see where she went?”
“Ms. Price?” Sanders asked. “She was right behind you when we started talking. Didn’t she follow us to the ambulance?”
“I...I don’t know.” He thought he’d seen her hovering nearby when they loaded Monica into the back of the ambulance, but he’d taken his focus off her for one damn second when Monica woke.
“Sir! Are you coming with us or not?” The paramedic slammed the back door closed.
Indecision weighed him down. He wanted to be with his sister, but he needed to find Evelyn. She wouldn’t have just left. She could be in trouble. He couldn’t leave. Even if he wanted to stay with Monica.
Panic clogged his airway. “I’ll be there soon. Take good care of her.”
The man ran to the driver’s side and turned on the siren. The shrill warning wailed into the night.
“Connor.” The fierce bark of Officer Sanders’s voice broke into his thoughts.
He focused on Sanders’s hardened face. “We need to find Evelyn.”
“We need to find Gabriel Wilson,” Sanders countered.
Ice shot through his veins. He’d known Gabriel was up to something. He wanted to keep his twisted game going.
He wanted Evelyn.
“Monica said Gabriel blindfolded her then dropped her off. That’s all I know. Until then, top priority is finding Evelyn. She wouldn’t have left on her own.”
A second officer glanced around at the thinning crowd. “Maybe she went inside the restaurant?”
Connor sprinted to the restaurant and pushed through the front doors. A hostess glanced from a podium with wide eyes. “Has a woman with long brown hair and brown eyes been in here recently?”
He pressed the tips of his fingers into his eyes and searched his memory for what she had on.
Dammit, why hadn’t he kept his eye on her?
“Her hair was in a ponytail, black yoga pants, and a gray hoodie. No glasses.” He lowered his hands and found the blank face of the hostess.
Frustration fisted his hands at his sides. “Did she come in here or not?”
The hostess took a step back. “I don’t think so, sir. I’m sorry.”
Connor ran through the narrow aisles between cramped tables toward the bathrooms. He shoved open the door to the lady’s room. “Evelyn!”
Nothing.
She wasn’t here. His world tilted. He needed to keep her safe, and he’d failed her. Determination straightened his spine and snapped him back from his momentary void, forcing him into cop-mode.
He wouldn’t fail her again.
He grabbed his phone and called Ben as he rushed back outside.
Ben answered on the first ring.
“I need to find Evelyn. Has Lacey heard from her?” “What the hell happened? Dammit.” The curse came out after a wave of Italian. “What do you need me to do?”
Sanders jogged to his side. “Find her?”
Connor focused on Sanders. “Call for backup and talk to everyone on this fucking sidewalk. Someone had to see something.” He pointed toward the roof at the front of the building.
“There’re cameras. I’ll get copies of the tapes from the restaurant.
This whole thing was another goddamn game.
Gabriel has her. He couldn’t have gotten far. We need to act fast.”
Sanders barked orders to the other officer as well as the nosy-ass pedestrians loitering on the sidewalk.
Maybe they’d get lucky and one of them could tell them how Gabriel had managed to grab Evelyn.
He refocused on Ben. “Did you or Evelyn find anything new today?”
“She talked about trying to piece some stuff together. She had it on her laptop.”
“Go to Mark’s apartment and look at her computer. I gave Lacey a spare key. Call if you hear anything.” He disconnected the call, pulled up Mark’s contact information, and pressed send. He ran back into the restaurant, filling Mark in on all the horrible details.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Don’t worry. We’ll find her.”
“We need to talk to Simon. No more fucking games. Let’s catch this monster once and for all.”