Chapter Thirty-One Spock
The elevator doors slide shut, sealing Rush, Hawk, and me inside a steel box that feels too fucking small.
I stab the button for Blackwood’s floor even though Rush has already pressed it. The circle glows beneath my finger. Nothing happens fast enough.
“Come on,” I growl.
The elevator begins to rise with a low mechanical hum. Each illuminated number marks another second Chloe is alone with that bastard.
My skin feels too tight. My heart pounds so hard it hurts, but I can’t pull in a full breath. Every possibility tears through my head at once, each one worse than the last.
Blackwood could have taken her anywhere.
Las Vegas is surrounded by miles of empty desert. There are abandoned buildings, storage units, cheap motels, construction sites, rental properties—thousands of places where a man could hide a woman without anyone hearing her scream.
I curl my hands into fists.
Wildcard and Dice stayed in the lobby. Wildcard is calling Spark, having him tear apart Blackwood’s life again. Property records. Rentals. Family holdings. Work sites. Anywhere Blackwood owns or could access without drawing attention.
But that search will take time. Time that Chloe doesn’t have.
A horrifying image flashes through my mind—Chloe tied up and helpless while Blackwood stands over her. I see fear in her eyes. Bruises on her skin. Blood. The image makes my stomach twist.
I slam the heel of my hand against the elevator wall.
“Fuck!”
“Spock.” Rush’s voice is calm, but it carries the sharp edge of a command. “We’ll find her, but you have to get your shit under control.”
“He could be doing anything to her right now.”
The words scrape out of my throat. Saying them aloud makes every nightmare feel more real.
Rush steps closer. He doesn’t touch me, probably because he knows I’m wound too tight to tolerate it. “And tearing yourself apart in this elevator won’t help her.”
“There are too many places to search.” My voice cracks beneath the pressure building inside me. “He could have driven in any direction. He could have dumped her in the fucking desert. He could have—”
“Don’t.” Hawk’s warning cuts across the elevator. “Don’t finish that thought.”
I turn my glare on him.
He doesn’t flinch.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Hawk continues. “Rush knows, too. Neither one of us is going to tell you there’s nothing to worry about, because there is. But Chloe isn’t helpless.”
I glare at him. “You think she’s a physical match for Blackwood?”
Hawk shakes his head. “No, but she sure as fuck is a match for him intellectually. Chloe is fucking smart. She knows Blackwood. She’ll figure out a way to escape. You know it.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, but that only makes the images clearer.
Blackwood’s hands on her. Chloe fighting him.
Chloe calling for me, but I’m not there.
I promised to protect her and then watched her drive away.
Why didn’t I go with her? Why didn’t I send one of the prospects with her? No, like an idiot, I let her go alone.
“This is my fault,” I say.
Rush swears under his breath. “No, it isn’t.”
“I should’ve gone with her.”
“You had no reason to believe Blackwood would be waiting at her house.”
“I knew the bastard was trouble.”
“You had Wildcard and me at the Riversedge site to watch him. We didn’t realize he hadn’t shown up to work until it was too late.
Maybe we should have realized that he was more of a loose cannon than we thought.
We underestimated him. Maybe we should have realized he’d do a runaround and grab her, but we didn’t.
It’s on all of us. Taking her, though, that’s on Blackwood. He’ll pay for it.”
The number above the doors changes again. We’re almost there.
I force myself to breathe through my nose. Once. Twice. It does nothing to slow my heart, but it clears enough of the red haze from my vision for me to think.
Blackwood’s apartment has to contain something we can use. Maybe an address or a photograph that we can use to hunt him down. We’ll rip the place apart until we find something. If not, maybe Spark will come through. He usually does. That thought calms me—a little.
And when I find him, no one is going to stop me from showing him what happens to a man who touches what’s mine.
The elevator slows.
Rush shifts into position beside me. “We’re going to find her.”
I’m out of the elevator before Rush finishes speaking.
Blackwood’s apartment door is six steps down the hall. It takes Rush less than ten seconds to open it. The lock gives with a sharp crack.
I shove past him and storm inside.
The apartment is neat. Too fucking neat.
The living room looks staged, as if Blackwood arranged every piece of furniture to convince anyone who enters that he’s normal.
The couch is centered in front of the television.
A single magazine rests squarely on the coffee table.
Not one shoe, dirty glass, or discarded jacket is out of place.
“Search everything,” Rush orders. “Anything with an address goes on the table.”
I head straight for the bedroom while Hawk takes the kitchen and Rush starts in the living room.
Blackwood’s bedroom is as sterile as the rest of the place. The gray comforter is pulled tight across the mattress. The blinds are closed. A framed picture of Chloe sits on the nightstand.
Rage explodes through me.
I snatch it up. Chloe is standing in front of the Riversedge construction site, wearing her hard hat and talking to one of the crew. She isn’t looking at the camera. She has no idea Blackwood is taking her picture.
I rip open the nightstand drawer. More photographs lie inside—all of them of Chloe. Most were taken at the construction site, but too many are not. Blackwood’s been following her. Hell, there are even photos of her inside her house. Fucker.
“He’s been stalking her for a while,” I call out.
Rush appears in the doorway. His jaw tightens when he sees the pictures scattered across the bed.
“What are you doing?” Rush asks when I gather them up.
“I’m not leaving them here.”
He nods and leaves the room.
I empty the dresser onto the floor. Clothes, receipts, loose change, and folded papers spill across the carpet. I kick aside shirts and jeans, searching for anything useful.
Nothing.
I tear through the closet next. Among the shoeboxes, work boots, and an old duffel bag, I find a locked metal box. I smash the lock with the butt of my gun. Inside, I find a bundle of cash and a few documents.
Hawk enters carrying a stack of mail. “Kitchen drawers were full of this shit.”
He dumps the envelopes onto the mattress.
I grab half the stack and flip through it. Credit card statements, bank statements, and an insurance notice. Every envelope has the address of Blackwood’s apartment.
“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” I growl.
“Keep looking,” Hawk says.
My hands move faster. I scan names, dates, and addresses, tossing each useless piece of mail aside.
Then I see one that doesn’t belong.
It’s a utility bill from the electric company, but the service address isn’t this one. The bill is several months old and marked paid. I read the street name twice.
“I’ve got an address.”
Rush takes the bill from me while I pull out my phone. My fingers shake so badly that I nearly hit the wrong contact.
Spark answers on the first ring. “What did you find?”
“A utility bill.” I rattle off the address. “Find out who owns the house and tell me whether Blackwood has any connection to it.”
“I’m on it.”
The rapid clatter of Spark’s keyboard fills the line.
I pace beside the bed, every second stretching until it feels like a fucking hour.
“Where is it?” Rush asks.
Hawk already has his phone out. He types in the address, then turns the screen toward us. The map shows a neighborhood several miles north of here, an older part of the city filled with aging houses and empty lots.
“Rundown area,” Hawk says. “Plenty of abandoned properties around it.”
A perfect place to hide Chloe.
“Spark,” I snap. “Talk to me.”
“I’m pulling the property records now.”
I stare at the photograph on the bed—the one of Chloe through her bedroom window. Blackwood has been watching her, planning this, convincing himself she belongs to him.
“I’ve got it,” Spark says. “The house belongs to a woman named Patricia Blackwood. Seventy-three years old.”
“His mother?”
“Yeah. Birth records confirm it. Steven Blackwood is her only child.”
“Does she live there?”
“Not anymore. She entered hospice care six months ago. According to her medical billing address, she’s in a facility across town. The house hasn’t been sold, and the utilities are still active.”
My gaze locks with Rush’s.
“Got him.”
I hit the apartment door at a run after gathering all the photos of Chloe, with Hawk and Rush pounding down the hallway on my heels.
The address leads us into a neighborhood where half the houses look one strong wind away from collapsing.
Faded paint peels from warped siding. Chain-link fences lean toward cracked sidewalks, and weeds choke yards gone brown beneath the Vegas sun. Blackwood’s mother’s house sits in the middle of the block, a squat single-story place with filthy windows and an overgrown front yard.
There are people in the street—a lot of people.
We gun our bikes and ride full throttle into the melee.