Chapter 30
Seek
Stepping out of my truck, I looked around as the same ominous feeling that overcame me anytime I came out to the Silverbells, made my skin prickle with awareness. I knew it was just my gut warning me about this place, but that didn’t make me any more comfortable.
“We found her SUV this morning,” Tommy told me as he got out of his Tahoe. He pulled his gun belt up from where it was sagging too low on his hips, settling it higher up. “Same story as usual. Couldn’t find any tracks, or any sign of Sherry Holden or her daughter.”
“Daughter?” I asked, horror in my tone.
“Yeah.” I could hear the underlying sadness in his voice. “Sherry’s sister called yesterday and reported her and her six-year-old daughter, Caitlyn, missing. Unfortunately, it hadn’t been twenty-four hours yet.”
I hated that rule. The one that said you had to wait so long before you could make an official report for a missing person. It helped in those cases where the person had run away and changed their mind, but for everyone else? It was a waste of valuable time.
“How did you know she was out here?”
“SUV is low-jacked,” Tommy responded. “Turns out Sherry has a psycho ex. She has a restraining order against him, but the sisters set up a system of contacting each other every day to check in and Sherry has a tracker in her rig. The sister lives in New Jersey, but gave us permission and the password to log into the website to see where the vehicle was.”
We walked over to the abandoned SUV. “Okay to open it?”
“Sure,” he replied. “There wasn’t any sign of a struggle and we followed the tracks for a bit that way.” He pointed out toward the mountains. “Didn’t find any tracks for a third person that we can tell. Monsoon rolled through and wiped out a lot of them, though.”
It was August, and we were having monsoons almost daily at this point. It was common for the heart of the summer here in Arizona. The desert desperately needed the precipitation, but it made it hell on finding people when all footprints and other signs of them had been washed away.
There wasn’t anything to find inside Sherry’s SUV. As ridiculous as it was, I was hoping to find some clue. Now all we could do was look and hope my dogs had better luck with this search than the last.
I brought them both out, setting them up for the upcoming search.
Jecht ran around barking like the spaz he was, while Auron stoically waited for me to gather my things and say the magic word.
I didn’t typically run them on a search together, but I needed to make sure we covered all bases.
There was a little girl missing. That alone was enough to prompt me into doing whatever was necessary.
Releasing the dogs to begin the search, Tommy, his deputies, and I spread out and followed behind them. We’d be looking for anything that would lead us toward the woman and her daughter.
“Did you look into the ex?” I asked Tommy as we made our way around cacti and bushes. I kept a close eye on the dogs as they ran out ahead, searching for the scent. There’d been a child’s coat inside the SUV, so I’d used that to give them a baseline scent to use.
“He’s dropped off the map.”
My steps faltered at his words. “That’s not good.”
“Never is,” he agreed. “I have Tomlinson back at the station trying to track him down. It’s like someone’s wiped his information.”
I frowned at that and paused to examine a set of tracks in the hard packed earth to my right. There were only partial prints thanks to the clay that they’d walked over. Squatting down, I counted out prints and a vise tightened over my heart. “Tommy?”
“Yeah?”
“What kind of evidence would you need in order to assume this woman and her daughter have been kidnapped? What would it take to get the full cavalry out here to search?”
“Something concrete,” he told me. He stared down at the tracks in the clay. I knew he wasn’t seeing what I saw. I was a master tracker, had learned from the best and had spent years honing my abilities.
“Like what?” I prompted, taking out my GPS and marking this spot. Then I kept moving, and he followed behind.
“A witness seeing them get abducted. A photograph. Some kind of paper trail that leads to the ex. Signs of a struggle.” He shrugged and gave me a curious look. “Why?”
“Just curious what it’s going to take,” I told him with an innocent smile.
My spidey senses were screaming at me. Most missing persons, especially in Arizona, were ex-husband or wife related kidnappings, at least when children were concerned.
Adding that to the Silverbell disappearances was…
what? The pieces were all here, I just couldn’t make sense of them, yet.
They were like a massive puzzle spread out in front of me, but I didn’t have the picture on the box for reference.
He nodded and kept looking around, letting the subject drop.
I knew I should tell him that I’d just seen the pattern for a third footprint, but he wasn’t going to be able to do anything about it.
That wasn’t going to be ‘concrete’ enough for him.
It just meant we’d end up out here searching for longer than necessary and likely wouldn’t find anything.
That would just delay what I needed to do next.
When I did a search with the cops, they were in charge. Sure Tommy often let me do my own thing and call the shots as far as where to search, but he was the one who started and stopped the whole organized hunt. It was time to wrap this up and get the cops out of here.
I’d give the dogs a chance to do their job and would keep a lookout for more tracks like the one I’d found, but if we didn’t find anything I was going to call Hush. I was done playing around.
Maybe with us out here looking, without any interference about policy and procedures, we could find them. I hoped like hell we would.
We searched for a few more hours, as the sun slowly marched across the sky.
I didn’t want to alert Tommy to my back up plan.
I did my usual, thorough search. We’d started in the early morning hours and as early afternoon approached, I’d put the dogs in my truck to cool down and rest, and we kept searching by dividing up the area in grids.
We’d found a small area that had partial tracks, but couldn’t find anything beyond that.
It was hard not to be discouraged. I could see it written all over Tommy and his deputies' faces. They didn’t want to give up either, but they were tethered by the law.
“We’re going to have to call it, Seek,” Tommy told me. I could tell he wanted to shout and curse. He didn’t like the idea of leaving them out here any more than I did.
“Okay, Tommy. I’ll follow you out to the road.”
“I’ll have a tow truck come out tomorrow to pick up the SUV.” He turned and his eyes swept over the sparse desert landscape. “Wish we could keep going.”
“Me too,” I told him, feeling a little guilty that I planned to.
Tommy was a good man. He didn’t deserve to be lied to, but that didn’t change the fact that what I was going to do would be considered a very gray area in the eyes of the law.
I also wasn’t about to tell him about the MC or what they do.
We got in our respective vehicles and like a row of ants, made our way out of the desert and back toward the blacktop of the highway. I pulled over and let all the police vehicles go past. Tommy stopped and rolled down his window. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “Jecht has to go to the bathroom.” My ever reliable companion in the back let out a harsh whine as though he knew I was using him as an excuse and wanted to make it believable.
He’s getting an extra treat tonight when we get home.
Tommy chuckled and gave me a wave as he pulled out onto the long stretch of highway. I watched as his vehicle drove away while I pulled out my phone. I hit Hush’s number and waited while the ringer sounded in my ear.
“Hey there, Trouble.”
His deep voice sent a shiver through my body. My nipples tightened and I wanted to laugh at the reaction I had to this man. Who would have ever thought it could be like that?
“Hey. Any chance some of you could come out and help me look for a missing lady and her six-year-old daughter?” I quickly gave him a run-down of what had happened and what Tommy had told me.
“Sure thing. You’re out there now?” I could hear the dangerous note in his question.
“I’m out on the highway. I had to leave the area to make the police think I was going.”
“Good girl,” he rumbled and something inside me warmed at the praise. “We’ll be there in thirty minutes. Don’t go back into the desert without us.”
“I’ll be waiting right here, Hush.” No need to begin without them. That's how horror movies started.
The phone cut out and I pulled out my lunch. I needed to refuel and rest for the next part of our search. This was the perfect time to do it.
* * *
True to his word, it only took them thirty minutes.
They came driving up in two trucks and my brows shot up when I saw them.
I didn’t realize they had any vehicles other than their bikes.
In fact, I hadn’t considered how I’d get them all out there if they had shown up on motorcycles.
It was at least ten miles over dusty dirt roads to get out to the spot where Sherry’s SUV was left abandoned.
Hush got out of the truck he was riding in and got in with me. I gave him a grateful look. “Thanks for coming.”
“No problem, Trouble. Lead the way.” He motioned out toward the desert.
I filled him in on the drive and before I knew it we were back next to the SUV. It didn’t take me long to get the dogs ready while Hush relayed all the information we had about the missing woman and child.
Hush leaned back against my truck, waiting for me. They all were staring at me. “Your show, Seek. How do you want to do this?”
I couldn’t hide my grin. The fact that these huge, muscled men were willing to follow my lead made me downright giddy. “We’ll go to where the Sheriff had to call the search off. I don’t think we went far enough.”
“Monsoon is coming,” Butcher said, and spat off to the side.
Looking up at the sky, I frowned. There wasn’t any sign of a monsoon yet. “I wouldn’t be surprised since it’s that time of year, but I don’t see-”
“Butcher’s record at predicting monsoons is damn near perfect,” Riptide told me.
I looked over at Hush and saw the dark expression on his face. “Hush-”
“Give us the coordinates. We’ll go search for them and you get back to the road,” he said.
More like ordered.
My mood soured and I tugged on his arm to get him to walk with me a few feet away so his brothers wouldn’t hear our conversation. “That’s not happening, Hush.” His eyes narrowed. “I understand why you want me to go, but my dogs only work for me and they’re our best hope of finding them.”
His jaw flexed as he ground his teeth together. He’d folded his arms over his chest and I was pretty sure that was so he didn’t strangle me out of frustration. “Fine,” he growled, “but you’re stickin’ close to me.”
“Okay,” I agreed, just happy he wasn’t planning to wrestle me into the truck and leave me tied there.
“Come on guys,” I called. “It’s going to take about thirty-five minutes to walk to these coordinates.”
The men fell in line behind us. This was a far cry from the men I usually worked with. They had their own kind of uniform, jeans, t-shirts, cuts, and boots. I’d hazard to guess they were as well armed as the Sheriff and deputies usually were though.
“Was everyone bored today?” I asked with a laugh.
There were ten of them out here with me. I’d figured I’d get one or two max.
Hush chuckled and nodded. “Yeah, the guys are retired from the military, and work for the club. So they’re usually available on a moment’s notice. And when you mentioned the girl…the rest made themselves available.”
“I know Riptide, Butcher, Priest, Dash, Toxic, and Hellfire. Who are the rest?”
“Ricochet,” Hush said, pointing to one of the younger men walking behind us. “Breaker, and Joe.” He pointed to the other two men.
I blinked. After all those names to then end on Joe was amusing. “How many people are in your MC?”
“Thirty-five regulars.” he responded.
That explained why it seemed like I saw new faces each time I went there. “That’s a lot.”
“Yeah, we’re a big club. Though, there are some who have a lot more than that.”
I glanced down at the GPS in my hand and adjusted my heading.
Everyone fell in line with me. “We’re only about five hundred feet out.
Start looking around. If you find anything, give a shout.
” A quick glance at Hush found him glaring at the skies.
There was a single dark cloud that’d formed on our walk out here.
We still had about five hours until darkness fell, an hour tops before the monsoon hit.
I just hoped we could find them before then, and before the monsoon Butcher predicted, for Hush’s sake.