Chapter 12 #2
Or was he sleeping?
“Benji?” He squatted and stroked the animal’s furry side. The dog was breathing but didn’t wake up. Matthew shook him a little as his fear grew. “Benji, wake up.”
When there was still no response, he stood and stepped over him, his eyes on the truck in the driveway.
There was no sign of his mom.
Something was wrong… something was very wrong.
He didn’t want to go looking for her by himself anymore. He needed Adam.
Spinning around, he rushed through the house and out the back door. Ignoring the pebbles and dirt digging into his bare feet, he sprinted toward the cottage and the man he hoped would tell him everything was all right—that it was just a nightmare he’d wake up from.
Please, let everything be all right!
Adam’s eyes grew heavy as the words on the page blurred together.
A yawn escaped him as he marked his place in the book he was reading.
He wished he could stay awake since he’d told Sage she could join him in bed when she got home, but it was getting late, and he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer.
He was glad she was out having fun with her friends.
Setting the book on the nightstand, he reached up to shut off the light but froze when someone pounded hard on his door.
“Adam! Adam! Help!”
Throwing the covers off at Matthew’s frantic voice, he rushed to the door in nothing but his shorts and yanked it open. Barefoot, the young boy was almost in tears, and Adam’s gut clenched. “What’s wrong?”
“I–I don’t know. Benji won’t—won’t wake up, and M-Mom—”
Fear shot through Adam as he grabbed Matthew’s shoulders, yet he tried to keep his voice calm. “What about your mom?”
“I–I don’t know,” he repeated. “Her tr-truck is in the drive-driveway, b-but I don’t think s-she’s in it, and Benji won’t wake up on the porch.”
Oh God!
Running back to his bedroom, he threw on the clothes he’d taken off earlier and shoved his feet into his work boots without socks, not bothering to tie the loose laces.
Returning to Matthew, he followed the boy to the main house, through the kitchen, and into the foyer.
The front door was still open, and Benji was on his side, his breathing slow but noticeable.
Unable to make sense of what had happened to the dog, Adam stepped over him and hurried toward the truck, its headlights still burning bright. “Sage?”
Rounding the hood, he found the driver’s door wide open and Sage nowhere in sight. Her purse lay on the ground, its contents scattered around it.
His fear spiraled into terror.
He spun around, searching the darkness, even though every instinct told him she was gone. “Sage!”
Only the chirping of crickets answered his desperate shout.
His gaze dropped to the ground, and he spotted Sage’s cell phone and truck keys among the scattered items. Snatching them up, he dialed 9-1-1 on her phone as he ran back inside past Matthew, who looked confused and was struggling not to cry.
Adam would comfort the boy in a minute, but first, he needed help.
“9-1-1, what is your emergency?”
At least the male dispatcher didn't sound as bored as the one from the day Adam was shot at.
“This is Adam Westfield at Heaven’s Pastures Ranch.” Keeping a calm he didn’t feel, he picked up the cordless phone from the living room and handed it to Matthew. “Call Evan and tell him to hurry over here.”
After ensuring his order was followed, he turned his attention back to the dispatcher.
“Sage Hammond is missing, and I think she’s been kidnapped.
Her truck is in the driveway, the door is wide open, the headlights are on, and her purse was dumped on the ground.
Our dog is unconscious on the porch, but still breathing.
I think he was poisoned. I need the sheriff and deputies out here immediately. ”
“Stay on the line, Mr. Westfield, while I dispatch the radio cars. Then I’ll need more information.”
He paced back and forth for what seemed like an eternity. After finishing his call to Evan, Matthew knelt beside Benji and stroked the animal’s side. Adam crossed the foyer and placed a hand on top of the boy’s head, trying to reassure him while he waited for the dispatcher to return.
Only then did he realize that the porch light was off.
Reaching over, he found the switch was up, as it should be. He flipped it down and back up, but nothing happened. Stepping onto the porch again, he inspected the fixture.
The bulb was gone.
Whoever had taken Sage had apparently thought of everything.
Once Evan and Maddie arrived, he would leave the children in the older woman’s care and have Evan take Benji to the twenty-four-hour veterinary hospital a few miles away. Then he’d take Sage’s truck and go question the number-one suspect on his short list of people who had an ax to grind with her.
The dispatcher came back on the line with a litany of questions—where Sage had gone that evening, who she’d been with, what time Adam thought she’d arrived home, and what she’d been wearing.
As he answered each one, his desperation grew.
He wanted to jump into the truck and find her, but he couldn’t leave the kids alone.
Just as the dispatcher once again assured him help was coming, Evan and Maddie burst through the back door.
After disconnecting the call, Adam gave the couple a brief but complete rundown of what had happened.
Maddie retrieved a blanket from the hall closet and helped Evan and Matthew get Benji into the older man’s truck after he pulled it around to the front of the house.
Meanwhile, Adam snatched Mark’s old rifle from its perch over the fireplace and found the box of ammunition Sage had told him was in her dresser drawer. The instant he picked up the weapon, he knew what he was risking. As a convicted felon, he wasn’t supposed to have a firearm in his possession.
He didn’t give a damn.
Sage was out there somewhere with God only knew who, and he would gladly go back to prison if breaking the law tonight meant bringing her home alive.
He had to get out of there before the sheriff’s deputies arrived and prevented him from leaving. Rushing through the front door, he pulled up short when Evan held up a hand.
“Take this instead.” The older man pulled his Glock 9mm from the holster at his hip and swapped it for the rifle. “Easier to conceal. Just make damn sure you're justified in using it, son. I’ll call you as soon as I drop Benji off.”
Adam checked the magazine. Fully loaded. It had been a long time since he’d fired one of Harry’s guns at the shooting range his foster father had belonged to, but some things were like riding a bike.
After giving Maddie and Matthew a reassuring nod, he hurried to Sage’s truck, climbed behind the wheel, and started the engine.
He knew he was probably disturbing evidence, but preserving a crime scene didn’t mean a damn thing to him compared to finding Sage before something horrible happened to her.
He threw the truck into drive before he’d even gotten the door shut.
Please, God. Let me find her in time.