“Guys.” Melody snapped, glaring at both of them. “Right now, pointing fingers isn’t solving the problem. We all knew that Erin was a flight risk. She proved that in Erbil. We all let our guard down. I could easily ask why Brenden was the only person on watch, but I’m not going to.”
“What’s Zain say?” Riley nodded at her phone lying on the bar.
“He’s got the outgoing call on the monitor we put on the phone line. All he’s got to do is run it, but he was out to dinner with his wife. He’s trying to get Merida or someone closer to the office to trace it.”
“Fuck. Okay.” Riley winced. Zain’s wife was a saint for putting up with the job at all hours the way she did.
The front door opened and Nolan entered.
“Guys?” He thumbed over his shoulder.
An older gentleman in jeans, a polo and a cammo print ball cap with the word army stamped on it in bold, black letters followed Nolan into the house. Vaughn brought up the rear and closed the door behind him.
“This is Lieutenant Colonel Colborn. He’s been waiting to pick Erin up for the last five minutes,” Nolan said.
Riley stared at the older man.
Brenden estimated Erin had left some fifteen minutes ago.
There were ten minutes unaccounted for.
“Who the fuck are you?” Riley asked. He stalked around the kitchen counter toward the man.
“Easy.” Grant reached out and grabbed Riley by the arm, yanking him to a stop.
“What the hell is going on here?” Colborn glanced around.
“Lieutenant Colborn, did you receive a phone call from Erin Lopez half an hour or so ago?” Melody asked.
Colborn’s lips compressed into a tight line.
Riley pulled out of Grant’s hold. “Someone is after Erin because of what she’s got on that laptop. If you know something—anything—we need to know now. She’s not here, and she’s not with you, so where is she?”
“She didn’t want to tell me over the phone...” Colborn blinked. Whoever he was, he cared about Erin.
“I think it’s best if you sit.” Melody gestured at the sectional.
“Nolan, Vaughn, go back out there. See if you can spot her, or anything. What she was last wearing, a shoe print,” Grant said, then glanced at Riley. “Go put some damn clothes on.”
Riley stalked down the hall.
Erin was gone because she couldn’t wait for them to figure out the best way to handle this. He should have known she wouldn’t be satisfied with the playing it safe.
She was gone, and they didn’t know where, when or how.
Riley closed the door to the room he’d recently shared with Erin and put his back against it. Her clothes were in a pile on the floor, so at least he knew she’d been truthful about showering. Her shoes were gone, which supported Brenden’s report that she’d left of her own free will.
He needed Casey. Someone local with a badge.
Riley crossed the room to his phone and pulled the charging cable out. He jabbed his brother’s number and pressed it to his ear.
They were going to find Erin. This wasn’t a job, it was personal.
THURSDAY. UNKNOWN, Texas.
Erin’s head throbbed and her shoulders ached on top of the dull pain from her ribs. The one saving grace was that the floor was cool, giving her some respite from the heat. Her side still burned, and her toes twitched at the memory of the Taser.
She kept her eyes firmly shut, sorting through the last thing she remembered.
The man from the airport.
He’d been waiting in the shadows outside the house. She’d stupidly walked out there and put herself in his path. He’d caught her off-guard and the Taser had robbed her of the ability to fight back at first. He’d hit her with something and after that it was fuzzy. She had fleeting memories of a car ride, being drug out by her feet, and then nothing.
Had he dosed her with something?
Her mouth was dry, but that didn’t mean anything.
What was she going to do?
She took stock of her body, noting the pains and discomforts. Her ribs hurt, but that was nothing new. The back of her head was tender. The worst was her shoulders due to her hands being tied behind her back. That hurt.
The laptop wasn’t on her, but maybe he’d dropped it. She could hope. The guys would find it with any luck and carry through with whatever plans they had in store for the intel.
“I know you are awake,” a man said in Arabic.
His accent sent chills down her spine.
Erin opened her eyes.
The same young man from the airport stood over her. His face was partially shrouded by shadow with the moon behind him, but she didn’t need to see all of him to know who it was. She glanced around, taking in her surroundings. The bare concrete, unfinished walls and an unbroken view of city lights. Sort of construction site.
Construction usually meant people.
Erin sucked down a breath and screamed, “Help!”
Khalil swung his hand and struck her with the flat of his palm. The jarring blow negated any hope she had that this was all a nightmare. The taste of blood was too real.
“No one will hear you out here,” he said.
He reached down and hooked his arm through hers, hauling her into a sitting position with a metal beam at her back.
That done, he took several steps back and stared at her.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked.
She tried to brace herself with her feet to get into a better position, but her ankles were bound together as well. The tingling in her toes made sense now.
“One of Mark’s boys?” If he was, Erin was dead, and nothing would come of the video.
The man spat on the concrete.
A breeze drifted through, causing trees to rustle in an almost musical way.
They had to be up off the ground floor. If she looked past him, those were the tops of trees out there. Not the ground.
“My name
