“How is he going to know we’re all right?”
“I’ll make certain he does,” Dr. Talley said, patting Maggie’s uninjured shoulder. “Phil, thank you. We weren’t certain what we were going to do at first.”
“I don’t know where Finley Creek is.” Maggie looked at Violet. Travis kissed the baby on her downy head as she finally settled. “Violet will be safe there?”
Travis nodded. “Extremely safe. It’s actually one of the safest places in the world. Carrie’s brother-in-law designs security technology that is used worldwide.”
Carrie disconnected the call. “It’s arranged. Mel will be waiting at the airport, with her bodyguards.”
“I—“
“Enough, Maggie. Finley Creek is where you’ll be safe. I’m taking you there myself,” Phil cupped her cheek. “You’re as dear to me as one of my own daughters. I’ll keep you safe. I promise. And for once, do what you’re told, honey. Trust me. I trust these people. I’d have no problem sending any one of your cousins with them.”
Finally, Maggie pulled in a deep breath and nodded. Agreeing. “I’ll go.”
Travis got it, then. And he agreed it was a damned fine plan.
He’d do whatever it took to keep a baby like this safe, too.
But he sure felt for Clint Gunderson right now.
He made a silent vow to the man he’d only met a handful of times. He’d keep Maggie and baby Violet safe until the other man could handle that task himself once again.
46
Knight drove Clint’s black SUV like the proverbial bat out of hell, taking the road a good fifteen miles over the limit. He tried to wrap his head around what Rex Weatherby had reported.
The man had been doing what he could over the phone to calm Clint down. The slightly younger man was practically yelling, demanding to know where someone named Violet and someone named Maggie were. Knight assumed that Violet was the man’s baby, who Miranda had been cooing about with Clint.
Knight had no idea who Maggie was, but Clint was beside himself with worry.
Jac Jones sat almost quietly in the backseat, texting with her phone, trying to gather the members of the PAVAD team in order to have them meet at Clint’s property.
No one knew how what had happened tied into Clint.
But they were going to find out.
Weatherby had broken the news to Clint over speakerphone. He’d insisted on it to make certain Clint didn’t have to repeat what had happened in the heat of the moment. Knight got it.
The two men were good friends; they hadn’t come out and said it, but he got the feeling Weatherby had Clint’s back.
He just hoped Clint’s baby was found. Soon.
She was Miranda’s goddaughter. No doubt she was beside herself now, too.
He looked in the mirror, gaze meeting Jac’s. “Word from the team?”
“Coming now. As soon as they can,” she said, glancing at Clint. The man was balling his fists, slamming one to the door frame.
The fear in Clint’s eyes was something Knight wasn’t ever going to forget.
Knight wasn’t in charge of this one, but there was no way he was letting this man go through this alone. He couldn’t sit back and watch the man be destroyed like that. Knight just couldn’t watch another man deal with that alone.
47
Clint stared at the destruction of his home, and panic choked him, twisted his gut into a thousand knots. He turned to the man next to him. Allan Knight stared back. Clint hadn’t been aware of Knight even moving closer. “Where are they?”
Knight shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Clint shoved past the men and women he worked with as they processed the scene, yelling for them.
The scene.
It was his house. Violet. And Maggie.
His life. The two people in the world who mattered to him. And they were gone. Bullets. Near his baby, near Maggie. Clint fought the urge to be sick.
“They took them.” There were tire tracks. And vomit. Right there next to the drive. Had it been Maggie? She’d been sick that morning. He’d heard her in the bathroom. Maybe they’d hurt her, and she’d gotten sick from the shock.
There was a lot of blood there on the grass. Right in front of his house.
“We don’t know. There is no sign of blood inside. No sign of a struggle. We have no sign they were even inside at the time,” Joel Masterson said.
“They were in there.” Maggie hadn’t been driving lately. Her car wasn’t running. She didn’t like to drive his truck. She’d only drive it in an emergency. He looked around. There it was. Right where he’d left it. “Is the diaper bag there? Is it? Maggie always left it there by the door so she could find it. Always. Maybe her brothers took her somewhere.” But Maggie hadn’t told her brothers she was working for him. That was unlikely.
“I don’t know.” Allan Knight stepped closer. “We’ll find them, Clint. PAVAD won’t stop until we do.”
Yeah, well, Clint didn’t put much stock in empty law-enforcement promises. He’d seen them broken far too many times.
48
Miranda had disappeared. No one knew where she or Agent Lorcan were.
Or Clint’s family.
Knight tried not to let worry settle in. He hadn’t heard from Miranda since before they’d gotten the call that someone had ambushed Clint’s home. The man had seriously pissed off someone, somewhere.
Enough that they’d targeted the man’s housekeeper and eight-month-old daughter. It sickened him. It pissed him off.
Anyone who sent a bullet toward the innocent pissed him off, but when babies and children were involved, he was a thousand times more pissed.
He wanted the shooters beneath his hands. Wanted them to feel the same fear Clint was no doubt feeling right now.
Clint had already lost his wife. Now, there was a real possibility he’d lost his daughter, too. “Tell me about Maggie Tyler. What kind of relationship do you have with your housekeeper?” Odds that the housekeeper had just taken the baby and run or had been involved in this attack were slim, but they were possible. And would
