And there she was. The federal agent he’d fallen for the instant she’d walked onto that construction site seven years ago interviewing anyone on his crew who might’ve known about the disappearance of a local teenage girl. Benning latched on to the handrail of his daughter’s hospital bed in an attempt to keep himself in the moment. “Assuming the man who took him is the same one who planted that bug.”
But what were the chances the two weren’t connected?
“Yes.” She nodded toward him, her voice flat, unemotional, and his gut clenched. “You’re bleeding. Has someone looked at that cut on the back of your head? I can stay with her—”
“I’m fine.” It was a lie, but he wasn’t about to leave Olivia’s side. She’d already been through so much; he didn’t want her waking up without him in the room. He tracked Ana’s every move with an awareness he hadn’t experienced since the night she’d left Sevierville all those years ago, noted the slight bulge beneath the left side of her jacket. Her service weapon. He’d imagined confronting her so many times, memorized what he’d say, how she’d react. None of it included him asking for her help, her armed with a gun or one of his children missing.
She’d made her choice. She’d decided her career was more important than what they could have together and had run off to save the world. He’d stayed here, and in the wake of losing her, he’d made the stupidest mistake of his life. He’d rebounded. When Lilly told him about the pregnancy, he’d married her, worked at building a real family together for the sake of their twins, despite the lack of love between them. It’d been nothing more than a one-night fling the night he and his late wife had gotten together, but that one night had changed the course of his life. Benning tucked his hands in his jeans. “Ana, I know why you left, but—”
“All that matters right now is getting your son back.” Moving around the end of the bed, she hauled the duffel bag into an empty chair, her bangs hiding the dark shadows in her eyes. “That’s why you requested me to work this case, isn’t it? This is what I do.”
Right. He’d read the articles splashed on the front page of The Mountain Press, watched the interviews on the major news channels. According to the media, her recovery rates were the highest in the Bureau. When it came to finding the missing, Agent Ana Sofia Ramirez was the best. Right now he needed the best to find his son. He’d shut down the urge to reach out to her over the years, telling himself she’d left for a reason and he was the last person she wanted to hear from, but as far as he was concerned, she would always be unfinished business. “The guy who broke into my house, the one who took my son. I think he’s tied to one of the construction sites I inspected—”
A red dot centered over her heart, and Benning lunged.
A gunshot exploded overhead.
Broken glass hit the bottom of Olivia’s bed and sliced across the exposed skin of his arm. Pain shot up his wrists as they landed hard on the cold tile. Her sharp exhale rushed across the sensitive skin under his chin and beard, and his heart shot into his throat.
Rolling him off her, Ana pushed to a crouch, her service weapon already in hand.
A familiar scream pierced through the settling silence.
“Olivia.” He crawled toward the bed, trying to keep as low as possible. Sunlight reflected off bright blue eyes matching his own as he leveled his gaze with the mattress, and he wrapped his hand around hers. The bruising along his daughter’s wrists and arms had darkened over the past few hours, but even more terrifying: someone had taken a shot at them. “It’s okay, baby. I’m here.”
“Daddy.” Her whisper tore through him.
Ana pressed her back against the wall beside the window, then straightened to crane her head around the windowsill. “We have to get out of here.”
“I’m not leaving her.” His phone vibrated in his pocket. He extracted his cell as Ana turned hazel-green eyes onto him. The number was blocked. Warning tensed the muscles across his shoulders. This was it, the call he’d been waiting for. Locking his gaze on Ana’s, he tapped the screen to answer, then put the call on Speaker. “Who is this?”
“I warned you about involving law enforcement, Mr. Reeves,” an unfamiliar voice said. “Now your son is going to pay the price for your mistake.”
“Let me talk to him. Let me talk to my son.” No answer. Benning tightened his hold on Olivia’s hand, his breaths coming shorter and faster. “Let me talk to my son!”
The call ended.
Chapter Two
No payment demand or instructions. No proof of life. Whoever’d taken Benning’s son wasn’t following typical patterns for an abduction. Which meant this was more than a simple kidnapping. They wanted to hurt Benning, manipulate him. Or they wanted something from him. The question was why.
Ana scoured the parking lot two more times. A gunman couldn’t fire a shot into a hospital without exposing himself, but there was no movement. Nothing to give her an idea of who’d pulled the trigger, or if they were still out there. She locked her grip around her weapon and turned toward Benning. Either way they were sitting ducks in this room. “Get her out of the bed. We’ve got to move.”
He shook his head. “Olivia’s not going anywhere. She needs rest. Her head—”
“You see these bruises around her wrists? How thin they are?” She closed the distance between her and the side of the bed opposite him. Ana flipped his daughter’s hand over as gently as she could. “There’s not enough skin damage for them to be caused by a rope or
