“We need to tell the police, Emily. We have to give them this information so that they can formally move in on Lanier.”
She grabbed the phone, her lifeline to Wyatt, and hugged it to her chest. “We know this GPS tracking app on Brett’s phone is significant, but they don’t know that. Do you think the police can get a warrant to search any of Lanier’s properties in Phoenix based on a red dot on a phone?”
Nash rubbed his jaw. He’d never considered himself a blind rule follower—until he collided with Emily and her “anything goes” approach to policing. No wonder she got fired from the force. She hadn’t even told him the full story of how she tried to nab the accomplice of her father’s killer, but he could guess how things went down.
“Look, you have a point, but if things don’t go the way we plan them to, we could really screw things up for the police if we go in willy-nilly.”
“Me, you—” she pointed to herself and then leveled a finger at him “—we don’t do things willy-nilly. We’re a good team, Nash.”
He reached over and ran a hand down the black, stretchy material of the leggings covering her thighs. “I know you want to rush in with guns blazing to save Wyatt, but we could be putting him in more danger.”
She pressed the phone against her cheek. “Does this mean we’re not driving up to Phoenix right now and zeroing in on this red dot?”
“Oh, I didn’t say that. The closer we are to Wyatt, the better, but we have a few things to do first and it doesn’t mean we can’t get the police started on what they need to do.”
“We have to take care of Denali for one thing.”
“Kyle and Meg will take him again, but I do want to swing by my house and grab a bag and a few other things.”
Emily practically bounced in her seat. “And then it’s on to Phoenix...and Wyatt.”
“I don’t want you to get your hopes too high, Emily. That red dot—” he pointed at the phone clutched in her hand “—could just be the car seat, probably is the car seat. It doesn’t mean Lanier, or whoever has Wyatt, is going to keep him in that car seat.”
The light died from her eyes, and her fingers curled even tighter around the phone so that the veins popped out in her wrist. “I know that. I’m trying not to think about it.”
“I know, sweets, and I don’t want to be the voice of doom and gloom, but I don’t want to watch you crash.” He thumped his fist against his chest. “That’ll rip my heart out.”
She covered his clenched knuckles with her hand. “I know, but I have to hold on to something. When my dad was killed, the one thing that kept me going was the belief that I’d track down the guy who could’ve stopped it. That thought gave me hope, gave me a reason to carry on. I need that now.”
The knife that had been embedded in his gut ever since Jaycee’s murder twisted a little more. Emily needed Wyatt to feel whole. He couldn’t do that for her. If they failed to bring him home safely, what then? She’d forever associate him with that failure.
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the soft skin on the back of it.
“Then I guess we’d better find that baby and bring him home.”
She nodded and closed her eyes for the rest of the trip back to his place, her tight grip on that phone the only thing that indicated she wasn’t sleeping.
The glow of Paradiso arose from the desert floor like an oasis, and Nash adjusted his speed as his truck approached the turnoff.
When he rolled up to a stop sign and put on the brakes, Emily opened her eyes. “Pack, take care of Denali and get moving, right?”
“That’s about the order of things. I don’t think we should stay at your place in Phoenix, do you? Lanier may be watching your apartment.”
“Maybe, but as far as he knows, I’m off the job and I don’t have a clue about him.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t bank on that. If he’d contacted you in a normal manner, he could get away with that level of cluelessness, but he must know that you think his response was odd.”
“Maybe, but I’m not going to play it like that with him ever.”
“Still, it may be a good idea to stay in a hotel in Phoenix.”
“I agree.”
He pulled into his driveway, beating sunrise by at least an hour.
“I hope Denali isn’t going crazy.”
“Uh-oh, looks like he got out front.” Emily powered down her window and called out, “Hey, boy. It’s all right. We’re back. Don’t run off.”
The headlights of the truck picked out the dog as he loped across the front of the house, his tongue lolling from his mouth, his mismatched eyes luminescent in the glare.
“How the hell did he make it to the front of the house?” A tickle ran across Nash’s flesh as he glanced at the cameras on his house. He hadn’t checked his security footage since their trip to the border. He made a grab for the back of Emily’s T-shirt. “Hold on, Emily.”
His words came too late. She slipped from his grasp and opened the door of the truck, hopping out onto the driveway, her sneakers crunching the gravel.
Nash clawed at his phone and his gun on the console and burst from the truck. Denali staggered toward him, whimpered and collapsed at his feet.
“Emily!” His gun now cocked and ready, Nash vaulted over the dog and charged toward the back of the truck.
A figure moved out of the darkness and a low growl sounded close to his ear. “Drop it, or she dies now.”
Two other shapes stepped into the lights from the back of the truck, and a cold fear gripped
