Nash jumped up and ran to turn off the engine. Then he slithered into the opening to join Emily. His gut rolled when he saw the car seat in the corner.
He dropped down next to her where she sat on the floor, her legs curled beneath her. Draping his arm around her shoulders, he pulled her close. “Let’s look at the positives. He was here. They brought him here and then transferred him to another location.”
“Another location that could be anywhere.” She bunched his shirt in her hand. “We have to go back, Nash. You have to go back to work and prep that file for deletion.”
“Hold on. I’m not ready to admit defeat just yet.” He lifted his eyes and scanned the room. “Let’s search this building.”
Immediately, her head popped up, and she peered into the four corners of the warehouse. “Do you see any security cameras?”
Patting her back, he said, “That’s my girl. Get back in the zone.”
He pushed off the floor and examined the four corners of the room. “The cameras aren’t in any obvious places, and I can’t see a space like this having hidden cameras. It’s just a storage area.”
Emily had crawled toward Wyatt’s car seat and buried her face in it.
A few seconds later, just when he thought he’d have to search this warehouse by himself, she withdrew her head from the car seat and sprang to her feet. “You look through those boxes in the corner, and I’ll search the desk.”
He released a breath. He needed Emily’s help, had been counting on it. “Right, Chief.”
He strode to the boxes piled in the corner and looked in each one. Most were empty except for a few bits of popcorn packing material. He sniffed inside, but no particular odor hit him over the head.
He kicked the empty boxes he’d checked across the room. “You find anything?”
“Office materials, some invoices that have this address on them.”
“Invoices for what?” Nash dived into the next stack of boxes. Address labels. He should check those address labels.
“Parts, mostly. Numbered parts for I don’t know what.”
Nash turned a box over and checked the label. It listed an address in Buckeye, a small town farther west along the 10 freeway—definitely not Lanier’s glitzy Phoenix office building or ritzy home in Scottsdale. Why would he have shipments going to Buckeye?
Emily called across the open space, her voice taking on a slight echo. “Something was written on a pad of paper and left an impression on the sheet below.”
“Shade it over with a pen.” Nash grabbed the next box and read the same Buckeye address. That address appeared on the next box and the next.
“I got it!” Emily shouted. “It’s an address, an address in...”
Nash said it with her. “Buckeye.”
“THAT ADDRESS HAS to have some significance, right? Lanier’s not going to keep a kidnapped baby at his house or his office.” Emily had been chattering nonstop on the hour drive to Buckeye, asking the same questions over and over, coming up with the same justifications.
Nash brushed his knuckles down her arm. “I think we’re on the right track. Wyatt may not be at this location, either, but we’re on his trail.”
She jerked her head up and down. “We surveil the place first to make sure it’s not a dead end like the warehouse. If Wyatt’s there, we plan our infiltration and carry it out tonight.”
“That’ll work, and if Wyatt’s not there—” he put a finger to her pouting lips “—we glean as much information as we can from that location, as we did from the warehouse. If there are people there, we get the information out of them—one way or another.”
“I like the sound of that, Doc.”
He managed to grin, despite his stiff face muscles. If they had to hop from place to place in some kind of demented scavenger hunt, he’d have to peel Emily off the floor.
“If you blink, you’ll miss Buckeye.” She scooted forward in the passenger seat, her phone cupped in her hand. “It’s the next exit.”
Again, a few stores and restaurants marked the entrance to Buckeye. Signs greeted them for a resort and golf course, an aquatics center, a historical museum and the Gillespie Dam Bridge. They drove past a big-box store and most of the main part of town before it led to the desert landscape.
Nash pulled to the side of the road. “How much farther?”
Glancing at the map on her phone, she said, “Just about five minutes.”
“What do you see out there?” He tapped the windshield.
She sucked in her bottom lip and squinted at the wavy desert floor. “Not much.”
“Exactly. We can’t drive up to not much and not expect to be noticed.”
“We have to readjust our plan.” She dipped her chin to her chest and let out a sigh. “We go in at night just like we planned, but we’ll have to assume Wyatt is there—whether he is or not.”
He wedged a finger beneath her chin and tilted her head up. “We can do it. If someone is there without Wyatt, they’ll never hear us. We’ll turn around and sneak back out.”
“Then what?” She sniffed but held her unshed tears in check.
“We’ll formulate a plan B—we just don’t know what that is yet.” He pinched her chin. “You on board?”
“I’m on board with you, Nash.” She grabbed his hand and kissed his knuckles. “I couldn’t do any of this without you. Wouldn’t want to. Whatever happens with Wyatt, wherever he winds up—whether that’s with you or Jaycee’s mother or, God forbid, some other father hiding in the woodwork—you’re...my person.”
“You mean that?” He laced his fingers with hers. “I’m not just Wyatt’s guardian to you?”
He held his breath as she blinked at him. There. He’d put it out there—probably not the best time to do so, but he had to know.
Slowly, she brought their clasped hands to her chest and pressed them against her rapidly beating heart. “Is that what you thought? I know I used you to get
