Kudos liked to romp around Jac’s backyard whenever they stayed over. Karma was more about following Nat at all times. Just watching, with her kind ways.
Nat smiled, stopping on her way to the kitchen to rub over the sweet girl’s head. Karma just licked her palm and waited for Nat to speak to her.
Kudos barked from the backyard. Not exactly something that was all that unusual. He was a bit of a loudmouth. Nat usually just ignored it.
Until he just kept barking. Whining.
Nat ran. She didn’t have shoes on, but that didn’t matter. There were callouses aplenty on her soles. Kudos was in trouble. There wasn’t anything Nat wouldn’t do to protect him.
Those weren’t ordinary sounds out of her boy. Nat knew the difference.
Nat bolted into her sister’s backyard, her weapon clutched in her hand.
There was a patio, one her sister had big plans for, and she jumped off the eighteen-inch platform and rounded the side of the house. She could hear him barking.
Loud. Like he’d seen a threat.
He was a search and rescue dog, but he was very protective of her. If something was out there that made him feel unsafe, he would react. He would protect.
He looked vicious doing it, though at heart he was the most sensitive dog she had ever worked with.
She yelled his name. The barking got more excited.
A car door slammed nearby. Loud. An engine revved. Her mind automatically cataloged everything over the barking. The crying.
Crying.
That wasn’t her dog making that noise.
A car drove off. Nat stared at the car, burning it into her memory. There was a man in the driver’s seat, but he was too far away for her to see anything other than that.
Nothing identifying, except the first three digits on the license plate number—CH5.
A maroon four-door family sedan, possibly from the early 2000s. With darkened windows on the rear.
Kudos ran back toward her, around the corner of the house. To the side door.
Nat hurried after him. The crying had gotten louder. And louder. There was something behind one of the hedges. Something moving. Kudos hunkered down on his front legs, whining. Nat called him back to her side.
He obeyed immediately.
That’s when she saw the blanket. Pink and mint green. With yellow-and-cream accents. She looked closer.
It had puppies printed on it, yellow-and-cream puppies.
The blanket was still, for the longest time. Then she saw it—movement. A wiggle.
There was something in that bundle.
Nat switched the gun to safety and tucked it out of sight.
With a careful hand she flipped the blanket back. In a previous case she’d worked, an ex-husband had left poisonous snakes on his wife’s stoop—wrapped up in a blanket. Nat wasn’t stupid.
Anything could be in that blanket.
Something sobbed. And she knew.
She went down on her haunches.
“Hello. My name is Nat, and I’m here to help you.”
89
He’d managed to catch four hours of sleep, a shower, something to eat, and a five-minute phone call with Emery before Max rejoined the rest of the team in the conference room. Whit had taken over for him sometime around three a.m.
Jac was sprawled out on the small loveseat pushed against a wall. Max’s own suit coat covered her. She’d changed clothes and cleaned up sometime since he’d last seen her. Max hoped she’d grabbed something to eat, too.
He stood over her, just watching her for a quick moment.
Whit looked up at him. “Hey, boss. She’s been out for a few hours.”
“I don’t think she’s had more than three hours since…” Max checked his watch. “The night Rachel was killed. And she’d just gotten back from a case before that.”
“Jac was about to crash sooner or later, then. Not that it’s been a power nap. She’s flipped and flopped like crazy. Worse than I’ve seen her do it before.”
“She is a restless sleeper, especially when she’s stressed. Worried.” They’d all grabbed catnaps wherever they could when working together before. It was just a nature of the game.
He would have said more, but his phone buzzed. Jac’s buzzed nearby, too. Max grabbed his quickly, and tossed Jac’s to Whit as Jac sat up with a jerk.
“It’s the director,” Whit said as he looked at the screen.
“I can take it,” Jac said. Whit tossed the phone to her immediately.
Max stepped across the room and took his own call from Dan Reynolds.
When he looked up, his eyes met Jac’s green ones. His shock was echoed on her face.
“Let’s go,” Max said. “I’ll drive.”
“What in the hell has happened now?” Whit asked.
Max didn’t have a clue.
90
They chose to send Eugene Lytel to secure Jac’s place. Jac had one thought as Max drove. “We have Ava. What has he done with Olivia?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ava might,” Jac remembered Nat at four. Jac had been seven. Just like Ava and Olivia. Nat had always been tiny, vulnerable. Jac had been taking care of her Nat’s entire life. “We’re going to have to question her.”
“She’ll never make a reliable witness.”
“No, but she might be able to give us a direction to go in.” Fear for both girls was still uttermost in her mind.
The director had told her that Nat had called for an ambulance, that Ava was definitely in need of medical care. But he hadn’t known more than that.
“I’m just thankful Nat was there,” Jac said. “She wanted to stay closer to PAVAD, in case we needed to move quickly. She was on call, anyway.”
“Yes. If she hadn’t been at your place, would a neighbor have found Ava?”
“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. But Nat was there, and that’s what matters. And now…we’ll find Olivia and Paul/Philip. Go from there. But we have Ava. We’ll take that as the gift that it is.”
“Yes. That’s all we can do now.”
“He has my address. Why would he take her there?” Jac tried to figure it out. But the idea that he had taken Ava to her house didn’t
