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37
Half an hour later, the familiar sight of Brad’s clinic came into view, and relief flooded through Caleb as he spotted Wyatt’s car still parked out front. The bastards hadn’t touched it, thank fuck.
He needed to get to base, where he could access SARSAT, the Search and Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking, which would enable him to locate Grace’s position anywhere in the world. If the beacon was still active. It was the only lead he had.
His gut churned, a familiar sensation, the same one he’d felt countless times before on missions, but this time, it was different. This time, it was personal.
He shoved the car into Drive and peeled out of the lot. The tires squealed against the asphalt, the sound harsh in the early morning stillness. The engine roared as he rammed the pedal to the floor, the speedometer climbing higher as he raced toward the Coast Guard base.
Right now, his skin felt like a stranger’s. Before Grace, he’d been a shell. A husk of a man repeating the motions of life without living. But she’d changed him, re-awakened something within him he’d thought lost forever.
For the first time in years, he had reason to believe the world was worth saving and Grace with it.
As the Coast Guard marina base came into view, he exhaled a slow breath, his grip tightening on the steering wheel. The familiar sight of the building, with its second-floor elongated windows giving an uninterrupted view out to sea, filled him with a sense of hope.
Salty air stung his nostrils as he hurried from the car to the building. Clouds raced across the moon, throwing fleeting shadows across the pale stone while the wind whipped through his hair, tugging at his clothes like insistent fingers, urging him to hurry.
He would find Grace, and he wouldn’t be too late. This time, he would be there for her when she needed him most.
The mainframe and all their computer systems were on the second floor. Caleb climbed the stairs, taking three at a time. The metal treads clanged beneath his boots, the sound reverberating through the stairwell like an urgent alarm.
He shouldered open the door at the end of the narrow upper corridor, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting. The room was vast, filled with the low hum of servers and almost too warm despite the constant whir of cooling fans. This was their nerve center, the hub that connected them to the outside world and allowed them to coordinate their rescue efforts seamlessly.
Right now, Ryder was on duty. The glow of the computer screen cast harsh shadows across his face, highlighting the lines of concern that etched his features as he looked up from his computer screen at Caleb’s abrupt entrance. “Hey, what?—”
Caleb strode across the room and pulled Ryder’s keyboard toward him.
“Sure. fine. It’s not like I was doing anything, anyway.” Ryder raised his hands in surrender, pushing his chair back from the desk.
“I need to access the SARSAT system. Rescue coordination.” Caleb eyed his brother, willing his heart to slow as he fisted his hands to conceal their tremble.
Ryder frowned, scanning Caleb’s face. “What the fuck happened to you? Your face is all beat up.”
Caleb snapped. “Ryder! SARSAT.”
“Okay, okay.” Ryder held up his hands in a placating gesture. He leaned forward, his fingers navigating the mouse as he clicked through the system. “There you go. Now, tell me, what the hell’s up? Rough night?”
Caleb kept his eyes locked on the screen, sweat cold on his back as he waited for the system to load.
Ryder craned a look over his shoulder, scanning the empty doorway behind them. “And where’s your runaway?”
Caleb growled in response as he punched in the code for Grace’s PLB, the one he’d committed to memory the day he gave it to her. The system hummed, a cog spinning on the screen as it processed his request, searching for the tiny beacon of hope that would lead him to her.
Seconds felt like hours, and then there it was—a pulsing red dot. Grace’s location, a tiny pinprick of light in a vast sea of darkness.
Fuck. She was in the middle of the goddamn ocean. Caleb leaned forward, his fingertips grazing the screen, as if he could reach out and touch her through the pixels. Grace.
Ryder swore under his breath. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Fucking bastards took her.” Muscle in his jaw bunched. The PLB’s location made sense. Hudson was a shipping mogul, likely with a luxury yacht at his disposal. It was the perfect place to keep Grace hidden from the world.
“Took her?”
“No,” Caleb corrected, his words coming measured as a headache pounded behind his eyes. “She went of her own free will.”
He gripped the mouse, the plastic creaking under the pressure of his fingers as he frantically tried to think of the best solution. His mind raced with possibilities, each one more desperate than the last. He could persuade Henley to take him out to scour the seas until they found the yacht. Or perhaps mobilize the Coast Guard’s entire fleet and send out a small army to bring Grace back.
“Back up, what?”
