AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I was beating myself up for allowing it to happen. It was all my fucking fault. How could I be so stupid? How could I just leave her standing there, alone, and vulnerable? Whatever he did to her, was all on me and I knew it.
“You got something?” Kailan asked in a whisper as he approached, followed by Harris. We were whispering because Zack was fast asleep in my arms, his head resting on my shoulder. I’d tried to put him down, but he woke and cried every time. It was like he could feel all of the tension in the air, and it was unsettling him.
Nick had tried to call Kayla to come and collect him, none of us wanting him to get mixed up in all of this if things went sideways, but she wasn’t answering her cell, and was unlikely to as long as she was having fun in Vegas.
Nick was working with his team and some FBI agents who had arrived a short while ago. He was neck deep in shit with his boss for not reporting everything with Evie sooner, but they had agreed to deal with it later and focus on the task at hand.
I had been able to find the exact rusted, blue Camry that Evie had described to us moving through the area where Zack’s daycare was located. I’d followed it on traffic cams out past Denver, but then it had disappeared. The cops had an APB out on it, and pictures of Soloman, taken from the daycare surveillance cameras, had been distributed, but so far they had nothing. The image was shit, since the fucker kept his head lowered and was wearing a baseball cap, but it was more than the cops had on this guy before.
“ANPR picked up the license plates coming out of Denver. He’s headed north. Let Nick know,” I told them.
Evie had been gone for over six hours now. We knew time was running out. The further he got away with her, the less chance we had of getting her back in time..
“I’ll call him. Keep looking,” Harris said as he patted me on the back. I knew he was working hard to keep his cool and stay focused on what mattered. We all were. We couldn’t allow our minds to stray to what that murdering sicko could be doing to Evie at that moment, because if we did, it would cripple us. We didn’t have time for that. We had to find her.
“Let me take the little guy. I’ll try him in the crib again,” Kailan offered. I nodded and lifted Zack carefully from my chest, handing him over to Kailan. He looked so peaceful as he nestled into Kailan’s shoulder. I envied him that. I would never know peace again if Evie wasn’t returned safely to us.
I worked on hacking into traffic cams around Denver, while also running a search on license plate recognition logs in the area. Harris was on the phone to Nick, but it didn’t sound like they’d made any progress either.
“He’s settled in his crib,” Kailan said as he came jogging down the stairs a few minutes later. He settled the video monitor screen on the table beside me, then returned to his own laptop to work on trying to clean up the image of Soloman that we had, trying to make it clearer.
He'd also been trying to track Evie’s burner cell, since she had to have it with her. I’d seen her pick it up when we left the house earlier, but it was either switched off, or had no signal, because we got nothing.
“Nick and his team are headed to Denver. He says the FBI are running the image of Soloman to get an identity,” Harris explained as he moved to sit at the table too.
“They won’t find him. I already ran the search,” I told him confidently. That had been the first thing I did, but the image wasn’t clear enough to run a conclusive search.
We’d barely all gotten back to work before the buzzer at the front gate rang through the house. I opened the window on my screen for the security system and turned the laptop to Harris.
“Evie’s brothers?” I asked, assuming the SUV with a seriously pissed looking guy in the front seat had to be them.
“Yeah. Brace yourselves,” he sighed deeply. He clicked to allow them entry, opening the electric gates for them to drive in, then got to his feet and headed for the door.
“Hey guys. Come in,” I heard him greet them moments later. I glanced up and saw five huge guys come through the door. I didn’t want to stop working, but I knew I should at least meet them briefly. They were Evie’s brothers, and if I got everything I wanted, they would end up being a part of my life.
“Have you got anything?” The tallest of them asked. He was built much like Kailan, only he was even fucking taller. Not a man I would want to fuck with, that was for sure. Though that applied to all of them. They were all big guys, and the pissed off looks on their faces weren’t helping either. I’d been in the military. I’d dealt with some scary fuckers in my time, but these guys were giving them all a run for their money right now.
“Aleks just picked the car up on ANPR coming out of Denver about an hour ago. He’s headed north,” Harris replied.
“I want to see the surveillance footage of this motherfucker,” A slightly smaller guy spoke up. He wasn’t as tall or built as three of the five, but he was by far the most intimidating. His eyes were everywhere, watching everything around him. He was definitely ex-military.
“Aleks can show you,” Harris nodded. “This is Aleks, and that’s Kailan. Nick’s working with the cops.”
“I’m Xander,” One of the guys stepped forward and nodded to me in greeting. He seemed a little less intimidating than the others. He nodded to the deadly looking one. “That’s Kyle.”
“I’m Kade,” The other huge one stepped forward with a chin lift as he spoke. He was as tall and built as Kailan, tattoo sleeves down both arms and a gun tucked into the holster at his hip. “Cole, and Matt,” he pointed to the tallest guy who had spoken first, then to the smaller, muscle packed guy at the end, who was looking at me way too assessingly for my liking.
“Can we just find Evie and save the fucking tea party for later!” Kyle snapped angrily.
“I’ll show you what we have,” I offered as I moved back over to my laptop.
“I think they like us,” Kailan joked with a smirk as I passed him. I huffed a laugh. Yeah, this was definitely going to be a long night.
Kyle leant over me as I pulled up the camera footage from the daycare, while Kade started pulling a laptop from his backpack setting it up beside me.
“Kyle, we should head to Denver, where the car was last seen. We’ll be closer then if you get anything,” Matt suggested.
“Nick’s already headed there,” Harris explained.
