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“It’s the concussion,” a distorted voice said, barely breaking through the haze.
Lexie tried to open her eyes, but her lids were like lead.
“Wh—”
Words failed. She couldn’t think straight. Everything was so fuzzy.
What happened? Where was she?
She couldn’t remember.
From some faraway place, she acknowledged strong arms lifting her and placing her on something that felt like a chair. A moist cloth running over her mouth. Then the harsh rip of duct tape being secured around her wrists.
Her head lolled from side to side. The pain was so intense, like the back of her head had been hit with a hammer. Warm tears escaped, running down her face.
“Please,” she whispered.
“You go inside,” the voice said, further away this time. “I’ll deal with this.”
By the time they met up with Wade in the parking lot across the street from Rusty’s, Nico had worked himself into a sweaty, handwringing, panic-stricken—teetering on the edge of a—nervous breakdown.
Seth and Zoe had continued on to unload Logan at the station then they would decide between themselves which one would stay to keep an eye on him, and which would rendezvous with Nico and Frank afterward. West was MIA, though they all knew where he was and what he was doing; at home trying to avoid a messy divorce instead of leading his troops when they needed it most. Nico was bitter about that but had no time or energy to spare for it. At this point, he wasn’t sure anyone was bothering to keep the chief in the loop at all.
Lexie’s boss could have been a Viking in another life, and he looked just as savage as he stalked toward them. “What took you guys so fucking long?”
“We got here as fast as we could,” Frank said. “Show us.”
Wade appeared to be in similar mood as he led them to a dim corner of the lot. “Lexie’s car was somewhere around here,” he said, gesturing to the now empty parking spots. “I saw it when I left earlier.”
“While we’re on the subject,” Nico said, his voice coming out more like a snarl. “Why did you leave her?”
“Easy,” Frank cautioned.
“Look, man, I get it.” Wade’s wolf-blue eyes fixed on him. They looked tormented. “There’s nothing you can say to me that I haven’t already said to myself a million times. I know it was a huge mistake.”
Nico didn’t reply, just focused on trying to suppress the rage building inside that threatened to spill over at the nearest, most convenient target. Right now, that was Wade. Deep down, he knew he cared about Lexie and would never have knowingly put her in danger, but that knowledge did little to quell the urge to hit the man for doing the opposite of what he’d promised, which was to keep her safe.
Shifting his focus to the more significant matter at hand—finding her—Nico clicked on the flashlight he’d grabbed from the cruiser. He steeled himself for what came next. “You said there was blood.”
“Three feet to your left,” Wade replied dismally.
As Nico shone the beam in that direction, his stomach dropped a good few inches, hitting his lower abdomen like a stone. “Jesus,” he whispered.
“Lieutenant, that’s . . .” Frank let the rest of his sentence go unspoken, because they both knew what they were looking at. Someone had almost certainly died here. Whatever happened, whoever this blood belonged to, there was simply too much of it for it not to have been fatal.
Only one name came to Nico’s mind, and he could have kicked himself. He closed his eyes. In his haste to bring down a murderer, he’d carelessly pooled all their resources into one basket, leaving Lexie unprotected. Never mind that he’d asked Wade to step in. She was his. He should have taken care of her himself. “Where is Kyle Garrett?” he asked, every word acidic and dripping with threat.
Frank cleared his throat. “Well, the last report we did not receive, because we are definitely not doing illegal surveillance on him, said that he spent all day at home.”
"And then we all left to arrest Logan Hayes." Nico clenched his teeth and took a moment to recalibrate. He turned to Wade. “I need you to tell me everything you know, from start to finish.”
Wade gave a quick, detailed recount of the events that transpired before he discovered Lexie’s absence, the three of them sweeping the scene for clues at the same time. When Zoe arrived—Seth lost via coin toss—Nico ordered her to do a full walk-through of the restaurant to do the same. He listened to the message Lexie had left on Wade’s voice mail moments prior to when it all went down, hating that she didn’t think to stay on the line, or call for help, or any number of other options other than hanging up and leaving her phone behind.
It wasn’t until he’d made it to the end of the night-blackened parking lot that Nico noticed a gray sedan, obscured by the low-hanging branches of an overgrown beech tree. It was the only vehicle in sight.
“Whose car is that?” Nico called.
Wade’s brows scrunched, and his chin drew inward. “It looks like Colin Rowe’s. Why would he be here?”
