Page 7 of Lion’s Den

He grabbed his phone and punched in David Montgomery’s number. His boss answered on the first ring.

“Go.”

“Sedona’s in trouble.”

“Explain.”

Cam summarized what he knew, which wasn’t much. “I believe she was kidnapped as she was leaving school.”

Man, how would he find her without at least a starting point? He and four other men from his Delta unit had gone on several search and rescue missions while they were in the Sandbox on deployment. Cam knew he could find Sedona if he had a starting point, but he didn’t have one.

“Hold,” Montgomery said. His voice came through the speaker a minute later. “Got her signal. You’ll receive a text message with her cell location. That message will update if her cell phone moves, but you need to get to her quickly.”

“I’m on it. Do I want to know how you got these coordinates?”

“No. Can you live with that?”

“No problem.” He’d crossed a line or two in his time in the Army and as a cop, neither of which he had admitted to his boss. For Sedona, he’d happily cross any line.

“Good. Elliott and I will back you up. Do not engage before we arrive, Sims. If you do, you and I will have a long discussion about following orders, and you’ll find yourself with a reprimand in your file. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.” But he’d do whatever was necessary to find and rescue Sedona.

“Sims.” David sounded suspicious.

Cam’s lips curved as he ended the call. David had good reason to be suspicious. Cam didn’t always follow orders.

He ran from the back of the station to his personal SUV and cranked the engine. Cam prayed David’s contact had come through.

A small blip of concern crossed his mind when he thought about someone unknown to him having his personal cell number. These days, however, it was only a matter of time before the information was for sale on some black site.

Cam called up his text messages, and there it was. A text from an anonymous source. Since the sender was so well concealed and the information uncovered so fast, he figured Fortress Security was the anonymous source. As long as he found Sedona, Cam could live with breaking the law in return for getting her location and freeing her.

He tapped the coordinates into his navigation program and drove away from the building housing the Morgan County, Tennessee Sheriff’s Department. Cam hung a right, turned on his lights and sirens, and raced from Maple Valley.

In minutes, he drove through wide-open countryside toward the mountains located two hours away if he traveled at the speed limit. He wasn’t. No one and nothing would keep him from getting to Sedona.

Anger simmered in his bloodstream. He should have stopped by the school as he’d planned to do and checked on her. She wouldn’t be in danger if he had. Granted, he didn’t have all the details, but Sedona had been taken about the time he would have arrived at the elementary school.

Cam gripped the steering wheel tighter. This couldn’t happen again. No more second-guessing himself, either. He had to nail down what their relationship was. If he had done it sooner, there would have been no question about his right to stop and see her for a few minutes on his patrol shift.

He coaxed a little more speed from the souped-up engine and concentrated on threading through traffic until he was 50 miles from Silverwood Forest. The traffic thinned out until Cam was the only driver on the highway. Good. Now he wouldn’t have to worry as much about civilians on the road.

His cell phone rang. Cam tapped the hands-free device on his dashboard screen. “Yeah, Sims.”

His boss told him where he and Elliot had parked. “We’ll see you in a few minutes. Kill your lights and siren.”

Although he wanted to run hot all the way so Sedona knew help was coming, Cam obeyed his boss. He liked David Montgomery, even if he had been a SEAL instead of Delta Force.

He sped along the narrow, winding mountain road, praying he didn’t run into one of the many hazards possible in the Silverwood Forest. His gut told him every second that separated him from Sedona was a second too long.

Using his combat-driving skills learned in the Sandbox while deployed with his unit, Cam kept his speed a steady 20 miles over the speed limit. Didn’t want civilians in Morgan County to know he broke the laws he harped on them about every day.

Five minutes later, he skidded to a stop, twisted in the driver’s seat to look out his back window and guided the SUV deep into tree cover. A moment later, his boss and a fellow deputy emerged from the shadows.

Cam turned off the engine, grabbed his Go bag, and exited the vehicle. “Anything new since you arrived?”

David shook his head. “All I can tell you is that the phone hasn’t moved.”