Page 75 of Lion’s Den

“All clear. Nothing on the front, first floor.”

“Copy. Nothing on the back, first floor. Go to the second floor.”

“Copy that.”

Both teams surged up the stairs. They repeated clearing rooms until they reached the closed back room door, the one intel said held Julio.

Cam signaled the team to fall in behind him. He was taking this door himself.

“On my count. Three, two, one.” He raised his booted foot and kicked in the door.

He pushed in, weapon up and tracking. His teammates surged in behind him, weapons up and ready.

Empty.

Cam wanted to puke. The room was empty.

He drew in a slow breath and forced himself to really look at the room where they believed Julio had been held.

He was right the first time. The room was empty, but it wasn’t clean.

“The room’s empty, sir,” Dario said softly.

“No, it’s not empty,” Cam insisted. He walked over to the far corner of the room where the bed was and picked up a child-sized blanket. He stripped off his left glove and coasted his hand over the bare mattress.

Cam looked at the others. “It’s still warm.” Pain and disappointment speared him in the heart.

“Cam.” Rhys cradled a cut zip tie in the palm of his hand.

Cam straightened. “He’s gone, and we just missed him by minutes.”

He ran from the bedroom, down the stairs and out the kitchen door with the rest of his team on his heels. To Cam’s eyes, nothing had changed in the past five minutes. His gaze scanned the yard again and came to a sudden stop on the detached garage. The detached garage with the door now up when it had been closed. “Door’s up.”

Spencer hissed. “It was closed when we arrived.”

Cam shifted mentally to search mode. Time to get to work. They had a job to do.

The men split up, carefully scanning the ground for any signs to give them another starting point. Less than a minute later, Dario called out from behind the detached garage. “Back here.”

His teammates found him crouched beside a muddy patch of ground. Cam crouched beside his EOD man. “What do we have?”

“Tire tracks.”

He studied the marks in the mud. “SUV. A big one.”

“Hey,” Spencer called. “Here’s another set of tracks. The tracks all lead in the same direction.”

“Let’s hope The Collector likes to park in different parking spaces each time,” Rhys said.

“Load up. Rhys, you’re with me. Spencer.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know. You’re kicking me out.”

The rest of his teammates gave the medic a hard time as they ran to their vehicles.

Soon, Cam climbed behind the wheel and cranked his engine. “We missed him by two or three minutes, at the most.”

Rhys’ fingers flew over his laptop keyboard. Then it was his turn to growl. “We’ve got three vehicles leaving the area on traffic cam. Black SUVs. No plates. They’re definitely traveling together at a high rate of speed.”