Page 178 of Mile High Ruin

I know because I’ve seen the same thing in men who have just realized that fear has found the one place inside them they cannot cauterize.

“She could be anywhere,” he says.

“No.”

“Sloane could have hidden.”

“She ran toward the gate.”

He pauses. “You saw her?”

“I saw the direction.” I turn away. Every second we spend speaking feels stolen from something worse.

I move back toward the garden. The air outside smells of smoke, earth and blood. My men have secured most of the grounds now, but there are still reports coming in from the outer perimeter, and every one of them feeds the same question.

Where is she?

I reach the place where the path splits toward the front gate.

One of Sloane’s shoes lies in the grass.

I stop. It is hers. Black, narrow heel. The pair she wore with the dress tonight.

I pick it up, and for several seconds I just stand there holding it.

I remember fastening the zipper of that dress for her. I remember her turning around and asking whether it was too much. I remember telling her it wasn’t enough. I remember her laughing and pushing my shoulder.

That was hours ago.

Now I’m holding one of her shoes in a garden full of spent casings.

“Sloane.”

Her name comes out quieter this time.

I walk farther. The second shoe is near the hedge, and then there are marks in the grass. A heel dug into the earth. A scuff. Something that looks like the imprint of a knee.

I crouch.

Someone struggled here.

My vision narrows. “Anton.”

He’s beside me almost immediately.

“There.”

He looks down, and his expression hardens. “She was grabbed.”

I stand too quickly. “Find the camera covering this section.”

“It was one of the feeds that went down.”

I turn on him. “Then find another angle.”

“We’re doing that.”

“Do it faster,” I say.