Page 36 of The Protector’s Daughter

I should have listened.

I found Greg’s name in Sage’s school records three days ago. He was listed as an emergency contact for another girl in the foster home. That girl disappeared two months before Sage did.

Greg’s social media accounts vanished around the same time, but old photographs connected him to a nightclub outside Las Vegas.

I came to Nevada because Greg came here.

I had no idea I was also coming toward Sean.

I discovered Iron Ridge Protectors yesterday afternoon while searching for information about the nightclub’s private security company. An article appeared in the search results.

Four Former Delta Special Forces Operators Establish Protection Firm in Nevada High Desert.

Sean’s photograph was beside the headline.

Older.

Harder.

More handsome than the nineteen-year-old boy I remember.

I stared at the picture until I could no longer see through my tears.

He had made it to Nevada.

When we were young, Sean used to talk about the desert as if it were another planet. He wanted mountains, wild land, and enough sky that no one could cage him.

He wanted to take me with him.

But he left, and I disappeared before he could return.

For eighteen years, I told myself he had forgotten me. He must have married. He probably had children and a woman who had given him the life I couldn’t.

I almost closed the article without reading it.

Then I saw the final sentence.

Campbell, who has no wife or children, said Iron Ridge Protectors will specialize in locating missing people and assisting families who have nowhere else to turn.