Now what? I bit my lip, drawing blood. Where was he? I paced around the house, Lucy following my heels.
Maybe he hadn’t gone into the office after all and had just been delayed out in the pastures. That would make sense. What didn’t make sense, though, was how he had forgotten his phone. That was so unlike him.
I looked around, finding nothing more in the kitchen and bedroom. I walked into the other wing of the house, to Jonah’s study. I gasped.
On his desk sat the four yearbooks.
There was no way he would’ve forgotten both the phone and the yearbooks.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
My adrenaline surging, I flipped on his printer and copier and quickly went through each yearbook, making the copies we needed.
Then I let the fear take me. My heart pounded and my nerves bristled. Nausea crept up my throat. Someone had Jonah. He wouldn’t leave without a trace unless someone had taken him.
Blood rushed to my head, and I was caught in a haze of white noise.
No!
I had to do something. The police. I’d call the police.
I quickly made a call to 9-1-1 and alerted the authorities that Jonah was missing. What next?
I let out a breath and rubbed my shivering arms.
I would have to call Talon. I just didn’t relish telling this man who had been through so much already that his big brother was missing.
My phone rang in my pocket. I picked it up and recognized Mills’s number.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Doctor, this didn’t take long at all. We got a name for your number. Definitely an Iowa area code, as you know, but as far as we can tell, the person with the number never lived in Iowa.”
Right. The number of the person who’d been stalking Jonah. Of course. I willed myself to stay in control. “Okay.”
“The number is registered to a female in the name of Selena Winters.”
“Jonah has never mentioned anyone by that name. Why would she be stalking him by phone?”
“With a little more research, we found out that Selena Winters is an alias. The person who uses this number is a retired newswoman living in Denver. Her name is Wendy Madigan.”
The phone flipped from my hands. I quickly picked it up, my pulse racing. “I’m sorry. Wendy Madigan?”
“That’s right. She’s had this phone number for nearly ten years. But it doesn’t get used very often.”
“Can you get her phone records?”
“Yes, ma’am. Working on it.”
“Great. Call me when you have something.” I hung up quickly.
Oh God oh God oh God.
The text I’d read forced its way into my mind.
Now you are mine.