Wicked Ever After (Wicked & Devoted 2)

One-Mile recited it, hoping like hell she hadn’t changed it in the last two months since he’d hacked into her machine.

“I’m in. It’s locating. I’m fucking shocked they haven’t ditched the phone or turned off location services. Amateurs?”

Maybe. And that would be a huge fucking relief. “Anything?”

Trevor didn’t answer for a long moment. The silence seemed to stretch so thin he would have sworn it would snap. He tapped his thumb on the steering wheel and drove too fast back out of the residential part of town, closer to the highway.

“Okay, her phone is still on the grid. Her last location is somewhere on Highway 353. What’s out there?”

“It’s the road to the lake…and not much else.” It made no sense, but One-Mile still floored it in that direction.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Hit refresh. See if the phone is still moving and in which direction.”

“Yeah.”

One-Mile heard him tapping a key and waited. “You haven’t overheard her dad say anything about receiving a ransom, have you?”

“No. Earlier, he was talking to someone on the phone about meeting you. He didn’t sound excited.”

Why would the preacher be? From her father’s perspective, he had ruined, impregnated, and jeopardized the man’s daughter. Fuck, even if he got Brea back, he’d be lucky if Preacher Bell ever spoke to him. And One-Mile didn’t blame him one bit.

But that wouldn’t stop him. Nothing—not this kidnapper, not her father, not her best friend or the whole damn town—was going to keep him from making Brea his.

Except death.

“Shit.”

One-Mile snapped back to the conversation. “What?”

“Either your girl is heading into an area without cell signal or the location services just got turned off. I’m now getting an old location. But I got enough of an update to see that they’re going east.”

His heart stopped. His stomach plummeted. The one surefire way he had to help her was gone. “Fuck. Now get the hell out of there. And thanks.”

“Are you sure? Is her dad expecting her home? Will he call the police if she doesn’t show?”

He was and he might. “Good point.”

“Want me to fill him in?”

One-Mile weighed the pros and cons, then decided he didn’t have much choice. “Yeah. Thanks again. He’s got a heart condition. Try to keep him calm.”

“Sure. I don’t know you well, man. But you’re doing every fucking thing you can.”

He just hoped it was enough. “Call me if he becomes a problem.”

Jock Strap just laughed. “The FBI taught me how to sidestep direct questions and difficult conversations. You do you. I got this.”

“Thanks again. I owe you.”

“Knowing me, I’ll need it someday.”

They hung up, then he called Matt. “What you got?”

One-Mile gave him the location update. “Know where that is?”

“Vaguely. I’ll figure it out. Headed that way now.”

Maybe they could run this kidnapper down. He had to hope so.

He rang the colonel again next.

“I’m in touch with the police,” Caleb said. “They’re going to issue a BOLO in the next few minutes. They’ll get cruisers looking. Traffic cams are a no-go without a warrant.”

“Thanks.” Then he updated Caleb on the location of Brea’s phone. Thankfully the man knew exactly where the road was. “I’ll pass that on. I also know a guy who runs a swamp tour out there. Crazier than a rat, but observant and suspicious. I’ll ask him to poke around.”

They ended the call as the last of the sun disappeared below the horizon. Now that he couldn’t do anything but drive and hope for the best, more worry crept in. He tried to tell himself that even if Brea wasn’t armed, she wasn’t stupid. She knew self-defense. She knew to look for weaknesses and escape paths.

But he couldn’t deny that she’d also never had to put that knowledge to real-life use. People often panicked. And there was no way she could get too physical with a kidnapper. Besides being petite and peaceful, she was nearly six months pregnant.

A trek down the road from its origin to its end didn’t net anything concrete. Next, he’d start trying some of the ramshackle buildings he’d seen off the side of the road. If that didn’t give him any results, he’d investigate the narrow two-lane roads that shot off of 353. Yeah, the abductor might have taken the road to its end and turned onto 314, but hell, that mostly led to nowhere.

One-Mile hoped he was making the right decisions. It wasn’t just his life or his future hanging in the balance. So many people would suffer if he failed Brea. Cutter, her father, all of Sunset…and their son, who might never know life. He swallowed grief and guilt down and vowed to keep searching. But as seven p.m. became eight, then nine and ten, he stopped looking at the clock. His phone wasn’t ringing, goddamn it. And he hated to assume the worst, but his hope began to dim. And as the time inched toward two a.m. and he was forced to stop for gas, he hung his head in the front seat of his Jeep and cried.