I can’t hold back the tears as I’m plunged into darkness.CHAPTER 27KynanThe Four Seasons is an absolute zoo when I get there. There are several police cars in front of the hotel and on the side of the employee parking lot where I pull my car around to meet Cruce. They already have yellow tape marking off the area where she was abducted. Yellow plastic cones have been placed on the ground beside her purse and cell phone. A technician is taking photos.
Cruce meets me at my car door as I exit. I make a quick introduction between him and Saint when he joins us.
“I am so fucking sorry,” Cruce says, and I can’t stand the remorse in his voice. It’s almost as if he doesn’t have any hope we will find her, but I’m also wise enough to know he is speaking from an emotional place just as I am.
“Did you get anything from her phone before the police got here?” I ask.
Nodding, Cruce pulls his own phone out. “Yeah. The text she sent you was still visible on her screen, and I took some pictures.”
He pulls up the images, and I read the exchange Joslyn had with her stalker. My gut burns so badly I’m afraid I might double over and vomit because it was so fucking easy for him to get her. I’d never in a million years imagined he would try to trick Joslyn into voluntarily going with him.
And that’s squarely on my fucking shoulders, not Cruce’s.
I have to admit—he hit her right in her tender spot. Kidnapping Lynn, Harry, or her mother would have guaranteed she’d get in that car. I’m angrier with myself than I could ever be with Cruce over this happening. I should have prepared her better.
“Kynan.” Madeline’s voice comes from behind me, and I spin around to see her bolting straight at me with Darren right behind her. Her face is red, her eyes are wet, and she looks like she is in exquisite pain. This is the face of a woman who believes her daughter could be dead.
She throws herself in my arms. I immediately and protectively—since she is Joslyn’s mother—envelop her in a hug.
Immediately pulling away, she starts babbling. “You have got to find her. It all happened so fast. She just went inside to use the bathroom, and I didn’t think anything of it. Cruce did, though. We followed her in, but she was just gone. She knew what she was doing. If I’d known, I would’ve stopped her.”
Shaking my head, I give Madeline an empathetic smile. “You wouldn’t have been able to stop her. Neither could Cruce. The stalker sent her a text before she got to the hotel, and she had planned it all out. She was determined to escape and go with him. It’s nobody’s fault.”
Except mine. I’m going to take all the blame for this one since I did not impress upon Joslyn how she should trust me and only me. It makes me wonder if the declarations we made to each other yesterday about wanting to be together are rooted in any type of reality. Shouldn’t she have trusted me without me having to tell her to do so?
On the flip side, she was hit with a major decision and she was given no time to reason it out. I can understand that as well. Maybe I would have done the same thing in her shoes.
I can’t worry about that now. There is still plenty of opportunity to get her back, and that’s what I’m going to do.
I move my hands to her shoulders. “Time is of the essence, Madeline. I’m going after her right now.”
She nods, sniffles, and lets Darren pull her into his embrace.
I turn to Cruce and Saint. “We have no time to waste. We’ve got to move out now to catch up to the signal.”
“Just tell us what to do,” Saint says.
“We need to hit the road and move in different directions,” Cruce says, studying the tracking app on his phone. “With only a ten-mile radius on that signal, we have got to go now.”
“Agreed,” I say, my eyes going back and forth between the men. “Bebe has sent each of us updated maps with individualized routes to take. When one of us connects to Joslyn’s signal, Bebe will sync the location to everyone’s maps. We’re going to discount heading south since the signal never appeared on my phone as I traveled here from Joslyn’s house.”
“That could be because he made her ditch the earrings,” Cruce points out.
“I know that.” My words are gruff. “But there’s only three of us and a lot of miles. We have to make an educated deduction and just work north right now.”
“Let’s do it,” Cruce says.
We break apart to head to our vehicles. A man I recognize as Detective Kitchner heads toward me from an unmarked patrol car. He holds a hand up and waves, indicating he wants to talk.