“I’ll take care of any problems.”
Tommy nodded. Just what he expected to hear. “Let’s make this quick. We’ll pick her up and carry her off if we have to, but I want Grace back home with me tonight.”
Boone nodded in silent agreement and eased off the gas.
As much as he wanted to snap at Boone to speed up, Tommy understood why the man slowed down instead; it would be easier to search the shoulders that way. And if the drivers behind him thought they were looking for a spot to pull over, it might appear as if Grace was waiting for them to find her.
Tommy tapped his pointer finger on the dash. He had to double-check. According to the Jaguar’s navigation system, the next exit wouldn’t be coming up for at least another mile. If Grace’s car was stopped, it had to be on the side of the road.
But that didn’t mean that she would be there, too. His insides twisted. Something warned him that this pick up wasn’t going to be an easy one.
“C’mon, c’mon,” he muttered. “Where are you, sweetheart?”
Cars sped past. Echoes of honks, the bleat of irate drivers, rang out in intervals as Boone’s driving slowed down to a coast. He stayed in the left lane, ticking off the other travelers, going at his own pace as the pair of them scanned the highway for any sign of Grace or her little grey car.
Tommy split his attention between the road and his phone. The red blip on the screen grew closer and closer until, leaning forward in his seat, he commanded Boone to pull over.
Boone immediately obeyed. Cutting off a soccer mom in her minivan, he crossed over two lanes until he was skirting the shoulder.
Throwing the car door wide open, Tommy leaped out and strode purposely down the empty stretch of road. Once he had walked the length twice, his fury blinding him to just how close some of the speeding cars came to hitting him, he accepted that she wasn’t here—even if his tracker said she was supposed to be.
He pulled his phone out of his suit jacket. Opening the app, he selected one of the options with a stab of his pointer finger. An instant later, a loud, keening wail sounded from the tall grass that edged the shoulder.
Tommy pointed into the greenery with a shaky hand. “There.”
Boone waded into the grass. It only took him a few seconds to find the source of the sound. Bending low, he shoved the willowy blades aside, searching the dirt. When he straightened again, he had the dime-sized tracker nestled in his meaty palm.
Just like Tommy thought. Grace had found the tracker, and she had gotten rid of it. She might have been standing at this point not so long ago, though she certainly wasn’t here now. Where was she?
Where did she go?
Why did she insist on always running from him? She should know by now that he had no intention of stopping the chase until he had her right where she belonged—at his side.
At least there was one thing he knew for sure: the device had failed him.
Tommy gritted his teeth together. “Crush it.”
Boone’s hand folded into a fist. He squeezed. The wail died.
Wiping the mangled pieces of metal and circuitry from his hands, he asked, “What now, sir?”
“Get in the car.”
Boone knew from his tone not to argue. Without a word, he climbed out of the foliage and marched over to the Jaguar. He opened the driver’s side door for Tommy, then folded his big body up and into the passenger seat.
Tommy climbed smoothly into the driver’s seat, pausing long enough to adjust the seat to suit his slender height rather than Boone’s massive bulk, before he slammed his foot on the gas and took off down the highway.
The way he saw it, she either got rid of the bug and kept on going, or she turned around and backtracked. So long as she kept her phone off, he had no idea. The tracker was useless since she discovered and removed it.
Where are you, Grace?
The speedometer cranked up, sixty miles per hour a distant memory as Tommy pushed the Jaguar to go faster. He weaved around cars that seemed to be going at a snail’s pace.
Eighty, ninety, one hundred—
He stopped worrying about what would happen if the cops stopped them. They’d have to catch up to the Jaguar first.
His voice came out calm as he kept his expensive dress shoe tamped down on the gas pedal. “She was here, Boone.”