don’t. She said she’d been thinking about hiring one. She also claimed to have contacted the FBI to request help. It’s not that I suspect her involvement, but her reaction was off. As though she was hiding something.”
“You can never tell how people are going to react in certain situations.”
“True. But her response was to leave immediately after my visit. She left with a guy I assumed was one of the guides. He exited the helicopter with a tour group. They went to her home and she made a call. I can’t help but think it was related.”
“I’ll look into the guides she has working for her. Can you send an image to me? I know you took his picture.”
“Sure, I’ll send it. It’s loaded on the cloud now from my camera.” The ache that had started when she heard about Zoey’s disappearance throbbed harder and deeper. “I feel like we’re not any closer to finding her. Investigating is excruciating when you have a personal stake in it.”
A few moments of silence ticked by, then Liam said, “I completely understand. I have a personal stake in this too.”
“You—” She glanced at him.
His brown eyes had darkened, but warmth emanated from them.
“You don’t mean me,” she said.
“I do.”
She had the strongest sense that he’d planned to say more, and she wanted to hear what he would have said, didn’t she? Rae pushed away the sudden longing. She couldn’t let her thoughts dwell on the what-ifs of their past relationship.
He shifted in his seat. “We’re spreading the net wide, Rae. Doing our best. If Zoey can be found, you’re the one to do it.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
“You believe that too or you wouldn’t be here. So put that confidence into this search and stop worrying so much.”
He’s right. “How do we get into Astor’s house? How do we get up close and personal to see if he really did take revenge and abduct Zoey—or worse?”
As a journalist, she might need to approach and ask him the hard question, to pull that card. But she needed facts, something other than circumstantial evidence, which she didn’t have yet. All she had was conjecture. Inwardly, she growled at herself. Outwardly, she squeezed her fists and wished she could crumple something.
“Let me call the sheriff while we wait. You get on your tablet and do what you do.”
The more she thought about it, the more she itched to face the man. “I don’t think I’m patient enough for a stakeout. We need to do more. Like knock on his door.”
Liam reached for something in the door pocket.
“Binoculars? I didn’t see those before.”
He peered through them. “They’re stashed in my door. Always in the truck. And . . . there’s movement.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
8:30 a.m.
Liam made sure to wait until a couple of cars passed them as he followed Astor out of the neighborhood. Another man rode in the truck with Astor as they took the state highway and headed toward town.
Liam had left a message for Sheriff Taggart, whom he’d gotten to know well enough over the last few months, especially when he assisted in solving a crime when he first returned to Wyoming. Heath and Harper also worked for the sheriff’s department. He hoped that Taggart was looking into Zoey’s disappearance, though she’d gone missing in Colorado. With the stolen laptop and the man who had followed Rae, it seemed plausible that the events here in Wyoming were connected to Zoey’s disappearance.
He stole a glance at Rae now and then. She typed on her tablet. An article? A text to Reggie or someone else? She was in deep thought, so he wouldn’t break her concentration.
His greatest fear had suddenly shifted from not being able to find his way to not being able to keep her safe. And where would his teaming up with her again leave them on the other side of this? Alive?
Or dead?
Again, the images of her abduction, the wide-eyed terror on her bruised face, grated through his mind.
“You okay?” she asked softly as she kept typing.
“I’m fine.” When he fully reined in his emotions about the whole ordeal, he would like to hear her side of what happened—if she had a side that could possibly make sense to him. But dredging that up now wouldn’t help Zoey. Liam struggled to keep thoughts of those black days locked in a box in the corner of his mind for now.
He turned down the road that was becoming all too familiar. Rae put away her tablet.