Her kidnapper’s eyes suddenly opened, and he rolled his head on the neck rest of the armchair until he was facing her. “You’ve got spunk. I’ll give you that. So, a word of warning. If you high tail it off to Dark Falls and start poking around, you’re asking for trouble. The kind of bozos Mitch is mixed up with don’t play nice. If you get too close, you’re liable to end up sharing an unmarked grave with your brother.”
Her mouth tightened. Easy for him to say. His brother wasn’t missing, possibly dead.
It was only August eighth. School didn’t start for three weeks. The lesson plans and prep work were already done for the starting of the year, so she could afford to take off for Dark Falls. She’d be careful, walk on eggshells, keep as low a profile as possible. But she was going to Dark Falls. She was going to find her brother.
Assuming her kidnapper released her come morning as he claimed.
Chapter Six
His jaw clenched so tight it ached, Tag glared out the windshield of his Dodge Ram. What a waste of time. Cruising the streets in search of the kidnapper’s car just burned gas and hiked his blood pressure. There was no sign of the Chevy Impala Sarah and Langley had been forced into. No sign of Mitch. No fucking clue to point him toward a fucking destination.
Hell, the kidnapper—along with Sarah and Langley—was probably long gone by now. Which meant these last three hours amounted to nothing but busywork.
They’d lucked out when the coffee shop video had clearly shown the women being forced, at gunpoint, into a white sedan. Their luck had continued when the car had backed up, pulled a u-ey, and exited the parking lot. The make, model, and license plate of the sedan had been clearly visible on the video footage.
After that, their luck had died. The license plate had come back as registered to a Ford Taurus, which meant the bastard had swapped his car’s plates with someone else’s. The registered owners hadn’t even known their Taurus’s plates were missing until the police swarmed them.
Considering there were a ton of Impalas registered throughout San Diego, it would take the police forever to check them all out. Hell, they didn’t even know if the asshole was local. If he’d hit town specifically to grab the girls, they’d never find out who the damn car belonged to.
So here he sat, spinning his fucking wheels and getting nowhere fast.
When his phone buzzed, his hand flashed out to snatch it up, he was that desperate for an update.
“We have the Impala on a red-light camera heading east on Pomerado at 10:20 a.m.” Rio’s voice was all business.
Ten-twenty? Fuck. They could be anywhere by now. Annoyance kicked his headache up a notch.
He locked the frustration down and concentrated. “What intersection?”
“Pomerado and Willow Creek.”
That was damn close to the turn off to Sarah’s place, although the kidnapper hadn’t taken them there. Rio had sent someone to the house, so they knew the place was clean.
The intersection was also over twenty minutes away. He’d been canvassing the wrong end of town. Not that it mattered, since the Impala had already been long gone by the time he’d found out Sarah was missing.
“We’re increasing patrols to the area and notifying the state patrol in case he doubles back to I-15.”
Tag nodded absently. If the camera had caught the vehicle east of the I-15 exit, then he wasn’t headed out of town. Or at least not yet or via 15. Maybe Sarah’s abductor was holing up somewhere and waiting for Mitch to contact him about the ransom.
Assuming the girls had been taken by Mitch’s business associate.
“Have Langley’s parents gotten a call from anyone?” he asked.
“Negative.” Rio’s voice was flat.
Tag frowned. If the bastard who had them was after Mitch’s money, what would he do when he discovered Mitch had no intention of paying the ransom? Flinching, Tag rubbed his temples. Yeah, thinking too hard on that question was just going to bump his headache up to a migraine.
He’d run countless recons out in the field. And there had been plenty of ops where they’d had to hole up for days at a time while they awaited intel. But never before had he been so tense and antsy after a mere couple hours of waiting.
He took a right at the next intersection and headed for I-15 and then Pomerado. Fifteen minutes later he pulled up to the