Decker smiled wryly. "Good of you to notice."
Dani merely stared at him, her eyes moving over his naked chest and then to the side to peer down the length of his side and back. A slow, burning heat entered her eyes, and her tongue slid out to lick her lips. It was an unconscious action, he was sure, but was enough to make more blood rush to his groin and have him hardening further. Growling under his breath, Decker lowered his head to kiss her, but found himself kissing her fingers as her hand suddenly appeared over her mouth.
"Stephanie," Dani said when he raised his head, her voice hard and cold again.
Decker hesitated briefly, and then sighed and rolled off her, taking the sheet with him. He then closed his eyes, trying to gather his thoughts as he felt the bed shift as she sat up beside him.
"Sam said you were up all night looking for..."
Made curious by her sudden pause, Decker opened his eyes to find her staring at his groin with a wide, startled gaze. Following her glance, he wasn't surprised to find a small tent resurrected there, but she apparently was. He didn't know why. Surely she'd felt his erection while he was lying on her?
"You were saying?" he prompted dryly.
"What?" Dani turned to peer at his face, then flushed and cleared her throat before continuing, "What happened at the airport? Didn't they get Stephanie?"
"No," he answered simply.
She frowned at the unhelpful answer, worry tugging at her features, and then asked, "And the man who took her?"
"He got away too," Decker said on a sigh.
"Too?" Dani asked, frowning over his choice of words. "You mean with her, don't you? He took her with him. It's not like she fled on her own."
"We aren't sure," he said, and then sat up on the bed to lean against the wall as he explained, "When Bricker and I got there, the three SUVs were all stopped in the middle of the lane at the back of the parking garage, but there was no one in sight. We didn't know where everyone was or even which enforcers belonged to those two SUVs. You were still asleep and I didn't want to leave you there alone, so we decided to check the SUV."
"What did you find?" she asked tensely.
"Nothing," Decker assured her.
Dani closed her eyes with obvious relief, and he knew she'd feared there might be blood or something else to suggest Stephanie had been hurt. He was glad he could reassure her that much. Nothing else he had to say was likely to.
"Lucian showed up just as I was about to call Bastien," he continued. "He knew who the volunteers were and called them himself. They'd just finished searching the airport and were on the way back so we waited there for them."
"Volunteers?" she interrupted sharply before he could continue. "You mean enforcers, don't you?"
"No. I mean volunteers. Toronto is huge, and there weren't enough enforcers in the area to cover everywhere. Bastien called in volunteers to help in the search," he admitted tightly, thinking that if the men in the first two SUVs had been enforcers rather than volunteers, things would have gone much differently and they would no doubt have Stephanie there safe and sound right now. Unfortunately, that wasn't what had happened.
"What happened to Stephanie?" Dani asked impatiently when he remained silent.
Sighing, he ran a hand through his hair and recounted what they'd been told. "When the first SUV caught up to the stolen one it was already in the parking garage. They followed it, and then our second SUV showed up and they were able to force it to a halt. But when they rushed it, there was only Stephanie inside."
"What?" Dani gasped with amazement, and then shook her head. "No way, Stephanie just turned fifteen. She doesn't have a license. She hasn't even tried a practice run or know how to drive," she said firmly, and then sighed as she added, "I was going to take her out to the country to teach her this summer."
"She was driving, Dani," he said quietly, and then added, "He was probably controlling her."
"Oh," she said unhappily, and then frowned and asked, "How could they possibly lose her?"
Decker continued grimly, "When they asked her where her kidnapper was, she told them he'd ordered her to turn into the parking garage and keep driving around in circles and then jumped out as she slowed to turn in."
"And she did it?" Dani said with confusion. "Why didn't she immediately drive off to find help? Why-?"
"He could have been still controlling her, Dani," Decker said gently.
She swallowed and nodded. "Go on. What happened next?"
"The men were afraid the rogue was trying to get away by plane, so they told her to stay put, that they'd take her to her sister as soon as they got back, and then ran into the airport to hunt for him."
"They didn't just leave her there alone," she said with disbelief. "Volunteers or not, they couldn't have been that stupid."