Hide & Seek - Nicole Edwards Page 0,42
including her only child.
“Kate has nightmares,” Travis said softly. “Every night she wakes up screamin’, terrified she’s back in that house, abandoned.”
Brantley remembered how the little girl had been cuffed to that bed, left all alone. Seeing her like that had sent a surge of rage through him, so he understood. They still had no idea how long Kate had been there like that or how long she would’ve remained that way if Brantley and his team hadn’t pinned down her location.
“I have nightmares,” Travis admitted, the words barely above a whisper. “I wake up in a cold sweat, Brantley. This is my fault.”
“The hell it is,” he snapped, leaning forward and planting his elbows on his thighs. “You’re not responsible for Juliet’s life unraveling.”
“Maybe not, but it sure feels like it.”
The man was defeated. Brantley could see it in his eyes, in the lines around them.
“What does the FBI know?” he asked.
“Not a fuckin’ thing. She simply vanished into thin air.”
Relaxing again, Brantley decided to tell Travis about the changes he was making to the task force, the effort he was putting in so they would have more time and resources.
“With more people, we can split up the work, get some of those cases underway. As for Juliet Prince, I can assign—”
“You,” Travis interrupted. “I don’t want anyone else, Brantley. You and Reese. I want you to find her, and I want…”
It was there in those shimmering eyes that he saw the truth of what Travis wanted. Not only did he want Juliet Prince found, he wanted her dealt with.
“I can’t do that, Travis,” he whispered. “You can’t do that. We will bring her to justice. And we’ll see to it that she’s dealt with accordingly. But I can’t…” Eliminate her.
Their gazes held for long seconds. Travis was the one to fold first, leaning back and taking a deep breath.
“I need you to find her,” he said, calmer now. “And when you do, I want to be the one to go with you to retrieve her.”
Brantley knew he couldn’t commit to that. Not until he knew Travis wasn’t going to go off and do something incredibly stupid. The last thing anyone needed was for Travis to end up in prison for killing a woman who wasn’t worth the brain power it took to think about her.
“I’ll pay you, Brantley,” Travis blurted. “A million dollars.”
He was serious.
“I don’t want your money,” Brantley said, keeping his voice level. “You’re family, Travis. I won’t take your money. But we will find her. I can’t promise it’ll be me, though. I’ve got a brilliant team and I’ll utilize them the best way possible. We won’t stop lookin’ until we find her. That’ll have to be enough.”
He didn’t look happy, but there was a little less strain around his mouth. “It’s more than I have now.”
“That’s not true. We never stopped lookin’ for her. JJ’s got alerts set up in the event she’s seen. She runs facial recognition software all the time. We haven’t left you high and dry.”
Brantley wanted to find the woman, too. Could they dedicate more time, more resources to finding her? Yeah. And he would.
“I need to know my kids are safe,” Travis said, a plea in his tone, something Brantley had never heard from him before.
“I understand.” Brantley stood. “We’ll keep at it. I’ll juggle the remodeling I’ve got underway and make this a priority.”
Travis got to his feet. “What remodeling?”
He explained about adding a conference room to the barn and Reese’s idea to convert two of the bedrooms into offices and add the deck to the back of the house.
“I’ll take care of it,” Travis stated, walking around his desk.
“What?” Brantley shook his head, laughed. “No, that’s not what I meant.”
“I know.” Travis’s face was stony. “I owe you, Brantley. I owe you and Reese for bringin’ my baby girl home. I can never repay you completely. So let me do this.”
Because he knew Travis was a man who didn’t want anything for free, Brantley agreed. He would take Travis’s assistance because it was a surefire way of ensuring things got done.
***
After meeting with Trey, showing him around, Reese ended up working from the kitchen island for much of the afternoon to avoid JJ and Baz. Then, with JJ keeping an eye on Tesha, he rode with Baz to meet Charlotte Miller, a.k.a. Charlie, at the Coyote Ridge bakery at fourteen hundred to discuss the opportunity with the team.
After only fifteen minutes, Reese understood why Baz was so