My Cruel Salvation (Fallen Saint # 3) - J. Kenner Page 0,95

absolutely hate feeling helpless but that’s how I feel for the next hour, during which time I’m wanting things to happen that are already in motion, but no results have come in yet.

The Saint’s Angels who are in town, like Charlie and Grace and a few others I’d seen at the reception are in the field. Ronan is coordinating from the kitchen. And Reggie—who I hadn’t realized was a whiz on a computer—is working remotely from the Seaside Inn, hacking into the traffic camera system.

Me? I’m feeling useless as I pace the kitchen.

“Excellent,” Ronan says. “Run with that.” He taps his earpiece to mute the call, then tells me that Reggie found an image of a Toyota leaving Fashion Island, and the angle was just enough that it caught a glimpse of the backseat. “Passenger with a bag over their head. Doesn’t get much more certain than that.”

“Right,” I say. “What about more cameras? Can we figure out the route?”

“We’re working on it. And we’re coordinating with the police, too,” he says, making me look up in surprise. “Really?”

“Whatever it takes. And everyone on the team is a legitimately licensed investigator. Reggie called the license plate in and an APB went out. Anyone sees it, we’ll hear about it. And in the meantime, we’re searching ourselves.”

Thirty minutes later there’s a knock on the door. I check the security app, then frown when I see it’s Reggie.

“Why are you here?” I demand. “You’re supposed to be watching the traffic cameras.”

She’s pale and looks tired, her straight brown hair pulled back from her head in a ponytail. She pinches the bridge of her nose as she looks between Ronan and me. “We’ve hit a dead-end,” she says. “Ellie, I’m so sorry. We’ll pick him up again, but right now we’re completely blind.”

My whole body goes icy-cold. “What are you talking about?”

“We were tracking the Toyota. We managed to find it on some traffic cams. They were heading east on Interstate 10.”

“Okay, okay. What happened?”

“We lost it, but we figured we’d pick it up again. We usually do, and we’ve got a lot of resources across the state. The trouble is, we found the car.”

“What do you mean you found the car?”

She looks at Ronan. “Abandoned,” she says. “In an area where we can’t find any cameras to tell us what happened next. We assume that Devlin and Brandy were transferred to another vehicle, but we don’t know what it looks like and we don’t know where it went.”

“Oh my God,” I hear myself saying. “No, no, no.”

I feel the pressure of Ronan’s hand on my shoulder and his calm voice saying, “We’ll find them again.” That’s all he says, but it makes me feel slightly better, though I don’t know why. We don’t have a single goddamn lead.

“Where is the car exactly?” I ask. “And who found it?”

“Local police found the car,” Reggie says gently. “It’s in Riverside, and our best guess is that they’re taking them up into the mountains. But it’s just a guess.”

“Shit,” Ronan says. “Cameras are limited up there, and with all the abandoned buildings and homes closed for the off-season, this is going to be a challenge. I’m sorry, Ellie,” he says, “but I can’t sugarcoat this for you.”

I shake my head. “No. I wouldn’t want you to. I just...” My voice trails off, and Reggie reaches out and puts a hand against my back. The pressure is nice. It steadies me. But it’s not enough. “So what’s our next step?”

“We’ll keep looking, obviously. We’ll get maps of the area and see if there’s anything that looks isolated enough that it might appeal to whoever abducted them, then we’ll send a team in to check each place one by one. But it’s a lot of space. Honestly, our best hope may be to wait until they contact us.”

“Do you think they will?”

“I hope so,” Ronan says. “But if this is about revenge...”

I don’t need to hear the rest. I know what it means. Devlin and Brandy are in terrible trouble, and we’re completely at a loss as to how to save them.

My phone is vibrating, and I look down, desperately hoping that it will be from Devlin, but knowing that it won’t be. I yank it out of my back pocket and pull it out. Then gasp as I read the message on my lock screen.

They die at dawn.

I don’t even realize that my knees have gone weak until Ronan reaches out to steady me. He takes