Shielding Gillian (Delta Team Two #1) - Susan Stoker Page 0,92

the engine rumble as it started.

No!

She tried to fight some more, but because of her momentarily lapse, the men had gotten the upper hand. One grabbed her wrists and the other zip-tied them together. He tightened them so much, she squeaked in pain.

“Shut up,” one of her kidnappers growled into her face.

She spit on him.

He swore, and the last thing Gillian remembered was his fist coming toward her face.

Trigger couldn’t concentrate on the book he was reading to the group of second-graders gathered around him. He’d been set up in a corner of the classroom with five kids, and he loved their enthusiasm and the way they hung on his every word. But he couldn’t stop thinking about Gillian.

It was two o’clock, and she should’ve been done with her appointment at the caterer and back home well before now.

But every time he checked the app on his phone, it indicated she was still in the parking garage near the caterer. He figured she’d forgotten her phone in her car and maybe she’d taken her client to lunch after they’d chosen which dessert to offer at the anniversary party in a couple weeks.

But that didn’t really make sense. Gillian always had her phone with her. As a small-business owner, she relied on email and phone to talk to new and current clients. She might silence it when she was in a meeting, but she never left it behind. And seeing that blinking icon on the app that said her phone hadn’t moved—long after her meeting should have ended—made no sense to him.

He hadn’t even been able to check in on her until noon, when he and the team had been released to grab a quick bite before heading over to the elementary school. At first he hadn’t thought much about where her phone was pinging, until he’d zoomed in and realized her phone was in the parking garage.

It wasn’t fair to the kids, but Trigger read the book in his hands as fast as he could. He couldn’t let this go. When he was finished, he stood and spent a moment praising each of the kids around him, then he strode toward the door. He flashed the “danger” sign to Lefty before he slipped out of the classroom.

He didn’t bother with texting; he clicked on Gillian’s name and brought the phone up to his ear. With the way his skin was crawling, he didn’t really expect her to answer. And he was right, she didn’t. Her voice mail kicked on after five rings. He left a quick message telling her that he was worried about her and asked her to please call him as soon as possible. He then sent a text telling her the same thing.

By the time he was done, Lefty and Grover had joined him in the hallway.

“What’s wrong?” Lefty asked, all business.

“I don’t know. It’s Gillian. She had an appointment downtown this morning and she should’ve been done by now. The tracking app shows she’s in the parking garage nearby. At least her phone is.”

“You tried calling her?” Grover asked.

Trigger nodded. “No answer.”

“Cops?” Lucky asked.

“You know as well as I do that they’ll just tell me she’s an adult and she doesn’t have to report her every move to me. She’ll have to be missing for twenty-four hours before they’ll consider taking my report,” Trigger said.

“But they could do a welfare check, right?” Grover asked.

“Maybe. I’m headed down there now.”

“You want us to come with?” Lefty asked.

Trigger nodded. “If nothing’s wrong and I’m overreacting, we can all have dinner or something. I’ve got my bag in my car already, since I was headed down there later anyway.”

“But if something is wrong, we’ll be there to have your back,” Grover said. He then opened the classroom door and signaled to the rest of the team that they needed to move out. Within five minutes, Trigger was surrounded by men who hadn’t thought twice about coming to his aid, even if they didn’t know what the issue was.

Lefty explained the situation and within five minutes, they’d all piled into both Trigger’s and Doc’s vehicles to make the trip down to Austin.

Trigger knew he was driving too fast but didn’t care. The closer they got to Austin, and with every call that went unanswered by Gillian, he knew deep in his gut that something was very wrong.

She’d been very good about letting him know her whereabouts. The situation in Venezuela had scared her, but Trigger didn’t think it had fundamentally