Special Forces Father - By Mallory Kane Page 0,56

was there. He was dressed in a sport coat and tie and was looking at the laptop, where Travis had left Google Maps on the screen. When Ryker saw Travis, he stood and held out his hand. Travis took it and they shook hands.

“Dawson filled me in—” Ryker started, but Travis broke in.

“He’s got Kate.”

“What?”

“The kidnapper’s got Kate,” Travis repeated. “He must have gotten there while I was here talking to Dawson. There was a smear of blood on a water glass, so he may have hit her.”

“What else did you see?”

“One of her shoes was lying in the middle of the living room. Her purse and phone were gone but today’s mail was sitting on the kitchen counter. So she’d been home a little while before he grabbed her.”

“Do you think she opened the door to him?” Ryker asked.

A terrible thought occurred to Travis. “He probably rang the bell. She’d have thought it was me.”

“So she opened the door without question.”

Travis nodded bleakly. “I’m sure she did.”

“Okay, so we now have two to rescue.”

At that second the door to the warehouse opened and Dawson came in with a young woman dressed all in black. She had midnight-blue hair and about seven or eight gold studs running up and down her left ear, and one long feather earring in her right. She was also wearing black fingerless gloves and black motorcycle boots. Both she and Dawson carried large, hard-sided metal cases.

“Hey, Ryke. Trav. This is Dusty.”

Travis was surprised. He probably shouldn’t have been, but he’d have sworn he’d heard Dawson refer to his computer wiz as he. He nodded to her. She met his gaze and he saw that she had pale gray eyes—they were almost colorless. She nodded back.

“Hi, Dusty,” Ryker said. “We met a few years ago when I was helping Dawson on a case.”

She nodded at him, then walked over to the table and set the case down on it. She popped the locks and started unloading electronic equipment. Dawson set the other case beside hers and opened it. “I’ll leave you to set up the equipment,” he said. “We’re going to talk strategy.”

Dawson pulled a chair to the far side of the long table. Ryker sat in a chair next to him and Travis sat next to Ryker. Just as Dawson opened his mouth, the door opened again and Lucas came in.

Travis had known he was coming, but he still felt self-conscious and embarrassed to face his older brother, after coming back to New Orleans without calling him or anyone else in his family.

“Trav, you son of a gun,” Lucas said, grinning.

Travis got up and went to him, holding out his hand. Lucas grabbed it then pulled Travis into a full-on bear hug. Travis gave it right back to him. “Hey, Lucas,” he said.

After about thirty seconds, Lucas pushed Travis to arm’s length and looked at him. “What the hell happened to you?” he asked. “Last time you were home, you were bulked up like a bodybuilder. You look like you’ve lost twenty-five pounds.”

“Twenty,” Travis corrected him. “I had a rough tour.”

Lucas nodded and narrowed his gaze. “You were captured,” he said, not a question.

Travis waved a hand. “I’m fine,” he said. “Let’s get started figuring out how to rescue Kate and Max.”

“Kate and—?” Lucas said.

“Kate and Max?” Dawson spoke over Lucas. “What do you mean, Kate and Max?” he finished.

“When I got to Kate’s house this evening, she was gone. Her car was there but her purse and phone weren’t. One of her shoes was in the living room and a glass of water had a blood smear on it. She spent all morning and most of the afternoon at the bank and the credit union. I think she was gathering all the cash she could. I don’t know if she has savings or got loans, but she told me yesterday that she was taking care of the kidnapper, so I’m sure he called her and she told him she had money.”

“Damn,” Dawson said on an exhalation.

Lucas used more colorful language.

“Yeah,” Travis said. “So what are we going to do?”

Ryker stood and smoothed his tie. “First of all, Travis, I think we need to talk about how we’re going to handle this. Reilly’s waiting with two off-duty SWAT team members who volunteered to help us out. They’re at Airline Highway and U.S. 51, waiting for my signal to go in.”

Travis rounded on Ryker. “You’re sending a SWAT team in? What are you thinking? You can’t