cared for a few, but never like this.
Dante was a man in love. There was no going back.
I should have said the words.
The sedan tires squealed as he whipped into Cherokee Pines. At the same moment, his cell started ringing. It was Turner. Dante would have to call the sheriff back. With no sight of the Cadillac in front, Dante continued on to the rear, where a cluster of women were gathered near the delivery door. They looked up in surprise at the sound of his car and backed away.
Dante jumped out, immediately assessing, calculating. He saw it almost immediately—Tanyalee’s pearls, broken and pressed into a mound of smeared cake and icing, the white cardboard of a bakery box crushed against the stoop.
“I can’t believe you got here so fast,” one of the women said. “I called the sheriff no more than ninety seconds ago!”
Dante heard his heart pounding in his ears. Seconds mattered. Tanyalee and Fern were in deep shit.
“I’m Louellen Lukins,” the woman said. “I’m Mr. Miller’s secretary, and a few moments ago our kitchen staff found all this mess out here and came to get me. On my way back to the office to call the sheriff, I noticed someone had broken in to the safe.”
Good—Turner was on his way.
“Take me to the safe, Mrs. Lukins. Now, please. And ladies…”—he gestured to the smeared cake and the entire parking lot—“keep everyone away from the area, including the kitchen. Don’t touch or move anything. Don’t touch the door. Don’t let anyone touch anything.”
They nodded enthusiastically.
As Dante hurried through the kitchen with Mrs. Lukins, he spied two undamaged bakery boxes carefully placed on a countertop. That meant whatever happened to Fern and Tanyalee took place just seconds after his phone conversation with her, now exactly one hour ago.
A lot of bad shit could happen in an hour.
They raced down two hallways and into the administration area. All the while Dante kept his eyes sharp while allowing his mind to twist and rotate every available snippet of information.
The pearls.
The pearls meant it had been a violent encounter, against her will, sudden, an ambush, maybe. It happened in the middle of the delivery because some boxes made it safely inside. The Cadillac was gone, and if that thing was driven out of here, there would surely be witnesses.
He would find Taffy and Fern. There was no other option.
Dante felt his entire body ticking. He had become a living stopwatch, pounding out the time with his heart and breath. The seconds ticked by like precious jewels, each second a lost fortune. Options were narrowed. Outcomes diminished.
“Right in here.” Mrs. Lukins gestured through the open door of an office in complete disarray. The door to a commercial floor safe was flung wide, revealing an empty interior.
Tick, tick, tick …
“Did you see anything? Anyone?”
She shook her head. “No, not at all! Mr. Miller was in here like usual. I was catching up on some data entry and billing, and—”
“Where’s Miller now?”
She was flustered. “I have no idea! I don’t know! His car is out back but he’s not here! I think something may have happened to him, and honestly, I can’t fathom that something like this could happen again!”
The word clicked in Dante’s brain. Again. He could hear the individual bits of information sliding along each other and locking into place. Of course. Spivey’s son Gerrall had worked for Miller here at Cherokee Pines. Gerrall kidnapped Miller and Candy Carmichael and drove them to the Spivey complex, where he gagged and tied them to chairs. Turner found them like that when he busted down the door to Spivey’s trailer.
So how did an innocent administrator get abducted twice in four months? The answer was simple—he wasn’t innocent and he was up to more than just administrating.
A familiar smell touched his nostrils. He leaned into the safe and sniffed. Yep. Gun oil.
Dante’s gaze raced across the office walls covered with framed photographs. There was Miller cutting a ribbon at a construction site. Miller eating a hot dog at the Cherokee Pines annual picnic. Miller playing cards with residents.
Miller was an overweight man.
The words escaped from his mouth. “He’s the Fat Man.”
Mrs. Lukins gasped. “I’ll have you know he’s lost at least forty-five pounds in the last—”
“Nobody goes in here until the police arrive, do you understand?”
Her mouth hung open in shock, but she nodded.
Dante raced out of the office, down the hallways, through the kitchen, and out the back, still under the watchful eye of the