“Don’t do anything stupid. We don’t need to worry about you while trying to rescue everyone.”
“Don’t try to stop me.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Glover said in a wry voice.
Liam hung up, then found Sam’s number and called it. It rang a couple times and then went to voicemail. Her phone was on, but she’d chosen to ignore him.
He dialed Kennedy and told her to add Sam’s number to the ping list.
He tried Sam again. Same thing. A couple rings, then voicemail.
Lead filled his stomach. Why had she given Glover the slip, and why wasn’t she answering her phone?
His phone rang. The display on his dash flashed Kennedy at the Marshals’ office. “Tell me you got something.”
“I’m still not able to ping the girls’ phones, but that last number you gave me is on and tracking south on the highway toward Industrial Park Road.”
They had a current location, but was she actually headed to Ashbend? Liam wanted to believe that she’d told the truth and wasn’t causing some type of distraction so she could go out on her own to save the girls. “Would that take her to Ashbend Industrial Park?”
“That’s the most direct route, yes.”
Good. “Keep an eye on that phone, and let me know if it goes anywhere other than Ashbend. I’ll start heading that way.” Liam switched on his turn signal and busted a U-turn, then activated the lights and sirens.
What could the suspect possibly want with his niece and Sam and Bella? Dread filled his gut. “We need to find them.”
Sam had a twenty-minute head start on him. He pushed the SUV harder. A lot could happen in twenty minutes. All of it bad. His chest tightened at the thought. Liam gripped the steeringwheel until his knuckles were white. He veered around cars that refused to yield to emergency lights or just stopped in the middle of the street instead of pulling to the right.
He slowed at intersections, making sure they yielded before speeding through. The last thing Sam and the girls needed was for him to be in a wreck and unable to make it to them. As it was, he wasn’t sure he would make it in time.
“Lord, please. I need them.”
He’d needed his fugitive apprehension job, and God had taken that away to give him this life. Would God allow him to lose Sam and Isabella—and Sophia? Liam had to trust, no matter what happened.
But he knew what he wanted.
He wasn’t sure where or when his relationship with Samantha and Isabella had changed from handler and witnesses to whatever it was now.
It had probably started the day of the shooting, if not way before that, but seeing Sam unconscious and vulnerable in that hospital bed had undone him. Knowing it was a targeted attack only made it worse, because he had no idea who wanted her and why.
If they made it through—no,whenthey made it through this, he would need to seriously consider whether he should continue to be their handler. But first, he had to find them.
He couldn’t bear the thought of losing them before he’d ever really had them. Sam had become so much more to him than just a witness.
And having to tell his sister that something had happened to Sophia would destroy them both.
His phone started to ring. Samantha’s name flashed on the dash. He pushed the Answer button. “Sam, where are you?”
“I just got to Ashbend Industrial Park. I’m sure Glover’s already told you, but someone has the girls. They told me to come alone.”
“You know it’s a trap. You need to wait for me. I’m ten minutes out.”
“That’s too long. What if something happens to them before you can get here? I’m going to go in and try to stall as long as I can.”
He gripped the steering wheel. “Why didn’t you just answer the phone and tell me where you were heading?”
“Because you’d tell me to stop. And I might have listened.” She hiccupped.
“I know me telling you not to go in won’t stop you but”—he had to try—“don’t go in. Sam, you need to wait for me.”
