She fumbled with the keys, and after locating the right one, shoved it across the desk.
Archer clamped the key in his fist and ran for room twelve. When he burst in, he saw empty space. Lamp on. Blankets rumpled as if she’d been sitting on the bed.
Her phone was there.
He stared at it for a brutal heartbeat before snatching it up. “She doesn’t have it on her,” he grated out.
“Fuck! No way to track her.”
Archer turned so fast the room blurred. “Call Cannon.”
O already had his phone in hand.
Archer was out the door and hitting the parking lot at a dead run before the call ever connected. O blasted out right behind him. The snow had picked up, slashing sideways beneath the parking lights and already erasing every tire track in the lot.
Archer dropped into a crouch near the edge of the plowed lane, scanning tire impressions while O called the team.
He tapped into the calm buried under layers of rage and terror in his mind and forced himself tothink.
He sorted through the overlapping mess of tires from motel guests and delivery trucks, tourists and snowmobiles.
“There.” O pointed at one.
Archer stared at the narrower set of tracks peeling away from the main parking lot and running up the low rise leading away from the motel, along with about ten other sled tracks.
His eyes blurred on the trail as fresh emotion hit.
Jolie was out there, terrified, maybe hurt, while he just stood here.
He threw his head back and let out a howl of pain, the sound like a wounded animal.
O’s arm came around him, holding him. “Easy.”
He did something he’d never done before—he drew strength from his brother-in-arms.
He collected himself, jaw set, staring at the tracks until headlights panned over them.
Cannon’s lead vehicle came in hot with Rome and Townie in a second towing a trailer with sleds behind, and a third vehicle bringing up the rear with the rest of the team, loaded for weather and armed for trouble.
Cannon took one look at Archer’s face and looked at O. “Report.”
“Fresh crossover tracks out the side lot, mixed with snowmobile traffic once they hit the old service road.”
Rome was already kneeling in the snow, gloved hand tracing the tread pattern while the wind whipped.
He pushed to his feet. “They cut northeast.”
Townie swung toward the field, the snow driving at his face and nearly snatching every word he said. “The logging road goes to a dead end. There’s only one standing structure in the direction of these tracks.”
Archer met his gaze.
“Old miner’s cabin.”
The snow fell in bigger, heavier flakes, as if whoever had kidnapped Jolie commanded the weather to provide him cover.
“This keeps up another thirty minutes and we’ll lose the tracks,” he ground out.
“We move now.” No one argued with Cannon’s order.
