“Clear.”
“Clear.”
Voice after voice locked down the house. This run-down place was their best chance to find Jules.
“Clear,” Rhys bit out.
“Down,” someone barked. “Get your face on the ground.”
Hope flamed.
“Target acquired.”
Rhys hustled toward the takedown location. Questions and answers roared through his comms. None of the chatter told him what he wanted to hear, that Jules had been found.
The last of the house was cleared. No Jules.
Rhys backed against the barren wall. Paint flaked onto his shoulders. He’d led them to this location, to her abductor. But he’d been too late. She wasn’t there.
He was never emotionally invested in his assignments. He couldn’t be. If he slowed down to process the ugly side of humanity that he saw day in, day out, he’d lose his mind.
Except this case, this woman… The details were burned into his brain, as usual, but he couldn’t push them away. No one else could have pulled this jigsaw puzzle of an investigation together the way he had. He just hadn’t done it fast enough.
Menendez stopped in front of him. “You good?”
Rhys shrugged, offering an unconvincing, “Yeah.”
“You did good,” Menendez said. “You got us here.”
“Lot of good that did.” Rhys dropped his chin and stared at the floorboards. Voices carried through them on a cold winter draft. “She has to be here.”
“He’ll tell us where she is.” Menendez clapped Rhys on the shoulder then headed downstairs.
The evidence response team had been called from their standby location. Rhys needed to vacate the house. How had they come all the way here only for him to miss a key detail?
Threading his hand through his hair, he sifted through what he knew for a singular puzzle piece that had eluded him. He could see it all—the months of text messages between Jules Lowry and Jordan Everett; their emails; the photographs; videos that had been exchanged between Jules and the person she’d thought she knew. The fucker who’d stolen her away when no one even thought she was gone.
God, they’d lost so much time.
Rhys crossed his arms. They’d find her. Maybe they didn’t have the correct property schematic. Did the house have an old root cellar? An unmarked storm shelter? They’d find it.
At the top of the stairs, he stopped at the dusty window and took in the expanse. A pristine snow-covered field lay behind the house. The horse pastures hadn’t seen an animal in years. The fences lay in disrepair. Posts and boards splintered and rotted away like the house.
His heart stopped. He took a step back, narrowing his attention on the dusty window, which had several smudges that might have been left by an oily forehead and greasy nose repeatedly pressed against the glass.
An ERT forensics guy stopped at the base of the stairs. “Hey, you gotta get out of here. HRT’s regrouping with Herring.”
Drone footage didn’t show much except for dilapidated outbuildings that were unaccessed and surrounded by untouched snow. Herring would have the hostage-rescue teamsearch the property anyway, despite the run-down shed and an old barn turning up zero heat signatures. If Jules were out there, the job would be nothing more than recovery.
Except why did the windows have the same pattern of smudges? It was as though someone had pressed their face against it time and time again. What had held Jordan Everett’s attention? He squinted and barely saw the old barn.
Shit.He pounded down the stairs and over the remains of the crumbled door.
“Callaghan,” Special Agent in Charge Herring yelled then called into the comms.
Rhys didn’t stop. His boots sank into the snow.
“Get your ass over here,” Herring snapped. “What the hell—Callaghan. That’s an order.”
