Page 80 of Her Forever SEAL

He was already dialing Sophia. It rang once.

“Mason—”

“I just got a text. Photo of Kayla and a trade offer. Number's already dead.” He was pulling up the forward screen as he talked. “I'm sending it to you right now.”

A pause. He heard Rylie's voice in the background, sharp and immediate.

“Got it,” Sophia said. “We've got it.”

“Give it to Lydia. I need everything she can pull off that number before the trail goes cold. Carrier, cell tower, anything.”

“Already on it.” That was Lydia's voice, closer now, and he could hear that she was already three steps into the problem.

“God, Mason.” Sophia’s voice trailed off. She was seeing what he’d seen. Their daughter on a concrete floor, her eyes barely open, small and cold and very far from home.

“We’re going to get her, Sophia. I swear it to you.”

“When are you coming back?” Sophia asked.

“Soon. I love you.” He ended the call and looked over at Angie. She’d been looking over his shoulder. She knew exactly what was going on.

He pulled a breath in through his nose. Let it out.

One thing at a time.

“Each piece is a waiting game,” Angie whispered.

“I know.”

They both stared out the windshield, waiting to see who might head up to Mrs. Kowalski’s apartment.

Eighteen minutes later, a beat-to-shit white Ford truck double-parked in front of the apartment building and a skinny man wearing a Padres jersey hustled out and went upstairs. He came out carrying a cat carrier that appeared to be actively fighting him. Mason could hear it from half a block away—a low, continuous sound somewhere between a growl and a threat, punctuated by the occasional sharp impact of something hitting the interior walls of the carrier.

The man swore under his breath, switched his grip, swore again.

Mason looked at Angie.

Angie looked at Mason.

“That's our guy,” she said.

He got into his truck, and almost managed to run into the one car that was driving along the road. It was almost like he’d tried. They followed him onto the 5 on-ramp, which Mason had not expected. After five miles he jerked his wheel, and almost ran off the road.

Angie snorted. “I bet it was the cat.”

Mason couldn’t find it in himself to laugh. Nothing was funny. There was only Kayla.

The man finally took an exit off the freeway into a residential neighborhood in San Clemente that was quiet in the late hours where most people were in bed.

This time the man actually made an attempt at parallel parking, scraped against a silver Prius’ bumper, then decided to double park. He reached in and retrieved the cat carrier from the back seat.

Whatever was inside it had not calmed down.

Mason could hear it from two car lengths back. So could Angie, judging by her expression.

They watched him walk up the path toward a small stucco bungalow, beige, terra cotta trim, the kind of place that looked exactly like the six houses on either side of it. He was swearing continuously now, low and inventive, the carrier swinging and rattling in his grip as something inside it hit the door again, hard, with what sounded like spite.

The latch gave.