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The little dog ran toward him, ears back, tail between her legs. She looked terrified. He scooped her up and she burrowed into his arms, shivering.
A cold fear stole through his heart, turning his blood to ice. “Where's your mommy?” He took out his phone to call Jacquie as he looked around the woods for any sign of her. Nothing, and no answer. Next, he called Josh. “Are you withJacquie?” he asked, when Josh answered.
“No, we separated at a fork in the path. She was supposed to check in every ten minutes but hasn’t in the last twenty.”
Chase’s pulse raced. Something was wrong, he felt it deep in his gut. “I found her dog running scared and alone.”
“All right. I’m circling back to the fork where we separated. Continue on the path out of the festival and meet me there.”
“I’ll see you soon.” Chase hung up the phone and took out his gun, listening intently as he followed the trail. He scanned the area for any sign of a disturbance but saw nothing. He’d taken too long searching for Aiden. Was that their plan all along, divide and conquer? He never should have let Jacquie go into the woods alone.
Punching her number into his phone, he called her again. No answer.He disconnected the line, then after a few minutes tried again. And again, wrestling with the panic surging within him. Usually, he was able to stay calm under fire. Usually, he wasn’t so emotionally involved.
If anything happened to her…
He pushed the thought out of his mind and quickened his pace, hugging Jacquie’s little dog to his chest. “We’re going to find her. Don’t you worry.” He realized he was talking to a dog. A half dog. Heck, a quarter of a dog. He dialed her number again.
A few minutes later, he heard a phone ringing in the bushes and found it lying on the ground. He called Josh. “I found her phone. I’ll pin you my location.” Quickly, he searched the area around the clearing but saw no sign of her.
A few minutes later Josh arrived.
“She’s nowhere.”
Josh scraped a hand down his face. “Okay, it hasn’t been that long. She couldn’t have gotten far.”
“I never should have let her go off on her own.”
“Chase, she is a trained Law Enforcement Officer, and a good one. He obviously surprised her. Don’t beat yourself up. I’ve already called for backup. We will find her.”
“Okay, I came from that way,” Chase pointed toward the trail he followed to get there.
“And I was over there. So let’s go this way.” They took the only remaining trail, searching the area around them as they walked, listening for any sounds out of the ordinary. Thirty minutes later they still hadn’t found her. Two more of Josh’s deputies showed up, and they were all scouring the woods.
Anxiety twisted and turned inside Chase’s gut. It had been too long. He had to do something more. They were losing too much time. “I’m tempted to call Ronnie off Sylvia’s room at the hospital to join in the search.”
Josh shook his head. “Don’t. That might be exactly what they want us to do. Sylvia could be their real target.”
Sylvia and Jacquie. Chase thought of Aiden leading him deep into the parking lot. Josh could be right.
“Leave him where he is for now,” Josh said. “I’ve called Jared, who’s reached out to the rest of the firehouse. They are trained in search and rescue. Soon we’ll have so many boots out here, there’s no way she won’t be found.”
She had to be. “Thanks, Josh.”
They would find her, and when they did, he wouldn’t let her out of his sight again. He didn’t know what was happening between them, but right then, he couldn’t fathom the idea of never seeing her again. They’d already lost too much time.
“We have to find her, Josh.”
Josh patted him on the back. “We will. I promise.”
* * *
Jacquie squintedher eyes against the throbbing ache in her head as she woke laying on the dirt floor of an old tobacco barn. Her hands and feet were tied. Her mouth gagged, and dust filled her nose. She looked around the dim shack, her gaze following the rough-hewn pine logs towering above her. She appeared to be alone.
Where was the man with the hoodie? She eyed the area around her as well as she could in the waning light looking for the man, or anything equally revolting like snakes or spiders, but didn’t see any.
How long had she been here? She stretched her shoulders, trying to pull at the binds on her hands. No luck, they were tied tight. She rolled across the dirt floor, working herself into a seated position. She pulled a piece of rock from the ground with her fingers and rubbed it frantically across the binds around her hands, but all she managed to do was scratch her skin.
“Chase,” she tried to yell from behind her gag, but the sound came out muffled and pathetic. She shuffled on her bottom across the dirt floor toward the opening in the wall that wasn’t more than three feet tall. She used both feet to kick at the small door, but something blocked it from the outside.
