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Cruz swept his cowboy hat off his head and frowned. “We found tire tracks behind the shed. Paxton, does anyone ever park back there?”
“No. Never.” She stepped out of Gavin’s hold and crossed her arms over her chest.
“Let me grab your things really quick,” Gavin said and headed out the door.
“Tread marks are thick and sunk into the grass pretty deep. I’m guessing a bigger vehicle was back there. Chances are he put Izzy in there and took off,” Brooke said, pinching the bridge of her nose. She’d pulled her mess of brown hair into a high ponytail. Concern outweighed the exhaustion in her eyes.
Beau propped his elbows on the table and framed his face with his hands, digging the tips of his fingers into the corners of his closed eyes. “What good does that do us if we don’t know anything about the vehicle or where it’s going?”
“It’s a start,” Cruz said. “I sent pictures of the tread marks to my brother in Nashville. Lincoln’s got a ton of connections. He’s looking for a better match on the tires. If we can get that, it will point us to a more specific model of the vehicle.”
“And by that time, there’s no telling how far away she’ll be.” Beau hung his head and rested his hands at the back of his neck. Failure pressed down on his shoulders like a fifty-pound weight. He was supposed to keep Izzy safe, and he’d failed.
Gavin emerged from the backdoor with Beau’s duffle bag. He tossed the bag to Beau.
Beau snatched it from the air and riffled through until he found his shirt. He shoved it over his head, the pain from his wound barely registering through the haze of horror around his brain.
The front door flung open, followed by rapid footsteps down the hall. Izzy’s mom burst into the kitchen, her face puffy and tears pouring over her cheeks. “What happened? Where the hell is my Izzy?”
Beau lifted his head and faced Izzy’s mom. Guilt crushed his windpipe. “I’m so sorry. I should have stopped him.”
Sue turned toward him with wide eyes, and her face fell impossibly farther. She pressed her hand to her mouth. A soft moan emanated from her throat, and she swayed.
Paxton rushed to her side and held her up. “We found her once. We’ll do it again.”
“Why is this happening? She’s already been through enough.” Sue wailed, the words coming out between panicked sobs.
Beau swallowed the hard ball of emotion and stood, wincing as pain shot up his leg. “We need to do something. I can’t sit here and wait for pieces of information that may or may not help us. Did you find anything at all in the woods today that could help us figure out who the hell has Izzy or where he’d take her?”
Cruz scratched the back of his neck and shared a quick glance with Brooke. “We followed some broken branches and footprints, which all led us to Kasie.”
“What about after you found her?” Beau asked. “Did anyone stay on the trail? Keep looking for where it led?”
Brooke nodded. “Grace did. She said it turned cold. The only things she found that were out of place were some discarded construction materials.”
Beau furrowed his brow, mind spinning. “What kind of materials?”
“A couple nails. Ripped fabric from a safety vest.” Brooke shrugged. “Nothing too surprising so close to a construction site.”
Something didn’t sit well with Beau as he tossed around the new information. “The chains Cruz found in the cabin were relatively new, and the construction started about a week ago, right?”
“Yes,” Brooke said. “What are you thinking?”
“That it’s a pretty damn big coincidence that all this started happening again right when a new crew came to work at the retreat. What if someone on the crew stuck around, got the job to stay close to Izzy?”
Brooke’s eyes widened. “You think someone working on the construction crew took her?”
“Everything that’s happened leads back to the same place,” Cruz said. “If the leaders of this trafficking ring wanted to make sure Izzy didn’t become a problem, what better way than to stay close? To scope out the one place they’d used to keep girls before transporting them onto the next location?”
“Oh my God,” Sue said, falling into one of the kitchen chairs. “What does this mean?”
Beau met Cruz’s stare. “That we need to get to the retreat. Now.”
8
“Let me go,” Izzy yelled, her voice muffled against the hard rocks covering the ground. Anger rushed through her like a waterfall, demanding her to fight. She hadn’t gone through all this just for someone else to show up and take her.
With her face on the jagged stones, she spied Cory under the truck. His eyes closed. Blood staining the gravel. She swiveled onto her butt and peddled away from the gut-wrenching scene.
