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I reminded myself to keep my cool. I didn’t know this woman well, but she’d never struck me as the kind of person who just made shit up for the hell of it. “I’m going to need you to talk to me like I’m five years old. What are you talking about? I’ve done no such thing.”
“I don’t know why I bothered calling you,” Amber said. “I should’ve known you’d take his side.” There was a slight hitch in her breath before she burst into tears.
“Amber, please calm down and tell me what’s going on. I’m truly clueless.”
She sniffled a few times and said, “Oh, really? Jeremy never stopped sharing his iPhone location with me. I checked just now, and he’s in the Trophy Lake area. I knew he was back in survivalist mode and was most likely off his meds. I couldn’t figure out why he’d gone to that lake until I remembered you have a cabin there.”
“Survivalist mode?” I asked. Then I remembered what Barbra told me about the break-ins at the cabins and suspected vagrancy in the surrounding wooded areas. Could it be Jeremy? “Start at the beginning and tell me what’s going on.”
Amber took a deep breath before laying out a timeline of regressive behavior. She described bouts of violence and incidents of drug and alcohol abuse to mask his mental illness. “He can’t hold down a job. He completely withdraws from his kids and chooses to live off the grid. I can’t keep doing this, Abe. I have no choice but to keep him away from our girls.”
I struggled to wrap my mind around everything she told me. I’d never known Jeremy to live off the land, but I hadn’t really talked to him in two years. Fuck, this was a mess.
Lio poked his head out the door. “Everything okay?” he asked softly.
“I’ll be right there, baby.” I blamed stress for the reason I slipped and called him the endearment at work, but his dark gaze softened ever so slightly. After Lio ducked back inside Rigby’s office, I returned my attention to Amber. “I’ll drive out to the lake and see if I can find Jeremy, but it will have to wait until after I help Lio through an emergency.”
“Lio?” she asked. “Is he the one you just called baby?”
“Yes.”
“Does Jere know you’re together?”
I nodded, then realized she couldn’t see me. “He does, but this really isn’t the right time to discuss it. Someone abducted Lio’s son this evening, and I need to make finding Alex my top priority.”
Amber sucked in a sharp breath. “Holy fuck, Abe. Jeremy hates Lio and resents the bond the two of you have. He told me Lio was the reason things didn’t work out between you and Jeremy. If he’s as bad off as I fear, he could be capable of anything.”
My blood turned to ice in my veins, and I disconnected without saying goodbye. Oh fuck. This was all my fault. The chilly awareness permeated my body, numbing my limbs and rendering them useless. All eyes turned to me when I entered the room. Inside my head, I was screaming that I knew Alex’s location, but I couldn’t get my frozen lips to move. Myriad expressions washed over their faces—curiosity, confusion, and downright terror.
Lio
Iblanched at Abe’s ashen appearance because he’d been fine a minute ago. Okay. Maybe fine was a stretch. Alex was missing, and we weren’t any closer to finding him, but Abe’s color had been normal, maybe a little flushed with irritation. I barely recognized this washed-out version of the man I loved and braced for terrible news. Abe’s lips trembled, and I thought he was on the verge of tears until I realized he was trying to speak.
I rushed forward and gripped his hands, then cringed when I realized they felt like popsicles. I massaged his flesh to stimulate blood flow, just as Abe had done for me during a training mission that had gone awry decades ago. We’d been stranded overnight in less-than-ideal circumstances and had needed to pull ourselves together to survive. The excursion had been the catalyst that had moved us from reluctant training partners to best friends, which was precisely why our instructor had instigated the entire setup. We’d been on pace to kill one another or cause massive casualties to our team if we didn’t get our shit together. Our isolation from the rest of our group hadn’t been due to a mission failure. Our entire unit had been in on it from the jump—literally. They’d placed bets on which one of us would come out alive. No one had chosen both of us, and we’d repeatedly made them pay for their mistake. I just hoped whoever had Alex made a similar miscalculation.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I think I know who took Alex,” Abe replied, his voice sounding rusty and unused.
Alyssa rushed over and gripped Abe’s biceps. “Who took him? Where is he?”
Abe’s blue eyes glistened with tears as he stared at me. I’m not sure he even heard her, so I repeated the question.
“All my fault,” Abe said, then released a soft whimper. “I was careless, and…”
Alyssa shook Abe hard. “Save the self-flagellation for later. Where’s our boy?”
Our boy.Even Alyssa knew Alex belonged to Abe just as much as he did to us. “Tell us, baby,” I urged.
Abe kept his eyes locked on mine as he repeated his conversation with Amber. I’d felt queasy the moment he’d mentioned Jeremy’s name and was ready to puke by the time he’d finished. The agony in Abe’s eyes was the only thing keeping me from doubling over and retching.
“That son of a bitch,” I snarled as rage renewed my vigor.
“I’m sorry, Lio,” Abe said. “I was careless with his feelings, and I—” His voice broke and tears spilled down his face.
Urgency spiked my pulse to an alarming rate, but instinct said I needed to take great care with the moment or risk the future I wanted with Abe. I cupped his face and swiped the tears away with my thumbs. “No,” I said firmly. “This isn’t your fault. You promised you’d bring Alex home, and you’re one step away from keeping your word. Let’s go get him.”
“We better call Detective Hale and give him the update,” Alyssa said. “And Sheriff Gunderson since we suspect Alex is being held in his jurisdiction.”
