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no cops or she dies. await call with instructions.
Clare read it over his shoulder. “How long before they called?”
“A couple of minutes.”
“The same number you got this text from?” Gage asked.
“Yes,” Mares replied.
Gage confirmed that was the number he’d been on a call with when they found him in here. “What did they say on the phone just now?”
“I said he wasn’t going to tell anyone anything.” Mares gasped. “He just kept saying, ‘Is he dead?’ And I kept telling him that young man wasn’t in a condition to tell anyone anything.”
“You did the right thing.” Clare squeezed his shoulder.
Gage spun around. “Calling the police and reporting a kidnapping would’ve been the right thing. Not to mention the fact this guy just jeopardized his whole medical career.”
The fallout of this would be catastrophic for the doctor, and could be that or worse for Alex, depending on what Mares had given him.
Mares stumbled back and slumped onto a twin bed. This had to be a room where the staff came to take naps during long shifts. Like the reward for being exceptionally smart, working harder than most careers and hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loans was a job where you had no life and little free time. Didn’t seem like a good trade-off to him.
Gage sent the image and screenshots of the message, plus a screenshot of the doctor’s call history, over to Liam so he could run the numbers and see what he could get from the picture. “You said she never showed up for work after lunch?”
Mares nodded.
“Did they put her on the phone at all?”
“You mean, like proof of life?”
Gage nodded. “Have you spoken to your wife at all since she was kidnapped?”
“No.” Mares shook his head. “Is that bad?” He glanced between Gage and Clare. “Does that mean she’s dead?”
Clare pushed out a breath. “Until we know for sure, let’s trust she’s useful to them so they have her alive. After all, if they killed her you’d have no reason to do what they say.” She glanced at him. “The people in my Kidnap and Ransom team are out of the country right now. It would take too long to get them off the job they’re working and divert them back here.”
She worked her mouth back and forth as though considering it.
“Right. You have that K&R team.”
Clare shrugged. “Not that it helps right now.”
Gage’s phone buzzed. “Let’s go out to the hall.”
He held the door and spotted Blake and Jasper shaking hands with the uniformed officer watching Alex’s room. The other had followed Selena to protect her. Not that it had done any good when the doctor had been the source of the threat.
He caught them up on what had happened.
Jasper winced, but it was short-lived. “We’ll do everything we can to get her back. You can be sure of that.”
Blake’s steady gaze took in the tension between Gage and Clare. “We can take Doctor Mares to the station. Go through everything and see if we can find where his wife is being held.”
Gage nodded. Blake had downplayed it, and the doctor wasn’t technically under arrest until he was read his rights. Before that happened, he’d be treated as a cooperating witness. The district attorney would decide if they were going to bring charges for what he’d done to Alex.
It meant walking a fine line, but they needed all the information available in order to make an arrest. And they had to find Mares’ wife. Alive if at all possible.
Gage didn’t want to consider the likelihood she would be killed, but the truth was, it remained a higher probability than their finding her safe and sound.
“Vanguard will assist, of course.” Clare nodded to him, then the doctor.
