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If this fear was part of fatherhood, Jon wasn’t sure how he’d hold up. His daughter had been abducted, and he felt abandoned on the periphery of the action. His frantic urge to rescue her wouldn’t be understood by anyone but Annie.
The band of searchers huddled at the side of the road as they tried to decide what to do next. Mason stood talking to Annie, but he, too, was unlikely to find Kylie quickly, not when the dogs couldn’t follow and no one knew what vehicle they were in.
Jon’s phone sounded, and he glanced at the screen. Unknown. He nearly didn’t answer it, but with Kylie missing, every call might mean something. “Jon Dunstan.”
“I have your daughter.” The electronically distorted voice didn’t sound human.
“Don’t hurt her. What do you want?” Jon frantically gestured to Annie and Mason and mouthed,Kidnapper. His headache was back in full force, and he felt a little nauseated.
Annie shot to his side, and Mason followed her. Mason pulled out his phone and shot off a text. Jon hoped he was trying to trace the call, but it was likely futile. The kidnapper would be using a burner phone.
“Money. Two hundred thousand dollars. You have three days to get it or you’ll never see her again.”
A large sum, but his dad would help. And obviously Sarah had overheard the truth of Kylie’s paternity since she’d called her his daughter. Did he dare call her out and let her know they knew her identity? Best not to do it until he talked it over with Mason and Annie.
“I want to talk to Kylie and make sure she’s all right.”
“She’s not here right now, but she’s fine. But if you don’t pay up, you’ll never see her again. Understand?”
“Yes. I’ll get the money. Don’t hurt her.”
Would Sarah hurt Kylie? He didn’t think so, but what if she simply disappeared with their little girl? She must have someone else working with her or she wouldn’t have been picked up in a car. Who could it be? Her only contact had been Sean, and he was dead.
The phone cut off in his ear, and he pulled it away to look at the screen. The call had been disconnected.
Annie gripped his arm. “That was Sarah?”
“The voice was electronically distorted, but it had to be her. She’s the only one who could have taken her.”
“Unless someone took both Sarah and Kylie,” Mason said. “We haven’t considered that possible scenario. For all we know, Sarah could have tried to stop Kylie from being abducted and was taken along with her.”
Jon glanced at Annie and shook his head. “The kidnapper knows Kylie is my daughter, not Nate’s. Sarah overheard me tell my dad last night.”
Mason’s normally impassive expression went slack before his brows raised. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
Color rose in Annie’s cheeks. “It’s a long story.”
“Not my business,” Mason said. “But this does change things. Is there any chance someone else knows?”
Annie slipped her hand into Jon’s. “Only Dr.Eckright. I haven’t even told Kylie yet, and I pray the kidnapper doesn’t tell her.”
Jon gave her fingers a reassuring squeeze. Her worst fears were all coming true on the same day. The news would be all over town in a dramatic way with Kylie missing. Their only real focus was getting their daughter back, but the salacious story would take on epic proportions. He’d stop that if he could, but he was as helpless with the rumor making its rounds as she was right now.
“So what’s next?” Jon asked. “The kidnapper is demanding two hundred thousand dollars in three days.”
Annie’s grip on his fingers tightened. “How can you raise that much money? And you’re not supposed to pay kidnappers anyway, right?”
“I’m going to call in the FBI,” Mason said. “They have the Child Abduction Rapid Deployment team. CARD has a lot of resources to help us find her quickly.”
“I’ve heard of them.” Annie had a note of hope in her voice.
Jon hadn’t heard of the unit, but he’d take all the help they could get. “Should I start acquiring the funds?”
“Give me an hour to find out how they want to handle it.” Mason strode off toward his SUV and climbed inside.
Jon didn’t want to wait—he needed to dosomething. Standing around twiddling their thumbs wasn’t accomplishing anything. “Let’s get to a computer and see what we can find out about Sarah’s past. If we can figure out who might have picked her up, we might be able to locate her.”
Annie’s eyes were red from holding back tears, and Jon wished he could do something to comfort her. This was agonizing. She didn’t resist when he led her back through the woods to Bree’s place. He thanked Bree and Naomi before heading to Annie’s truck. He could get his car, but that would take more time than they had.
