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“Adam, stop.” The words were barely more than a whisper but he’d heard me and stopped instantly. When his eyes met mine, all traces of violence were tucked back deep into the darkness that lurked inside of him.
“You remember anything else, don’t hesitate to call, Ms. Delgado.” I took the business card he offered, long fingers quickly plucking it from my grasp. Adam shoved the card into the pocket of his cargo pants and glared at the detective.
I rolled my eyes at his antics but was relieved when the detective finally left. Dr. Glasscock had finished stitching Adam’s wound and a nurse had come in to cover the area in a clean bandage. The aftercare instructions were the same as before and I hoped this was the last time I’d ever receive them.
Adam reached for me, tugging me down onto the bed. It was already too small for him but he turned to his side, resting his injured leg on top and tucked me into his warm chest.
I was searching for something to say that wasn’t ‘thank you for saving me from being kidnapped or worse,’ when a shrill ring filled the silence.
My phone had been tucked into the back pocket of my jeans and it was a miracle that it stayed put during the struggle. Adam didn’t release me and I had to wiggle to extract it. A pit formed in my stomach whenLittle Falls Elementaryfilled the screen. I showed it to Adam, his brow furrowing with worry. Please don’t let Miles be having another attack.They were becoming rarer the older he got but asthma was a bitch that could flare up when you least expected it.
“Hello?” I answered, expecting to hear Nurse Emma’s voice. I certainly wasn’t expecting the automated message that followed.
“Hello. This is Little Falls Elementary. Miles Delgado was not in class today. Please send in a note of absence…”
The rest of the message was drowned out by a buzzing noise that filled my brain. My son wasn’t at school. My son, who I’d kissed on the forehead and put on the bus this morning, wasn’t at school. Miles, my baby.No.
44
GAGE
Mia sat silent on the couch in our living room, one of Miles’ action figures gripped in her fist as she stared into nothingness.
After she’d answered the phone in the hospital and the automated message began to play, she’d started screaming. I don’t even think she’d been conscious that she was doing it, but the sound was awful, full of fear and denial and absolute terror that could only come from a mother’s despair.
I held her in my arms as she cried and I dialed the school from her phone. Sam, Roe and Kane burst through the curtain and I’d barked orders at them while the principal told me that Miles never made it inside the building. She contacted the bus driver and they couldn’t remember if he got off the bus at the school or not. All they knew was that the bus had been empty when they checked it between pickups.
Now, we were back at my house. The kitchen table was our command center and I was splitting my time between working out a timetable and keeping an eye on Mia. She wasn’t screaming anymore but tears steadily tracked down her face. I could only imagine the thoughts swirling inside of her brain, they filled mine as well.
“If we assume he was taken before school started, then he has about a six-hour head start on us. If they took I-10 they could be in Louisiana, 45 would take them north toward Oklahoma, hell, they could be at the Mexican border if they were moving fast. There’s no way to know without CCTV.”
Baz was marking and pointing out routes on a paper map. He had a solid background when it came to tracking and finding missing persons. He’d helped a good friend of his find his sister when she’d been taken by a trafficking organization. I was really grateful to have his expertise when I needed it most.
Unfortunately, he was right. Little Falls wasn’t far from Houston which was a big fucking city with highways that led in a lot of different directions. And I didn’t have a single clue where to start.
The team knew about Drake Avery, Miles’ supposed biological father. Shortly after coming back to town, I’d called a meeting and filled them in on where I’d been and why. None of them had given me shit, not even Gray, whose jaw had grown tight as I glossed over some of the gorier parts of my time spent inside of Avery’s townhouse.
It helped that they already knew the most likely culprit and why. Every second Avery could be moving Miles farther away from us and if he’d taken him to Mexico, it might already be too late.
“Got it!” Roe shouted from the island where he’d set up his computer. He’d been quiet since he got here, fingers flying across the keys and head bent close to his screen while he worked. There was none of his usual joking around and I hadn’t bothered him with questions of what he was doing. I knew he’d find footage of our boy.
The school had pulled the security cameras that showed the bus drop-off line. It showed Miles jumping off the bus and heading toward the school, but we don’t know what happened after that. His teacher confirmed that he’d never made it to class. They’d gone through the rest of their cameras, but there was no clue as to where Miles had gone.
Gray was at the police station running point with them as well as keeping them away from the house. We didn’t need anything slowing us down and that’s exactly what would happen if they came here. I was willing to use every tool at my disposal to find Miles and the majority of them wouldn’t fly with the cops.
Roe had started scanning the cameras in the area while Sam gave him business names and gas stations surrounding the school. A small spark of hope lit when he called out and I rushed to his side to watch the grainy black and white footage filling his screen.
A pristine Corvette was parked across two spaces in front of a gas station I recognized. Mia and I had picked up Miles early from school one day and went there for slushies. He’d picked blue raspberry and his lips had looked like he had frostbite in the middle of a hot Texas day. I swallowed the pain that memory brought up, telling myself it wouldn’t be the last of its kind.
Drake Avery stepped out of the driver’s side looking disheveled even from far away. He was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his head. It was ninety degrees outside, he was obviously trying to hide his face. I watched as he walked around the back of his car to the passenger side, opened the door and ducked his head into the backseat.
Was Miles back there? Was he unconscious? My teeth creaked when I clenched my jaw and watched Avery close the door and run inside, appearing a few minutes later with a plastic bag in one hand and what looked to be a bottle of water in the other. He backed out of the space, almost running over a mom and her small child in the process, before peeling out of the exit.
“Which way did he go from there?” Baz asked. That small glimpse of Avery had anger and panic swirling inside of me. Normally I was the calm one, completely focused on what needed to be done. All I could think about was how scared Miles must be.
“We have to hurry, Adam.” Mia’s voice was small and startled me from where I’d been staring at the frozen image of Avery’s Corvette.
“I know, angel, I know. We’re going to find him.” I ran my palms up and down her arms. Mia’s skin was cold, covered in goosebumps. The bruises from this morning were turning an ugly yellow. We were both still wearing our torn and bloodied clothes from earlier, neither of us giving a shit what we looked like when Miles was missing.
