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His mind blanked as they combed the parking area. Each of them walking in a grid pattern in search of any clue as to where she could be.
“I’m going to start knocking on the doors of every RV and bus!” Jennings called to him.
With his lips set in a grim line, he did the same. The Sentry SUV was parked farther away to keep the notice off them, while Avalynn’s unmarked bus and the RV her PR team and Heidi traveled in was parked a few rows away.
Flashlight beams panned over the black asphalt. He stared at his own beam, praying with every step he took. He had to find her, but the possibilities were vast. Whoever kidnapped her could be on their way to the Mexico border.
“Julius!” Clay’s call brought him running.
He stood over an object, the beam of light illuminating a phone. It looked to have fallen and landed on top of a rock so it was tilted on its side.
Seeing that blush-pink phone case sent his heart into an arrhythmia that might take him out in the end. He gulped.
“Don’t touch it,” Clay gritted out. “It’s evidence.”
“Fuck that!” He scooped it off the ground. As he brought the device to life with a swipe of his thumb, he encountered a passcode lock. Hands shaking, he fought to guess what she might have entered for the code.
First, he tried her birthday. When that was a failure, he entered the date she signed the deal with her label.
Again, the attempt failed.
“Just give it to Lark. She’ll break into it!” Clay said.
“No. One more try.” His finger hovered over the screen. He punched in another date.
Their wedding day.
The phone opened to reveal the last screen she was on—the camera was open facing the ground.
“Check the pictures!” Clay’s voice brought several other people running their direction.
Nobody spoke.
When he opened the last thing saved in the camera roll, his stomach heaved. “It’s a video.”
Dread tingled in his face and fingers. His knees shook, and he steeled his spine. In horror, he watched the footage. The back of an SUV flashed over the screen, shiny black. Then it hit the ground.
“Stop there!” Quaide said from over his shoulder. “Rewind. Did you see that?”
He couldn’t see anything for the pain racking him. He managed to roll back the footage.
“There!” Quaide grabbed the phone from his hand and stretched the screen, zooming in on half of the license plate before the phone fell from her lax fingers and hit the pavement.
“Run that plate!” he practically roared. “Search for that vehicle!”
People scattered. Julius took off in a dead run, zigzagging through vehicles and pounding on doors, disturbing musicians. He didn’t give a damn. He just had to find Avalynn.
“Julius!” Quaide’s bellow brought him sprinting back. Quaide was holding his phone in one hand and Avalynn’s in the other. He held up his own device. “The plate is registered to one of the guys on Avalynn’s dating history list.”
His gut bottomed out. “Who?” he croaked.
“The musician in her band when she first started out. Kyle Martin.”
“Oh god. Wasn’t he in rehab?” He fisted both hands.
“He was up until about six months ago,” Lark informed them. “I looked into him twice.”
“How did we miss this guy?” Oh god. Julius wasn’t worthy of the Sentry team, let alone of being married to Avalynn.
