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Spencer engulfed her in an embrace, and Ginger wanted Nate to be the one standing in front of her, trying to get her to see reason.
A terrible, awful, horrifying thought crossed her mind.
Nate.
He’d rushed out of here like the devil himself was chasing him. Had he known Nick was in trouble? And if so, how?
He’d been talking on the phone. Perhaps he’d been talking to Nick.
“Come on,” Jack said, and Ginger stepped away from Spencer. She wiped her eyes and kept her head down. She’d known her cowboys for years now, but she still didn’t want to be seen as the weak girl-boss that cried over her cousin.
Ginger told herself it was okay to have feelings, and she bent to pick up the shopping bag she’d brought with all the crackers and chips.
“I’ve got it,” Jack said. “Let’s get back to the ranch and figure things out.”
Ginger nodded and had taken three steps when she realized she didn’t have a ride back to the ranch. “He took my truck.”
“You can ride with me,” Emma said, linking her arm through Ginger’s and keeping her moving.
Numbness spread through her, and Ginger only made it to Emma’s car because her friend had a hold on her arm.
“It’s going to be fine,” Emma said. “We’ll get back to the ranch, and Nate will be there. I just can’t see him taking your truck and fleeing.”
Ginger’s brain felt encased in quicksand, and she was sinking fast. She wanted to tell Emma that neither of them had believed that Hyrum had stolen a truck from the ranch either. They couldn’t see him doing that, not when he’d told Ginger he loved her and hoped to be with her after he got fully released.
At least Nate hadn’t done that.
“I have to call the Bureau,” Ginger said, pure misery streaming through her. “If I don’t….” She didn’t even want to think about what might happen if she didn’t. She could be arrested too, for helping an inmate escape.
She tapped to her favorites and chose number two. The only person higher than the Bureau of Prisons was Emma, and Ginger didn’t recognize her life in that moment.
The line only rang once before someone answered with, “Bureau of Prisons, how may I direct your call?”
“I need to speak to Warden James Dickerson,” Ginger said. “Immediately. My inmate at the Residential Reentry Center number two-four-seven-one-nine has fled.”
“Hold please,” the woman chirped, as if Ginger wanted to order a pepperoni pizza.
The Warden must’ve had a Bat-phone or something, because he came on the line only ten seconds later with, “Ginger? Nate’s gone?” He sounded as stupefied as Ginger felt, and all she could do was nod.
Only when she realized that Warden Dickerson couldn’t see her did she pull in a deep breath and get herself together. “Yes, sir,” she said. “I need to report him as missing. He took my truck and his son.” Her voice clamped around the last word, and she couldn’t continue.
“How long ago?” the Warden asked.
She honestly didn’t know. She could’ve been standing on the beach for an hour before she went to sit beside Emma. But then her parents would’ve arrived.
“Maybe fifteen minutes,” she said. “Probably ten.”
“License plate?”
Ginger rattled it off for him, and the call ended with him saying, “Stay at the ranch. I’m going to text you my personal number. If he comes back, I need you to call me instantly. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” she said miserably. She was never going to get another inmate from the BOP, and the ranch benefited from that money. She slouched into the passenger window thinking,I never want another inmate from the BOP anyway. Never, never, never.
* * *
Hours later,Ginger sat on the couch having given up trying to entertain the Unit Officers that had made the drive from River Bay. The local police had been at the ranch by the time Ginger and Emma had returned from the beach, but no one had seen Nate leave except Ginger.
She’d given them every detail she could remember, and they’d conveyed it all to their counterparts at the mall. Emma had tried to put on the news, but that only upset Ginger even more, and they’d sat in silence until the officers had arrived.
