Page 44 of Jagger

“Thank God, I found you,” Zoe said.

Both Bella and I looked around to see what was going on.

“What’s wrong?” Bella asked, pushing herself away from me.

“It’s Cally. She’s… She’s missing. She was right there and when I turned around, she’d walked out. I don’t know how that happened. There were so many kids and they were hungry.”

Bella flew by me, her face harboring the kind of terror I would feel if I was a father.

“What the hell, Zoe?” I barked at her.

“I didn’t mean to lose track of her.”

Shit. The woman was close to being hysterical. “Did you let others know?”

She nodded, tears falling down her cheeks. “People are already searching the hotel. Ten minutes have gone by.”

“Okay. Just calm down. I’m going to look for her.” I raced out of the kitchen. If I thought I could think like a little girl, I knew I was selling myself a bill of goods. The kid could be anywhere.

I ran into Hunter in the corridor, the look on his face telling me everything I didn’t want to know.

“What?” I snapped.

“You heard,” Hunter said.

“Yeah, I fucking heard. You need to hire new staff. We need to find that little girl.” I pulled away from him, taking long strides.

“Wait. We checked everywhere. Every single fucking room where she could have gone in. She’s not in the hotel, but it gets worse.”

“What do you mean worse?” I was in his face in two seconds flat. “Talk!”

“Where’s Bella?”

“Off looking for her. Talk to me or I’ll beat your ass like I used to.”

Hunter was beside himself, motioning for me to follow him. “I wanted to check with you first.” He led me to a door that led outside to a small patio area. It was close to the daycare center.

“What the hell are we doing out here?” The snow was lighter but still falling, the wind dying down as well. But it was still cold as shit outside.

“Does this belong to Cally?”

When he lifted the koala bear I’d gotten her into the light, my heart sank.

Dear God. She’d left the building heading out into the snow.

Now it was my job to find her.

And I would.

“You can’t fucking go out there, Jagger,” Denise hissed. “You’re not a ranger. You don’t know the area. And it’s dark.”

“Like hell I can’t, Denise. You don’t know a thing about me. I do know the area, including every inch of mountains and woods surrounding the resort.” I shoved my hands into thicker gloves someone had given me, thankful I had a stash of warm clothing in my office. That included heavier boots.

“Leave him alone, Denise. He’s going to go and I assure you he is one of the best trackers I’ve ever met,” Shephard told her. “I’m going with him too.”

“Like hell you are!”

I glanced at my brother, giving him a nod. Suddenly, there were several people in the room, a couple of tourists included. All were determined to find the little girl before it was too late.

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