Page 115 of Follow Your Instincts

I nodded. Time was running out.

The phone vibrated in my hand. I flipped it open.

“Hello?”

“What was the point of using a burner phone if you were just going to basically tell me who you are?” Julian asked sardonically. “You’re lucky I’m a nice guy.”

“Thank you for getting back to me,” I said. “I need information and I’m hoping you can help.”

“Depends on the information. And how much you’re willing to pay for it,” Julian said bluntly. At least we weren’t wasting time on pleasantries.

“I need an address of a warehouse here in the city,” I said, and quickly ran through the situation. I put the phone on speaker so Soren could give him the information he’d gathered.

“Sounds pretty straightforward,” Julian said. “Twenty grand and I’ll do it..”

“Fifty grand if you can get back to us in the next half-hour,” Lucas said. I nodded grimly. I’d pay anything for a chance to find Maggie.

“I’ll call you back,” Julian said and cut the call.

“This is unbearable,” Ben said, wrapping his arms tightly around his stomach. He looked desolate. I turned to Soren.

“Do we need to call your Captain?” I asked. He was the expert, and had the connection to Maggie. “Do we have time to wait?”

He shook his head grimly. “All I can feel is fear. This is killing me.”

“Then we go, now. Hopefully Julian comes through, but we can’t count on it,” I said.

Soren left to call his boss and Lucas said he’d bring the car around to the front door.

I pulled Ben to his feet and drew him close. I held him tightly as he quaked in my arms. “We will find her,” I promised him, even as dread and helplessness curled in my stomach.

“We can’t lose her,” Ben said into my neck.

I squeezed him tighter. “No, we can’t.”

Chapter 45

Lucas

Ifelt like I was trapped in a nightmare. As I sped towards Eastwood Glen, my mind raced. If only we hadn’t let her walk up to her apartment alone, or I’d ended Todd’s miserable life when he threatened her after the hearing, she would have been home with us, safe and settled. My instinct to protect her was building into an impotent rage. I had nowhere to direct it, so my mind circled and circled on the what ifs, trying to find a way to change the situation.

Lachlan’s burner phone vibrated right as I pulled the Range Rover into a dingy parking lot, lit sparsely by flickering street lights, where Soren’s boss was supposed to meet us. He answered it on speaker again.

“I’ve got your address,” the man on the phone said. Even as relief rushed through me, restless energy coiled, ready to explode once I had a target.

“Normally I’d make you wire me the money first, but since I already know where you live it’s a moot point,” he said, then rattled off an address.

Lachlan thanked him before hanging up. I was already en route. No one spoke until Soren told me to slow down.

“We need to surprise them,” he said.

I drove into an unlit alley, lined by loading docks fornondescript warehouses. My skin itched in anticipation. This had to be it.

We found the right warehouse and I parked behind the black van and white sedan already there, blocking them in.

“What’s the plan?” Ben asked.

“No plan. We don’t have time,” Soren said.

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