Page 165 of Distress Signal
I was still having difficulty wrapping my mind around the fact thatTuck, certified goofball and seemingly good guy, was responsible for Lainey’s four-month absence and abducting my girl. I never would’ve imagined him capable of such things.
Although, it did make a certain amount of sense when I stopped to consider it—not that I’d had a lot of time to do so since his identity had been revealed. But Tuck…he’d always floated on the fringes. There, but easily forgettable. He didn’t immediately command attention the moment he walked into a room.
Now that I knew he’d been behind everything, the pieces of the whole puzzle started clicking together in my mind. Thinking back, I did vaguely remember him being at the Swallow the night I met Reagan. As a firefighter, he had intimate knowledge of the cameras in town—and their blind spots—which had made it easy to slip that note under her windshield wiper without anyone noticing. Not to mention access to incapacitating drugs.
For each of the major incidents—Aria’s attack and Reagan’s accident—he’d been off shift. Hell, he’drespondedto Reagan’s accident scene, acting like he was there to help when he’d been the one who caused it.
The second Reagan and Lainey were safe, I was putting a bullet in his head.
Checks complete, we loaded into the rescue chopper instead of my Cessna in case the girls needed to be airlifted out, a possibility I considered with as much detachment as I could muster.
Once we took off a few minutes later, West pulled up the area of the Tucker farmhouse on the nav system. Thanks to the paperwork Aspen had gone through back at the house, we knewthe Tuck was the titleholder on an apartment in town as well as family land that had been passed down for generations.
Yeah, the farmhouse Reagan had seen in her dream was real. Though they’d pieced off what had originally been hundreds of acres of land over the years, the old Tucker farmhouse and a few outbuildings sat on the sizable parcel that remained.
I knew without a doubt that’s where Reagan and Lainey were being held, and I knew Lane would split his men into two teams. Half of them would head to the farmhouse, half to the apartment.
Maybe I’d get lucky and he’d go to town himself, not finding out I’d taken matters into my own hands until after the fact.
Despite the terror that had been coursing through my veins nonstop since I realized Reagan was missing, my hands were steady as ever on the cyclic stick and controls.
My headset crackled to life as West spoke, gesturing to the navigation screen.
“If we’re going for stealth, I’d touch down here.” He pointed at a clearing about half a mile from the house itself. “If not, park this bird in the backyard.”
“Stealth,” I said immediately. “I’m not taking chances with Reagan and Lainey’s lives.”
As we closed in on the landing point, my nerves ratcheted up again. I took a deep breath, hoping to steady myself, but it accomplished nothing. I tried to remind myself that West and I had pulled off missions more dangerous than this more times than I could count. That Trey had spent nearly a decade guarding the President’s back, that Crew walked into literal burning hell every day to save lives. One man was nothing.
But itfeltdifferent. I felt…listlesswithout Reagan. Knowing she was in danger made it difficult to get a full breath of air into my lungs, like a weight sat on my chest that wouldn’t lift until she was back in my arms.
I set the chopper down in the field West had indicated, andwe got out, taking a minute to ensure we had all the weaponry we needed, and that our tactical vests were properly secured and covering what they needed.
Before we set off toward the house, West dropped a hand on my shoulder.
“Chill,” he murmured. “You’re fucking vibrating.”
“We’ve already wasted too much time,” I muttered in response, double and triple checking that all of my holsters were filled.
With a single target to contend with, I didn’t anticipate a shootout, so I may have gone overboard, but I wasn’t fucking around where my girl was concerned.
“While I don’t disagree, you’re not going to do those women any good if you don’t have your head on straight.”
Fuck, I knew he was right. His fingers dug into my skin, and I let the pressure ground me, closing my eyes and attempting to marshal my heartbeat. When they popped open again, I was surprised to feel calmer.
Cell signal out here was spotty, but we’d all wore radios tuned to the police frequency. At the moment, we were out of range, but I didn’t doubt Lane would chew our asses out the moment he could reach us.
We hiked toward the house, sticking to wooded areas as best as we could. The forest around us was still, the sky a pale golden blanket overhead. Daylight would make this both easier and harder.
At last, the house appeared about a hundred yards ahead. We stopped, and Trey got out a set of binoculars.
“Nothing going on that I can see,” he said, lowering them. “I’m gonna do a sweep.”
“I’ll go with you,” Crew volunteered. “We’ll go in on opposite sides, then loop back.”
“No,” I said, stopping them. “We’ll get close together and recon from there.”
We followed the edge of the forest, which provided excellent cover as we neared.
