Page 67 of The Unknown Colton
Troy wanted to believe that, too, so badly. But he was too damn scared to think rationally at all. He waited just until Eli rushed into the woods after the SAR team before he ducked under the crime-scene tape and started after them.
The crime tech who’d identified the chloroform saw him but looked away, letting him go. He must have noticed how upset Troy was, how determined he was to find the woman he loved. And the guy hadn’t just looked away from Troy—he’d looked off in the direction Kansas had gone. Maybe he understood what Troy was feeling because he cared about someone like that, too.
Troy stayed back a bit from the team, so that the officers and the dogs didn’t notice him like the tech had. He didn’t want to get in the way or cause a distraction. He didn’t want to detract in any way from the search for Lakin. He just wanted to help.
And he wanted to be there when she was found.
She had to be found. Alive.
* * *
Will held onto his wife’s trembling body, trying to comfort her while seeking comfort himself. He was so damn scared. They’d gotten together a lot of money. Sasha’s pottery business was doing well, and Will still had a lot of investments from selling the real estate business in California that he and his brother had inherited after losing the rest of their family. His brother, Ryan, who loved Lakin like she was his own daughter, had chipped in some of his inheritance investments, too.
Everybody wanted to get their girl safely back where she belonged: with them.
“Why hasn’t he called yet?” Sasha asked, her voice muffled as her face was buried in his throat. Her tears wet his skin.
“He’ll call back,” Will said. “He has to call back…” If he wanted the money.
But was this really about money? Or was there another reason Lakin had been abducted?
Did her kidnapper really have any intention of letting her go?
CHAPTER 23
Whatever Whitlaw had drugged her with back at the cabin was still affecting Lakin, slowing her down so that she felt as if she was running in quicksand. The slope was getting more treacherous with rocks and loose leaves making her slip and fall. Her hands were scraped.
But she didn’t notice the pain or the blood seeping from her scratches. She clawed at branches, using them to pull herself up. She couldn’t go back…
He was right behind her. Branches rustled, twigs snapped, and every now and then he coughed or cursed.
She waited for gunfire, like how he’d shot at Troy the other night. But none came. Maybe Whitlaw didn’t want anyone to hear and figure out where they were.
How close to RTA were they?
Why hadn’t she gone on some of the damn adventures herself? She hadn’t wanted to run all over the mountain like she was now. If only she knew the area more, like her siblings and cousins. Hell, evenMitch the lawyer had gone on more adventures than she had.
“You can run, girlie, but you can’t hide,” Whitlaw called out to her. He chuckled, but he sounded out of breath.
She was, too, her lungs burning from the altitude. She was going so slow, struggling so hard to fight the dizziness that kept threatening to overwhelm her.
As out of breath as he sounded, he also sounded close. Much too close.
She pushed her way through branches as the ground leveled out for a moment. And then…nothing was ahead of her or underneath her.
She dropped through the air, falling, falling…
Branches scratched at her hair and her clothes until finally she struck the ground.
Hard.
Pain radiated throughout her body and her head. And like at the cabin, blackness suddenly claimed her, pulling her deep into oblivion.
* * *
Troy continued to follow the sounds of dogs barking and the SAR team members talking back and forth. He recognized Kansas and Eli’s voices and knew he had to hang back. If they saw him, they might have someone escort him back to the cabin. But he wanted to get close enough to clearly hear what they were saying. The dogs had to be following the scent still, but where?
“Tire tracks…”
