Page 10 of Holiday Hostage
Yet, he held it together, even managing to stir up some tears for the missing woman. “I told her to come back in ten minutes.”
A ragged breath shook his shoulders. Either the guy was a manipulative liar, or he cared about Payton.
I narrowed my eyes at the thought.
Did they have a relationship?
What if Payton hadn’t been running away from her father, but from this asshole?
Tarron backhanded my shoulder and shook his head.
“What?” I rubbed the offended shoulder, not because the hit hurt but to give me something to do besides grab Liam by the collar and shake him until he admitted the truth.
“Not now.”
I headed toward the path. “Let’s check it out.”
Maverick might be our designated leader, but I was the tracker of our group, and when it came to following clues, it was my turn to take the lead.
“Do you need me to stick around?” Liam rocked on his heels, something that resembled concern pulling his eyebrows down.
“Nah, man.” I waved him off. “Thanks for your help.” We hadn’t intended to talk to him at all, but he’d seen us pull up and rushed out to offer a guided walkthrough of Payton’s time with him.
Why did I want to punch the guy?
He was nothing to me, and neither was Payton.
Somehow, in the time it took for us to pack up and make our way here, this mission had become personal to me.
I led the way down the path and stopped at the edge of the woods. Footprints marred the muddy bank, even more trekking up and down from the spot where we stood. I bent forward to study the smaller tracks. “These are Payton’s. I recognize them from the path. They’re lighter here after she took off her backpack.” I straightened and checked the angle. “She stoodthere for a while, looking that way.” I pointed across the river. “After that, things went crazy.”
Maverick and Tarron leaned in to hear me over the rushing water. Maverick motioned at his ears. “She wouldn’t have heard anyone approach.”
“And no one would have heard her scream.” A muscle in Reed’s jaw ticced, his agitation showing in the steady motion.
I moved to the right for a better look. “Her footprints disappear. One of them must have carried her out.”
One set of tracks deepened with the extra weight, and I followed it to a bend in the river. “They were ready.”
The lines were faint after a fresh snowfall, but the guy’s footprints mingled with three others. “I bet they crossed the river using those rocks. They’ll go up.”
“What makes you say that?” Reed asked. “If you’re guessing, we need to move things along to a guarantee. We don’t have much time.”
“Suck an olive, Reed.” I poked his cheek, driving his face toward the thick forest across from us. “There are tracks on the other side. They tried to hide them, probably used pine boughs to sweep them away.” I snorted. “Amateurs.”
“Better hope they are, or we’re in a shitload of trouble.” Maverick jumped onto the nearest rock and scanned our surroundings. “We can take snowmobiles up a good ways, then finish off on foot. Don’t want to alert them to our approach.”
If they were as amateurish about their location as they were with their footprints, this would be a dream retrieval.
Then again, most kidnappers had never faced a tracker as good as me before.
Less than an hour later, the three of us sped up the mountain on our snowmobiles. I weaved in and out of the trees, keeping an eye on the tracks.
They’d gotten on their own snowmobiles about a mile from the river, and even though they tried to hide those tracks too, they stood out as stark as blood on snow to me.
If there was blood, it for damned sure wouldn’t be Payton’s. Not if we could help it.
The tracks shifted, and I angled the handlebars to follow.
