LITMIR.BIZ

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All her years of working as a navy nurse made her a crucial and important part of HEART. It wasn’t just that, though. She had a way of moving beyond emotion, filtering everything external and unnecessary and focusing on what needed to be done. He coveted that during their most difficult missions.

      Scout either didn’t hear his demand or didn’t want to follow it. She twisted from his hand, the movement sluggish and slow, her face pale and streaked with so much blood, he thought they might lose her before an ambulance arrived.

      He needed to find the source of the blood, but when he moved toward her, she jerked back, struggling to her knees and then her feet, swaying, her eyes wide and blank. “Lucy,” she said clearly, that one word, that name enunciated.

      “Was she with you?” he asked, easing closer, afraid to move quickly and scare her again.

      “She’s gone,” she whispered. “He took her.”

      That was it. Just those words, and all the strength seemed to leave her body. She crumpled, and he just managed to catch her before she hit the ground.

      Footsteps crashed behind him, sirens blaring loudly. An ambulance, but he was terrified that it was too late.

      He ripped off his coat, pressed the sleeve to an oozing wound on her temple, the long furrowed gash so deep he could see bone. He knew a bullet wound when he saw one, knew exactly how close she’d come to dying.

      His blood ran cold, every hair on the back of his neck standing on end. Someone had come very close to killing Scout, and that someone had Lucy.

      “Is this the woman?” Officer Lamar panted up behind him, the beam of his flashlight splashing on leaves wet with blood.

      He knelt beside Boone, touched Scout’s neck. “We need to get that ambulance in here. Now!” he shouted into his radio.

      Voices carried on the night air, footsteps pounding on leaves and packed earth. Branches breaking, time ticking and a little girl was being carried farther and farther away from her mother, and if something didn’t change, a mother was being carried farther and farther away from her daughter.

      He pressed harder, praying desperately that the flow of blood would be stanched before every bit of Scout’s life slipped away.

       THREE

      Lucy!

      Scout tried to call for her daughter, but the words stuck in her throat, fell into the darkness that seemed to be consuming her. She tried to struggle up from it, to push away the heavy veil that blocked her vision, but her arms were lead weights, her body refusing to move.

      She tried again, and nothing but a moan emerged.

      “I think she’s waking up,” a woman said, the voice unfamiliar, but somehow comforting. She wasn’t alone in the darkness.

      “I hope you’re right. Until she does, we’ve got nothing to go on,” a man responded, his soft drawl reminding her of something. Someone. She searched through the darkness, trying to find the memory, but there was nothing but the quiet beep of a machine and the soft rasp of cloth as someone moved close.

      “Scout?” the man said.

      Someone touched her cheek, and that one moment of contact was enough to pull her through the darkness. She opened her eyes, looked into a face she thought she knew. Dark red hair, blue eyes, hard jaw covered with fiery stubble.

      “Who are you?” she asked, her voice thick, her throat hot.

       Where am I?

       Where is Lucy?

      That last was the question she needed answered most. It was the only question that mattered.

      She shoved aside blankets and sheets, tried to sit up.

      “Not a good idea,” the woman said, moving in beside the man and frowning. She had paler red hair. Cropped short in a pixie cut.

      “I need to find my daughter,” Scout managed to say, the words pounding through her head and echoing in her ears. Sharp pain shot through her temple, and she felt dizzy and sick, but she wouldn’t lie down until she knew where Lucy was.

      “We’re looking for her,” the man said, his expression grim and hard, his eyes a deep dark blue that Scout knew she had seen before.

      “I need to look for her,” she murmured, but her thoughts were scattering like dry leaves on a windy day, dancing along through the darkness that seemed to want to steal her away again.

      “You’re not in any shape to look for anyone,” the woman said, dragging a chair across the floor and sitting. “We’re going to do this for you, and you’re going to have to trust that we can handle it.”

      The words were probably meant to comfort her, but they only filled Scout with panic. Lucy was missing. That was the only clear thought she had. Everything else was a blur of feeling and pain, bits of memories and shadowy images that she couldn’t quite hold on to. A store. A man. Flames and smoke.

      “I don’t know who you are,” she responded absently, her attention jumping from the woman to the man, then past them both. A hospital room with cream walls and an empty corkboard. A television mounted to a wall. A clock. In the background, Christmas music played, the carol as familiar as air.

      “I’m Stella Silverstone. I work for HEART Incorporated.” The woman took a card from her pocket and set it on a table near the bed. “Among other things, we help find the missing.”

      Missing. The word was like a dagger to the heart, and Scout had had enough. Enough listening. Enough talking. Enough sitting in a hospital room.

      “I’m going to find my daughter.” She scrambled from the bed, dizzy, sick, blankets puddling near her feet. “She’s—”

      “Been gone for three days,” Stella said, the blunt words like hammers to the heart. “Running out of the hospital in some mad dash to find her isn’t going to do any good.”

      “Stella,” the man warned. “Let’s take things slow.”

      “How slow do you want to take them, Boone? Because I’d say three days waiting to talk to the only witness is slow enough. I’m going to find Lamar. He’s hanging around here somewhere.”

      She stalked from the room, closing the door firmly as she left. The sound reverberated through Scout’s head, sent stars dancing in front of her eyes.

      “You need to lie down.” The man nudged her back to the bed, and she sat because she didn’t think her legs could hold her.

      “What happened?” she murmured to herself and to him, because she couldn’t remember anything but those few images and the deep, deep fear for her daughter. It sat in her stomach, leaden and hard, the knot growing bigger with every passing moment.

      “That’s what we’ve been trying to find out.” He sat in the chair his friend had abandoned, his elbows on his knees, his gaze direct.

      “We’ve met before,” she offered, the words ringing oddly in her ears.

      “You remember.” He smiled, but it didn’t soften his expression. “I’m Boone Anderson.”

      The name was enough to bring a flood of memories—a trip to Walmart, Lucy in the cart. The man she’d been sure was following her. Boone handing her his business card.

      And then...

       What?

      She pressed shaking fingers to her head, wanting to ease the deep throbbing pain. A thick bandage covered her temple, the edges folding as she ran her hand along them.

      “Careful,” Boone said, pulling her hand away and holding it lightly in his. “You’re still stapled together.”

      “Tell me what happened,”

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