LITMIR.BIZ

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given five units her first night in the hospital. Whoever had taken her child hadn’t planned on Scout surviving.

       Why?

       Who?

      They were questions the police were desperately trying to answer with little to no success. They’d reviewed security footage from the store and parking lot, tried to ID the man who’d been following Scout. He’d been careful, though, his face always turned away from the cameras as if he’d known exactly where they were. No license plates had been visible on the cars that had followed her. No clear image of any of the drivers. The kidnapping had been planned by someone who knew exactly what he was doing. Lamar and his team weren’t denying it, and they were doing everything in their power to find the people responsible.

      The problem was, there were no good leads. No one who’d really seen anything. Most people had been caught up in preholiday daze and hadn’t noticed Scout or Lucy. If they’d noticed her, they hadn’t noticed the man who’d followed them around the store.

      Three days on the phone with Chance, convincing him that using HEART resources was the only way to bring Lucy home, and Boone was just tired enough to feel as though he was biting off more than he could chew. He couldn’t let the case go, though. He wouldn’t, because he didn’t want another parent to go through what he had. He didn’t want anyone to ever have to spend every second, minute, hour of every day wondering where their loved one was.

      Yeah. He was going to search for Lucy, and he was going to do everything in his power to bring her home safely. God willing, that would happen.

      In the meantime, he’d promised Chance that he’d keep his nose clean, that he wouldn’t overstep the boundaries or smash any local P.D. toes while he was working on the case.

      He wasn’t sure taking their sole witness from the hospital was the way to do it, but he’d seen the look in Scout’s eyes before. Seen it in the gaze of every mother, father, uncle, aunt, brother, sister, loved one who’d lost someone. She’d do what she thought she had to in order to bring her daughter home. If that meant sneaking out of the hospital alone, she’d do it.

      And sneaking out alone when someone had nearly killed her?

      That wasn’t such a great idea.

      He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Lamar’s number. The call went straight to voice mail. He left a message, figuring that was as good as asking permission.

      Chance wouldn’t see it that way, but Boone figured he was following the letter of the law. For now, that would have to be good enough.

       FOUR

      Please let me wake up from this nightmare.

      The prayer flitted through Scout’s throbbing head as Stella pushed her wheelchair outside. The full moon glowed from a pitch-black sky, the frigid November air slicing through her T-shirt and coat. Someone had washed all of her clothes, but she still thought she could smell the coppery scent of blood. Somewhere people were having a conversation, their voices drifting through the quiet night. A nightmare wouldn’t be so full of details. A nightmare wouldn’t let her feel the first drop of icy rain on her cheek or smell the frosty dampness of the air.

       Lucy.

       Gone.

      The thought lodged in her head and stayed there. The only real thought she could hold on to.

      An SUV pulled up to the curb and Stella opened the door, took Scout’s arm and helped her in. “Seat belt,” she barked, and Scout fumbled to snap it into place.

      Her hands trembled, but somehow she managed. She wanted one thing. To find her daughter. Everything else—the throbbing pain in her head, the sick feeling in her stomach, the fear that made her chest ache—didn’t matter.

      Boone didn’t ask for an address or directions to her house. He just pulled away from the hospital, merging into light traffic on the main road that led through River Valley.

      Scout knew exactly what she’d see on her way home. Dark trees stretching toward the moonlit sky, houses dotting the landscape, a few cars meandering along. She watched the landscape flying by, her eyes heavy with fatigue. She felt weaker than she wanted to, and she couldn’t afford to be weak. Not with Lucy missing.

      Boone turned into her neighborhood, bypassing the bigger fancier houses and weaving his way through main roads and side streets. He was familiar with the neighborhood and must have been to her house on several occasions. It wasn’t easy to find, tucked away from the road, the driveway long and winding. In the next lot over, Mrs. Geoffrey’s house was dark, the porch light off. She’d been planning to visit family for Thanksgiving and had asked Scout and Lucy to come along.

      They should have gone.

      Boone turned into the driveway, slowing as overgrown trees brushed the sides of the SUV. In the spring, Scout would have them trimmed. Her rent-to-own lease allowed her the luxury of doing whatever she wanted to the tiny little rancher and the acre it sat on.

      The lights were off at the house. She hadn’t left them that way. She always left the porch light burning and the foyer light on. Too many dark shadows around the house at night, and even with Mrs. Geoffrey just a few hundred yards away, Scout always worried that someone might be waiting in the gloomy recesses of the yard.

      Tonight, she had nothing to fear. She’d already lost everything. There was nothing more that could be done to hurt her. She opened the door as the car coasted to a stop, might have jumped out and run to the house if Stella hadn’t grabbed her arm.

      “Slow down, sister! You want to kill yourself before we find your kid?”

      She didn’t respond. The car had come to a full stop, and she wasn’t waiting any longer. She stumbled out, nearly falling to her knees, her body refusing to cooperate with her brain’s commands.

      Just move! she thought. It’s easy.

      Only it wasn’t. Her legs wobbled as she took a step toward the house, her purse thumping against her side. The keys were in it, and she needed to pull them out, but she wasn’t sure how she was going to manage that and the walk.

      “How about you not go rushing out of the SUV like that again?” Boone stepped into place beside her, his arm sliding around her waist. In another lifetime, she would have blushed at the zip of electricity that seemed to shoot through her at his touch. In this lifetime, she just wanted to get into the house, go into Lucy’s room, make sure that her daughter wasn’t waiting there for her.

      “If I were rushing, I’d already be in the front door,” she responded through gritted teeth.

      “If you were thinking, you’d have realized that anyone could be waiting out here. It’s a nice dark area. No streetlights. No neighbors around. You’re an easy target. Might as well put a bull’s-eye on your chest and stand out in the middle of Main Street,” he drawled.

      She hadn’t been thinking about that.

      Now she was, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching. She shivered, fishing in her purse for keys that weren’t there.

      She dug deeper, found her wallet, cell phone, spare change. The little rag doll that Lucy loved. She pulled it out, her heart burning with tears that she wouldn’t shed. Crying couldn’t bring her daughter back.

      “My keys,” she began, but Boone had keys in his hand. Her keys—heart key chain with three keys: one for the front door, one for the back, one for the car.

      “The police used them to access your place when they were looking for Lucy. They returned them last night.”

      And he’d taken them.

      She didn’t know how she felt about that, didn’t think it really mattered.

      The police had searched her house, just as Boone

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