LITMIR.BIZ

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them and sending a cloud of the powdery dust all through the car’s interior.

      It was all over in a split second. The whiplashing impact. The sounds of metal colliding with metal.

      Nate was aware of the pain in his body from having his muscles wrenched around. The mix of talc and cornstarch powder from the air bag robbed him of what little breath he had. But now that he realized he had survived the crash, he had one goal.

      To get to the children.

      Nate prayed they hadn’t been hurt.

      He lifted his head, trying to listen. He didn’t hear anyone crying or anyone moaning in pain. That could be good.

      Or very bad.

      Next to him, Darcy began to punch at the air bag that had pinned her to the seat. He glanced at her, just to make sure she wasn’t seriously injured. She had a few nicks on her face from the air bag, and her shoulder-length dark brown hair was now frosted with the talc mixture, but she was fighting as hard as he was to get out of the vehicle. No doubt to check on her son.

      “When we get out, stay behind me and let me do the talking,” Nate warned her.

      Though he doubted his warning would do any good. If the kidnappers hadn’t been injured or, better yet, incapacitated, then this was going to get ugly fast.

      Nate got a better grip on his gun and opened his door. Or rather, that’s what he tried to do. The door was jammed, and he had to throw his weight against it to force it open. He got out, his boots sinking into the soggy shoulder of the road, and got a good look at the damage. The front end of his car was a mangled heap, and it had crumpled the side of the van, creating a deep V in the exterior.

      Still no sounds of crying. In fact, there were no sounds at all coming from the van.

      “I’m Lieutenant Nate Ryland,” he called out. “Release the hostages now!”

      He waited, praying that his demand wouldn’t be answered with a hail of bullets. Anything he did right now was a risk and could make it more dangerous for the children, but he couldn’t just stand there. He had to try something to get Kimmie and Noah away from their kidnappers.

      In the distance he could hear a siren from one of the sheriff department’s cruisers. The sound was coming from the opposite direction so that meant Grayson or one of the other deputies would soon be there. But Nate didn’t intend to wait for backup to arrive. His daughter could be hurt inside that van, and he had to check on her.

      Darcy finally managed to fight her way out of the wrecked car, and she hit the ground running. Or rather, limping. However, the limping didn’t stop her. She went straight for the van. Nate would have preferred for her to wait until he’d had time to assess things, but he knew there was no stopping her, not with her son inside.

      “Noah?” she shouted.

      Still no answer.

      That didn’t stop Darcy, either, and she would have thrown open the back doors of the van if Nate hadn’t stepped in front of her and muscled her aside. This could be an ambush with the kidnappers waiting inside to gun them down, but these SOBs obviously wanted Darcy and him for something. Maybe that something meant they would keep them alive.

      “Kimmie?” Nate called out, and he cautiously opened the van doors while he kept his gun aimed and ready.

      It took him a moment to pick through the debris and the caved-in side, but what he saw had him cursing.

      No one was there. Not in the seats, not in the back cargo area. Not even behind the wheel.

      A sob tore from Darcy’s mouth, and if Nate hadn’t caught her, she likely would have collapsed onto the ground.

      “Where are they?” she begged. And she just kept repeating it.

      Nate glanced all around them. There were thick woods on one side of the road and an open meadow on the other. The grass didn’t look beaten down on the meadow side so that left the woods. He shoved his hand over Darcy’s mouth so he could hear any sounds. After all, two gunmen and three hostages should be making lots of sounds.

      But he heard nothing other than Darcy’s frantic mumbles and the approaching siren.

      “They were here,” Nate said more to himself than Darcy, but she stopped and listened. He took the hand from her mouth. “That’s Kimmie’s diaper bag.” It was lying right against the point of impact.

      “And that’s Noah’s bear,” Darcy said, reaching for the toy.

      Nate pulled her back. Yes, the children had likely been here, but so had the kidnappers. The diaper bag and the toy bear might have to be analyzed. Unless Nate found the children and kidnappers first.

      And that’s exactly what he intended to do.

      “Wait here,” he told Darcy. “I need to figure out where they went.” He tried not to think of his terrified baby being hauled through the woods by armed kidnappers, but he knew it was possible.

      By God when he caught up to these men, they were going to pay, and pay hard.

      “Look!” Darcy shouted.

      Nate followed the direction of her pointing index finger and spotted the name tag. It was identical to the ones he’d seen Tara and the other woman wearing in the preschool. This one had the name Marlene Lambert, a woman he’d known his whole life. Her father’s ranch was just one property over from his family’s.

      “The name tag looks as if it was ripped off her,” Darcy mumbled.

      Maybe. It wasn’t just damaged—one of the four crayons had been removed. He glanced around the name tag and spotted the missing yellow crayon. It was right at the base of the rear doors.

      “She wrote something.” Darcy pointed to the left door at the same moment Nate’s attention landed on it.

      There was a single word, three letters, scrawled on the metal, but Nate couldn’t make out what it said. Later, he would try to figure it out, but for now he raced away from the van and to the edge of the road that fronted the woods.

      Nate didn’t see any footprints or any signs of activity so he began to run, looking for anything that would give them a clue where the children had been taken. Darcy soon began to do the same and went in the opposite direction.

      He glanced up when Dade’s truck squealed to a stop. His brother had put the portable siren on top of his truck, but thankfully now he turned it off. Unlike Darcy and Nate, Dade was coming from a straight part of the road and had no doubt seen the collision in time. That was why Nate hadn’t bothered to go back to his car and try to retrieve his cell phone so he could alert whoever would be coming from that direction.

      “They’re not inside,” Nate relayed to his brother, and he kept looking.

      Dade cursed. “There’s a helicopter on the way,” he let Nate know. “And I’ll call the Rangers and get a tracker out here. Mason, too,” Dade added the same moment that Nate said their brother’s name.

      Mason was an expert horseman, and he was their best bet at finding the children in these thick woods. First, though, Nate needed to find the point at which they’d left the road. That would get him started in the right direction.

      And he finally found it.

      Footprints in the soft shoulder of the road.

      “Here!” he called out to his brother. But Nate didn’t wait for Dade to reach him. Nor did he follow directly in the footsteps. He hurried to the side in case the prints were needed for evidence, and there were certainly a lot of them if castings were needed.

      But something was wrong.

      Hell.

      “There’s only one set of footprints,” Nate relayed to Dade.

      Dade cursed too and fanned out to Nate’s left, probably looking for more prints. There should be at least three sets

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