Page 77 of Torment
“You know where to take him?” I ask.
“River out back. I got this,” Cole answers. He grabs Owen by the ankles and starts to drag him out of the room. Without a word, I turn and head for the exit.
I shove through the warehouse door and into the cool morning air with Mav trailing behind me. The sun’s higher now, burning through the gray. Rolling my shoulders once, I try to shake off the lingering adrenaline.
Getting in the car, I turn over the key.
“Any idea who wants her?” Maverick asks.
“Probably Melissa and Jack. They won’t get to her though,” I say and put the car in gear.
As we merge onto the highway, my phone vibrates in the cup holder.
“Parker,” Maverick says, and he answers it on speaker. “Hey, sweetheart. We’re on–”
“She’s gone,” Parker cuts him off, her breaths sharp and ragged.
My world stops. The air in the car gets sucked out and my ears ring as her words register.
“What do you meangone?” I snap.
“I went to pull the car in front,” Parker says, her voice shaking. “She had gotten discharged and was waiting for me in her room in a wheelchair with the nurse. When I got back upthere to wheel her down, she was gone. The nurse said a man wheeled her out.”
Maverick’s gaze snaps to me.
“What man?” he asks this time.
“I don’t know.” She’s holding back tears now. “They said that she waved bye at them as they left. Karson–”
She breaks.
“I can’t find her anywhere.”
I press the gas pedal to the floor. “We’re on our way. Flag down security. I want to see the cameras when I get there.”
“I’m on my way there now,” she says, her hurried footsteps in the background.
“Get them to lock the building down, we’ll be there soon,” Maverick adds and they hang up.
I push my Camaro to its limits, Owen’s words slamming into the sides of my psyche.
I wanted you, someone else wanted her.
We make the hour drive in half the time and abandon the Camaro half crooked at the curb.
Pushing through the sliding doors, we move past the front desk. Security scrambles around the first floor, their radios chirping nonstop. Parker stands near the nurses station, face pale but controlled. Good. She’s not hysterical. She’s pissed. She looks up as we get closer and she runs for Maverick. He wraps his arms around her and lets out a deep exhale.
“They’re pulling the footage now,” she says, looking at me.
I nod once and move behind the desk without an invitation.
“Do we have a timeline?” I ask.
“She left seven minutes before Mrs. Cain came back to the room,” the guard tells me.
Seven minutes.
It doesn’t sound like much, but in this situation, seven minutes is a lot. Add in the time it took us to get here, you can cover a lot of ground in that time.
