Page 34 of Untamed Hunter Daddy

He’s come outside. Hands on the railing. Eyes on our truck. Even from this distance I can feel the quality of his attention. He’s watching us leave. Watching the waitress who called my name.

“Did he see me?” My voice is thin.

“I don’t think so. He came out after we were in the truck. Tinted glass. Hat. Sunglasses. He saw a vehicle leaving, not a face.”

“But he heard my name. She said it twice.”

Ryker’s quiet for a beat. His hands tighten on the wheel. “Yeah. She did. But he was inside. I’m not sure why he came out.”

He calls Mason on speaker.

“The subject is at Alpha Pig BBQ. Confirmed visual. Blue Chevy Z71, custom toolbox, chrome running boards. Meeting with two men, one a coworker from Ridge Auto, the other an unknown male, well-dressed, acquisitive demeanor. He’s actively working a new target. Female, approximately twenty, name tag Lacey, waitress at the restaurant. Grooming pattern matches the one used on our witness.”

“Copy,” Mason says. “What else?”

“Near-compromise. A waitress recognized Zoe in the parking lot and called her name. I deflected, but the subject came outside during the exchange. He may have heard the name. He didn’t get a visual on her face. But the name is in the air now.”

A long silence.

“How soon can you get her to the regional office?”

“Two hours if I drive straight there.”

“Drive straight there. Dr. Engel meets her tonight. Full intake. And I’m putting a team on Lacey. If he’s running the playbook again we document every stage and build the case in real time. We don’t let another woman end up in a shipping container.”

The line drops. The truck eats the highway. I stare at the mountains rising on both sides of the road.

The door I keep seeing isn’t mine. It’s the one that’s going to close behind Lacey if nobody stops it.

“We’re going to get her out,” Ryker says. His hand finds mine on the seat. “I promise.”

I lace my fingers through his and hold on.

Tyler isn’t just recruiting Lacey. He’s rebuilding. New identity. New location. New waitress. New network. The operation that ended at the mine didn’t end. It relocated, and it’s growing again in the shadow of a barbecue restaurant forty miles from the mountain where fourteen women were freed and one ran into the snow.

My eyes flutter closed. The dread sits heavy and cold below my ribs.

He’s doing it again. And this time he’s doing it with the confidence of a man who got caught once and learned from it.

The mountains shrink in the mirror. Somewhere behind us a girl named Lacey is clearing plates from a booth where three men sat and smiled and planned, and she doesn’t know what’s coming.

I do. And the knowing is the heaviest thing I’ve ever carried.

18

Zoe

We’re forty miles from Alpha Range and I can’t stop seeing Lacey’s face.

The motel room in Bridger is exactly what you’d expect. Two queen beds, a bolted-down dresser, faded green curtains, and a shower that drips like a clock counting down. Jax is next door. Kane’s in the lot running plates and facial recognition on the lean man from Tyler’s booth.

Ryker’s on the satellite phone with Mason, going over the intelligence from today in that low professional voice. I’m barely hearing any of it. Every time I close my eyes I see a girl with a braid tilting her head at a man who touched her arm.

The call ends. He sets the phone down and turns to me, the working face softening into the one he wears when we’re alone.

I don’t let him speak.

“I want to warn her.”