Page 51 of Untamed Hunter Daddy

“Hello, Zoe.” His voice is warm, even though I know he’s anything but. “I’ve missed you.”

The words hit the place where the old Zoe lives, the one who believed him because she was lonely.

The new Zoe hears the calculation underneath.

“The federal marshals have your financial records,” I say. My voice doesn’t shake. “Every transaction. Every name. Every route. They’ve got the network above Weathers. Not just your piece. The whole thing. And they’re coming for you.”

Something crosses his face. Fear? Maybe. Maybe not. Whatever it is, it makes his eyes flinch and then it’s replaced by anger.

“You’re lying.”

But the charm has thinned. I can hear the edge under the paint.

“I’m not. I copied your laptop at the mine. The Thursday you were fighting with Weathers about the delivery that didn’t come. Your laptop was open. I plugged in a flash drive and pressed copy. It took thirty seconds and you never knew because you decided I was too stupid to be a threat. The files are with the US Marshals. A forensic analyst named Kane has been processing them. It’s done, Tyler. You’re done. Taking me doesn’t undo any of it. The evidence doesn’t live in my body anymore.”

He stares at me. The charm is gone. What’s left is pure calculation.

“That’s inconvenient,” he says. The understatement is frightening. “But you misunderstand. The files are a problem. You’re not a file. You’re a witness. And witnesses can be discredited. Witnesses can recant. Witnesses can disappear in ways that are more permanent than a van ride.”

The threat lands clean and direct.

He steps closer. “Put her inside. I need to make some calls.”

They move me toward the warehouse door. The zip ties bite. The floodlights burn. Inside me the new voice is still counting.

Left off the highway at about fifteen minutes. Right at three. Left at six. Gravel for two minutes. Warehouse with corrugated walls, a loading dock, floodlights, gravel yard.

I’m memorizing the route. The zip ties are loose enough. And somewhere in a hospital in Bridger, a man with a broken arm and butterfly closures on his face is waking up and discovering that I’m gone.

I know he’s coming.

He’ll come the way he came the first time. Tracking me with the same patience and attention he brings to everything.

The warehouse door opens. The dark inside smells like rust and concrete and the particular fear that lives in enclosed spaces where women have been kept. From somewhere deeper in the darkness, a voice. Then another. Then the quiet, broken sound of someone crying.

I step inside. The door closes behind me.

The old Zoe and the new Zoe stop fighting. They become a single woman who is terrified and resourceful and absolutely, implacably, not done.

26

Ryker

I wake up and she’s gone.

The second thing I notice is that my left arm doesn’t work. The cast runs from wrist to elbow, heavy and rigid. The pain underneath is a dull throb my brain catalogs and dismisses. Pain is information. Right now the only information that matters is the empty chair beside the bed.

“Kane.” My voice comes out torn. “Kane!”

The door opens. Not Kane. A nurse in her fifties, competent, already assessing whether I’m about to tear out my own IV.

“Mr. Stone, you need to stay in bed. Your arm is fractured in two places and the sedation⁠—”

“Where is she? The woman who was in the waiting room. Brown hair. Small. She was with a tall guy, dark hair, badge on his belt. Where are they?”

“I don’t have information about⁠—”

“Get me the phone. Or get me the man who was with her. Now.”