Page 41 of Tangled With You

As soon as they rescued Courtney, they could slide into theprocess of figuring out how to merge their lives together.

Honestly, Ollie couldn’t think of anything he’d ever lookedforward to as much.

“I guess I proved my own theorem,” Trevor said.

“What do you mean?”

“Relationships. Making you crazy. Ours spun me out a bit.”

Ollie chuckled. “It did, didn’t it? But I’d say you landedokay. Only a few bumps and bruises, and—Oh.”

He practically leaped to his feet, knocking over the child’schair in the process. Trevor was on his feet in an instant, too. “What? Ollie?What is it?”

“We’ve been right all along, but we didn’t realize howwe were right.”

Trevor shook his head, his hand twirling as if urging Ollieto spit the story out faster. “It is about me. Or, I think it is. What if it’sjust not about my cases? What if it’s about me and Courtney?”

Trevor shook his head slowly. “Not following you.”

“Relationships making you crazy. What if we should belooking for someone who was in a relationship with her?”

“What does that have to do with you?” His brows rose.“Unless you’re our perp.”

“Funny man. No, I’m thinking someone she dated when we were on-again/off-again.”

Trevor nodded slowly. “We’ve been looking at men in her lifesince you two broke up. But we haven’t gone earlier.” He stood. “You may beright. Let’s go see if Denny and Mario can push this to the top of theirlists.”

“It feels right,” Ollie said as they hurried toward thecommand center. But even as he enjoyed the high of possibly having latched ontoa lead, he couldn’t help the dark stab of guilt. Because if he was right, thenhe was the catalyst, and Courtney’s life was in danger because once upon atime, he’d been too much of an asshole to walk away and stay away.

ChapterThirteen

Twenty-eight hours later, the entire team was exhausted.They took longer shifts, re-interviewed people who knew Courtney, and drilleddeeper into her computer to recover and do a second pass through old emails,texts, contacts, and anything else that might be useful.

They scoured her calendars again and dug through herapartment looking for anything they might have missed the first go-round. Oldjournals, old ledger pages, even old Girl Scout calendars tossed in the back ofa closet. Anything that might have a hint as to who they were chasing. Theyfound little; why would they? The team had picked over her place with amagnifying glass the first time they’d gone through.

They worked hard and fast, but as the hours rolled by, theknot in Ollie’s gut tightened. Theystill weren’t making enough progress, and the time for the ransom drop wascoming up. Once they made that drop, they lost control of the situation.

The kidnapper might release her. Or he might just take themoney and run, leaving Courtney trapped in whatever hellhole he was keeping herlocked up in. They’d follow the money, of course—they’d do everythingimaginable to capture the son-of-a-bitch—but plans could go wrong. Bad guyssometimes won.

And far too often, kidnap victims were never recovered.

Not today. Ollie took a deep breath, forcinghimself to stay calm and focused. Wherever Courtney was, she was still alive,and Ollie was determined that she’d stay that way.

“Hey,” Trevor said, coming up behind Ollie. He slipped hisarms around Ollie’s waist, and Ollie leaned back, grateful for both the touchand the emotional support. “You hanging in there?”

“I’m trying to. But the clock keeps ticking down.”

“I know,” Trev said. “We all do. But we’re working bothends. Tracking down the bastard who took her, and specingout the mission surrounding the actual drop. If it comes down to it, we’llapprehend him then. Either way, we’ll find her. We’ll get her back, Ollie. Andwe’ll get her back safe.”

Ollie damn sure hoped so, but with each second that passed,the dark cloud of fear that had surrounded him since he learned about thekidnapping pressed in tighter and tighter until it was close to smothering him.

He caught Denny’s eye across the room, where she was jammingat the keyboard, once again parsing through the security footage second bysecond for any hint as to who might have taken Courtney.

Slowly, she shook her head. Nothing.

Ollie closed his eyes, allowing himself one more moment of fearbefore forcing his mind to focus again. Fear wouldn’t help her. Nothing butintellect and action could help her now, and he wasn’t going to fail on eithercount.

“Go over everything again,” he said. “We’re missing something.This guy is part of her life, or he was. There must be some sort of record ofhim.” He looked around the room to see if anybody was going to argue. Thankfully,nobody did. “And each of you need to grab an hour of downtime.” He needed themfresh. Their minds clicking, putting the pieces of the puzzle together.