Page 82 of Spock’s Snare

The clubhouse door opens before anyone responds.

Sunlight pours through the entrance, framing a man I recognize immediately. Bill Davenport steps into the common room, his gaze sweeping over the bikers before landing on me.

Something in his expression makes my blood run cold. He wears the look of a man who's beyond worried and sinking into terror.

“Spock.”

I’m moving before he finishes saying my name. “What happened?”

“I don’t know.” Bill comes farther into the room, gripping his phone so tightly his knuckles are white. “Have you heard from Chloe?”

Every muscle in my body locks.

“No. She left Inferno Ridge to go home and change. She said she’d be back in an hour.”

“That’s what she told me.” Bill glances at his phone as if hoping the screen will light up. “She was supposed to meet me at the site. I’ve been waiting for her, but she never showed.”

“How late is she?”

“Almost forty minutes.”

A few minutes could be traffic. Forty isn’t traffic, not for Chloe. She’d call. She’d let her father know if something delayed her.

I pull out my phone and hit her name.

The call rings.

Once.

Twice.

Then goes to voicemail.

My heart slams against my ribs.

“Maybe her battery died,” Bill says, but he doesn’t believe it any more than I do. “I’ve called six or seven times. It keeps going to voicemail.”

“When did you talk to her last?”

“This morning. She told me she was coming to the site after she changed.” His brow creases. “I thought she might still be here with you, so I drove over.”

“She left.”

The words come out rough.

I see Chloe standing beside her truck in the Inferno Ridge parking lot. Feel her lips beneath mine before I open the door for her. I hear her telling me she’ll be back onsite in an hour.

I watched her drive away, alone. I let her leave, alone.

Rush reaches for his phone. “I’ll call Hawk.”

My mind races through possibilities, rejecting every innocent explanation as fast as I form it. Chloe doesn’t forget appointments. She doesn’t ignore calls from her father. She knew we were closing in on the men sabotaging her company, and she knew Blackwood had lied his way into her business.

Blackwood.

The image of his smug face flashes through my head.

“What if Blackwood caught up to her?” I ask. “Well?” I ask Rush.