Page 170 of Blue Moon

Mild surprise crossed Michelle’s face, and when she moved her arms to a folded position, Ryder spotted the chain around her waist. She was a prisoner. A pissed-off prisoner, but a prisoner nonetheless.

“Well, you took your damn time. She’s been telling us for days that you were coming to rescue us.”

“Where is she?”

“She left because you didn’t get here fast enough.”

Emmy nodded toward Hebert. “What happened to him?”

Tulsa and Dice were in the room with him now, and Tulsa was checking for a pulse. Ryder wanted to strangle the man with his bare hands, but finding Luna took priority. Luna always took priority. Had she put Hebert in that position? She’d been known to clonk men over the head with heavy objects when she felt trapped.

“The dog bit him,” Michelle said. “He got blood poisoning, and your girlfriend got Stockholm syndrome. I was all for letting nature take its course, but oh no, she wanted to call an ambulance.”

“And did she?”

“Who knows?”

“You couldn’t call from here?”

“The phone is locked in the snake room, and we couldn’t find the key.” Michelle shuddered. “I wouldn’ta gone in there anyway.”

“Snake room?”

“By the bookshelves in the regular part of the house.”

“Where’s the dog now?” Ryder asked. He’d been worried about the little fella.

“Luna and Kacie took it with them.”

“Kacie? Who’s Kacie?”

“Kacie Bachman,” Dan supplied from behind him, and that name did ring a bell. “She went missing before Luna. A witness saw her climbing into a silver SUV. So Kacie drove to find help in Hebert’s SUV and Luna and Rocky went with her?”

“Kacie don’t know how to drive.”

Emmy barked out a laugh. “I thought Luna didn’t know how to drive either?”

“I gave her two lessons,” Ryder said.

“And how did she get on?”

Honestly? Things could have gone better. “She didn’t hit anything.”

“She was on an airstrip,” Tulsa called from the next room. “And she still went off the edge.”

“What’s the safety rating on a Tahoe?” Emmy asked. “Somebody find out. How long ago did she leave?”

“Couple hours?” Michelle glanced up at a gold clock on the wall. Instead of numbers, it had hieroglyphs. “Three? It was just getting light.”

The nearest town was forty minutes away. If Luna had left here two and a half hours ago, she should have reached Paragonah by now. Unless she was lying in a ditch somewhere. Fuck.

“Don’t,” Emmy warned. “We’ll find her. Storm, we need the helos again.”

Tulsa walked across to them. “What do you want to do about Hebert? He’s still alive, but if we want him to stay that way, he needs to get to a hospital fast.”

Emmy gave a long sigh, and Ryder knew what she was thinking. It would be so easy to let Anton Hebert breathe his last. He’d caused untold trauma to three women and led Blackwood and the Choir on a five-state manhunt. But Luna was out there somewhere, trying to save his sorry ass. Go figure.

“Did he hurt Luna? Did he…?” Ryder couldn’t even get the words out.

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