Page 41 of Searching for Valor

“I don’t know. But I have to find him.”

Anna nodded and stood on her toes to press a kiss to his cheek. “Go. I’ll hold down the fort here.”

Zak stepped out onto the back porch, Ranger at his heels as he jogged across the backyard. His first stop was Rylan’s office, but it was empty. He poked his head into the main command center and found Sawyer and Pierce in there with their dogs, as usual.

“Has anyone seen or spoken to Rylan?”

Pierce shook his head.“I haven’t, but maybe Rhia has.”

“Can you ask her?”

Pierce nodded and grabbed his phone from his back pocket, tapping out a text. After a moment, he shook his head again and signed,“She says she texted him a couple times since yesterday, but he hasn’t answered. She thought he was just being pissy about… you know, her moving in with me.”

Zak glanced toward Sawyer. “What about you? Have you heard from him?”

“He called a few days ago and asked me to run a background check on a seriously bad dude,” Sawyer said. He groped for a stack of papers on his desk and held them up. “But then he never came in for it.”

Zak strode in and grabbed the papers, quickly scanning them. “Who’s Julian Graves?”

“Seriously bad dude,” Sawyer said again. “Arms trafficker, human trafficker. Just an all around piece of shit.”

That bad feeling curdled into fear. “Why was he looking into this guy?”

“Didn’t say, but I assumed it had something to do with those missing kids. Any word on that front?”

Zak winced at the long list of Julian Graves’ crimes. “Ash is being tight-lipped about it as usual, but I get the feeling he’s got nothing. He did say the FBI was now involved. Some agent named Callahan. He wasn’t thrilled about it.”

Sawyer scowled. “Come on. Kids don’t just vanish into thin air.”

He thought back to Kyrone Madison and how he and his wife must have felt when Bella was taken from them. They hadn’t know what happened to her for fifteen years. “Unfortunately, they do. All too often.” He held up the papers. “Mind if I keep this?”

Sawyer shrugged. “Yeah, sure. I have no use for it.”

As he strode from the room, he called Izzy. She answered before the first ring finished like she’d been staring at her phone, waiting for his call. “Zak?”

“He’s not here and nobody’s spoken to him in at least two days.”

“Oh, God. I’m going over to his place.”

“Yeah, first I want you to tell me why Rylan was asking about a human trafficker.”

“What?” she breathed, and if he wasn’t mistaken that was genuine shock in her voice.

“Julian Graves. I have the background check Sawyer ran and he’s bad fucking news. What the fuck have you—” Ranger growled at his side and he realized he’d raised his voice to a near shout. He exhaled sharply, taking a second to calm down before he finished. “Who is Julian Graves?”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line before Izzy finally spoke. “Monica was dating him. She said she took something from him and he wants it back. She said not to ask questions about him because he would know and come after me.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.” He jogged to the door. “I’ll meet you at Rylan’s.”

chapter

fourteen

Rylan’s truckwas parked in the driveway under the shade of a tree, its windshield still covered with the overnight frost despite the bright morning sunlight, so he must be home, but the cabin was eerily quiet, the windows dark. An chill settled over Izzy as she pulled up behind Zak’s truck. He’d beat her here by seconds.

“Don’t like this,” Zak muttered as they met in driveway.

The morning may be bright, but it was still cold enough that her exposed skin stung in the slight breeze. She should’ve grabbed her jacket, but all she could think of was getting here, getting to Rylan.

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