Page 90 of Searching for Valor

A sudden feeling of dread washed over her. Mateo almost never called. He preferred texting. All kinds of worst-case scenarios zoomed through her head— Abuela had a heart attack, Sofia was in a car accident, Diego had an accident at the garage, her parents…

Stop it, she told herself before she could spiral into panic. She’d just left her parents and Abuela. They were safe at home and spoiling Noah, who had been discharged from the hospital this afternoon.

Heart in her throat, she answered. “Teo? What’s wrong?”

Silence.

Izzy’s blood ran cold as the silence stretched on. “Teo?” she repeated, her voice rising with panic. “Are you there?”

“Isabella Delgado?” A deep, unfamiliar voice finally answered, and, for a moment, she was thrown back in time to that safe house when she answered a call from her mother and heard a man’s voice making demands of her instead.

Her fingers shook, and she tightened them around the phone to keep from dropping it. “Who is this? Where’s my brother?”

“Your brother is fine. For now.” The man’s tone was cold, matter-of-fact. “His continued well-being depends entirely on you.”

No, this couldn’t be happening again. Not again.

“Wh-what do you want?”

“The files Monica Holt stole,” the man said flatly.

“I don’t have them.”

“Then you’d better find them.”

“How? I don’t know where Monica is!”

“That’s not my problem,” the man replied coldly at the other end of the line. “You’re an investigator. Investigate. You have two hours to find her and get those files.”

But didn’t they have her? Noah said he saw her before he escaped.

Unless…

The realization knocked the air from her lungs: They didn’t have Monica anymore. Or Grace. They must have escaped when Noah did, but Monica was terrified enough that she’d have gone into hiding instead of finding help like Noah had. And these people she was afraid of… whoever they were… they’d lost their leverage, so they’d gone after Rylan. When that didn’t work, they grabbed Mateo.

She had to tell Rylan?—

She leaped to her feet and strode toward the recovery room but froze before even making it halfway across the room. He was already angry and grieving for what happened to his dog. She couldn’t pile more on his shoulders right now.

Zak.

She turned for the door, intending to run straight to the command center.

“Two hours,” the man said again. “Or your brother dies. If you tell anyone, he dies. If I see the sheriff or Redwood Coast Rescue anywhere near me, he dies. Understood? I’m done fucking around.“

Izzy skidded to a halt on the sidewalk in front of the clinic and swallowed hard. “Yes.”

“Good. I’ll call back in ninety minutes with instructions for the exchange. Answer, or he dies.“

The line went silent, leaving her standing there in the cold night, her ragged breaths fogging in the air.

Mateo was in danger.

She only had two hours to find Monica and get those files.

And she couldn’t tell anyone.

Her gaze darted to the clinic door. Rylan was in there with Valor. The team was gathered in the command center across the starburst-shaped courtyard, already working on tracking down the attackers. They could help her. They would want to help her.

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