Page 80 of Sutton's Shadow

Once outside, he searched everything. He searched for signs of forced entry, footprints, anything that would tell him where his sister had gone. But there was nothing.

Giving up outside, he stalked back to the house. Sutton had dressed and was waiting for him. “Do you have any of her friends’ numbers? I can start calling around to them.”

“Shit. No, I don’t. I’ll call Ian. Can you call Graham? He’ll get the rest of the team so we can begin a search.”

She nodded and took out her phone. He walked a few steps away and made his own call.

Ian was the first to arrive. He performed the same check. No signs of a struggle, no forced entry. Then came the questions he couldn’t answer.

Did she talk about anybody new? Was someone or something bothering her?

Had she done anything like this before? That question pissed him off. It was as if he was alluding to a conclusion that she had run away. That was a hard no. She loved it here with him. She told him that all the time. He was sure of it.

But the doubt crept in with the anger. Before he could erupt, Sutton’s hand covered his fist on the table. “She told me the other night she was very happy here,” Sutton told Ian. “It had always been her dream to live here with Wyatt.”

“I’m just covering all the bases. I know she’s a good kid, and she loves you, Wyatt,” Ian offered. “But we need to piece together what happened by figuring out what she’s been up to the last few days. When we’re done here, I’ll head to the school and start questioning her friends.”

“She mentioned someone named Lia once, but I don’t have a last name,” Wyatt informed.

Ian jotted the name down. “Okay. Any other names?”

Wyatt suffered the shame at not having learned who her friends were yet. “We were just starting to get in the groove of living together. I haven’t met any of them yet. And she doesn’t talk about anybody in particular.”

“Okay. I’ll ask her teachers who she’s closest to. Perhaps she just snuck out to have a sleepover at one of their houses.”

Wyatt could hope for that too, but his gut told him that wasn’t what had happened.

“While I’m at the school, why don’t you and the Nighthawks do your thing? Start searching the neighborhood. Knock on doors if you need to.”

“Right. They should be on their way.” He sought Sutton’s gaze for confirmation, and she nodded. His tension eased with the knowledge that his team would have his back.

Ian asked a few more questions before a knock on the door interrupted. Sutton got up to let the Nighthawks in. They threw maps of the area across the table, the corners held down with whatever they could find.

“I’ll head over to the school now. Keep your phone close and charged. I’ll be in touch.”

He let Sutton walk Ian out as he lost himself in the plans for the search. “Emma, could we get some satellite pictures of the area?”

“Sure, I can do that.” She sat with her laptop and started typing away.

“Pictures,” Sutton muttered from nearby.

“What?”

“Oh God,” Sutton cried before racing down the hall to Bethany’s bedroom. Wyatt followed, perplexed. He paused in the doorway and watched as Sutton searched her room.

“It’s not here.”

“What’s not?”

“The camera I gave her. It’s not here.”

“Okay,” he drew the word out, unsure of why the missing camera was important.

“We knew something was eating at her, right?” He nodded. “She asked me all kinds of questions the other night during our talk. Questions about my work. She wanted to know more about Colombia. Why I took those pictures. Why I hid them for so long. Why I was willing to turn them over now. Oh shit.” Her eyes widened just before she pushed past him and hurried back into the living room.

She grabbed her laptop and booted it up, her fingers impatiently tapping as she waited.

“Sutton, what’s going on?” he asked.

---