Page 51 of Knight's Fall

Jay called out to Zane and Isobel since they were the closest to him. He gave them instructions to head to the diner to run down the leads. As they jogged over to Zane’s truck, Cole, Brick and Rock, one of the Deltas, came over. Wings couldn’t read their expressions to know whether they were bringing good or bad news, but he thought he’d lose his mind if they didn’t offer some type of hope.

“One of the neighbors saw her,” Brick said, pointing at a gray house on down the road. The house sat across from the side street Wings had walked to find Courtlyn’s phone. “He’s an older gentleman — eighty-two, to be exact. He’d fallen asleep in his chair and woke up needing to take a piss. He has a habit of looking out the window when he’s up just to see if there is anything unusual going on, and he saw a woman. He didn’t know who it was, but he did see her go down the side street and into that yard. He couldn’t see anything after that, but he waited a few minutes and never saw her come back on the road. He said it was going on past ten o’clock when he woke up.”

“That’s just before she got the text from you about the dog,” Sydney said.

Wings whipped his head around at her observation. He didn't mind that she had seen what he meant to be a private text. Finding Courtlyn was more important than privacy.

“Shit! She went into the yard chasing that dog. Whatever happened to her, the dog must have seen it, and it scared him enough to run back toward his house. I found him, and he was shook up. I just figured it was because he got lost.”

“Do you think if someone grabbed her, the dog would have attacked? Could the dog have been hurt?”

Wings tried to remember and grew frustrated when his mind drew a blank. “Hell, I don’t know. It was dark, and I was just ready to get the damn thing back to the neighbor’s so I could come home. I don’t remember any blood or anything, but I didn’t look for that kind of thing either.”

“We should question the neighbor anyway. If the dog could give us a clue, we need to know it,” Jay said.

Rock raised a hand to volunteer. “I’ll go. Old ladies love me.”

Wings resisted the urge to roll his eyes and instead gave Rock Mrs. Dobbs’ information. He watched the Delta Team leader walk down the street, his brow furrowed.

“There’s so little to go on. What the hell are we missing here? She couldn’t have just vanished.” He mused more to himself, but those around him heard every word.

“I looked through the window at that house where you found her phone,” Cole said. “I didn’t see any sign that she’d gone inside, but maybe we should take a closer look. It’s kind of run down. Maybe she fell through the floor, and we just couldn’t see it from the window.”

“Go,” Jay ordered. “We’ll clear it with the property owners later. We can’t afford to waste any time.”

Cole and Brick hurried off to check the house. Wings glanced down and caught Olivia staring after his friends. She finally returned his look.

“For the longest time, my family and I were all Coco had. It’s nice to see so many people watching out for her. She deserves that.”

Wings had no words. He could only nod. Courtlyn deserved that and so much more. If he could only find her, he planned to give her everything he had so she felt protected and cherished the rest of her life.

∞∞∞

Courtlyn woke to a blinding headache, exacerbated by the bright light shining in her face. She tried to raise her hands to cover her eyes, but she only succeeded in jerking her arms at the shoulders. That’s when she realized her predicament, and her blood froze in her veins.

She sat in a wooden chair situated in the middle of a large sheet of plastic. Her clothes were gone, leaving her only in her bra and panties. She could see deep purple bruises on her upper arms.

Forcing herself to focus, she turned her head gingerly to see the bare room with walls the color of chocolate ice cream and a floor of dark vinyl designed to mimic hardwood. One window allowed sunlight to beam through the panes. Squinting, all she could see through the window were tree trunks clustered together. Two doors across from her were closed, their white paint chipping to reveal a pink color underneath.

Closing her eyes, she tried to recall the numerous crime shows she’d seen about using the senses to describe surroundings. She couldn’t hear any distinctive noises save for the cacophony of tree frogs that made the pounding in her head unbearable. Her nose detected a strong musty odor as if no one had used the room in a long time. None of that would help her especially when she couldn’t recall how she ended up in the room. She remembered chasing Bogie. She remembered falling. She remembered a sharp pain. The rest remained wisps of memory that she couldn’t access.

She started picturing the worst. How had she ended up in a strange place without someone bringing her here? Why would she be in her underwear if the person who had taken her wasn’t planning to assault her? Why would he not put something over her mouth if he wasn’t sure no one would hear her scream? Why would he not blindfold her if he wasn’t worried about her identifying him later?

A tear slipped from her eye before she put a chokehold on her emotions. The odds of her getting out of this didn’t look good, but she’d be damned if she wouldn’t put up a fight. If her kidnapper planned to kill her, she wasn’t going quietly.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Wings stared at the wide monitor as if the answer he was searching for would jump out at him. All the information they’d gathered since Courtlyn went missing was laid out in front of him, mocking their lack of progress. He was no closer to discovering what had happened to her, and though he didn’t voice the thought, he started to lose hope that he ever would.

When their search of the neighborhood and questioning of the neighbors turned up nothing, they’d decided to regroup at KSI. Wings convinced Dex to take Olivia home, but only after he promised to call them once they had a lead.

Jay had ordered him to stand down from the investigation because he was too close to the situation. Wings hadn’t even put up a fight. He knew he could remain closer to the case by camping out in the Command Center. All of the intel was being run through the computer analysts, and if he was quiet enough, they talked over each other without remembering he was in the room.

He heard the door to the Command Center open and turned to see Jay motioning for him. His friend didn’t wait for him before moving down the hall, and Wings followed just as he was expected to. They walked into the War Room, and the Alpha Team waited with a couple of investigators for Jay to return with Wings.

Their faces told him all he needed to know. It wasn’t good news.

Courtlyn had been missing for fourteen hours now. Still too early for them to involve the police, but late enough for her trail to become cold.

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