Page 12 of Wicked Obsession

“Ms. Canfield? You’ve never addressed her that politely in your life, not from the moment you grabbed her out of that shack in the rainforest.”

The newcomer reached the front of the chapel and Ryder settled for glaring at his teammate, but he cut that short when the guy asked, “Either woman show up?”

It was Trammel who answered. “No. Their purses and cell phones are in the bridal suite. Sarah’s car is in the parking lot. No sign of the two women anywhere.”

The man scowled, his attention moving to Russo. “I saw a bunch of your boys out canvassing the neighborhood. I hope to hell you’re not planning on launching your own investigation into this situation.”

Cop? Fed? As Trammel filled the guy in on what they knew, Ryder guessed cop. The FBI was more buttoned up than this man, Rio.

The dude looked frustrated when the briefing finished. “Let me get this straight,” Rio said. “We have two missing girls. Two separate threats. And no clue whether they’re actually missing, orwhether the bride got cold feet and fled in someone else’s car. Hell, you don’t even know for sure if the girls were taken. They could have left with someone they knew.”

No fucking way.

“Without their purses or cell phones? Without lettinganyoneknow what they were doing?” Taggart beat him to the punch, but Ryder nodded his agreement and moved next to the lieutenant to present a united front to the cop.

Two of the men who’d been sent out to gather intel were hurrying back, and his stomach cartwheeled. Ryder knew they didn’t have good news.

“Sir,” one of them said, his gaze locking on Russo. “The coffee shop next door has video of the two women being forced into a car at gunpoint.”

Chapter 5

When Ryder left Tampa, he’d been concerned about the threat against Langley, but trusted the FBI’s call that it was bullshit. He wished now that they’d boarded the private jet immediately and bought supplies in San Diego. While it was true that it would be harder here because it was unfamiliar territory, at least he’d know she was safe while they shopped. Hell, he wished he’d agreed to come to the damn wedding with her to begin with.

He looked up from the maps spread across the hood of the Explorer and eyed the western horizon. They’d spent hours driving around. Now the sun was low in the sky, and finding the kidnapper’s car became exponentially more difficult in the dark.

Not that it was easy in the daylight.

They knew it was a white Chevy Impala. They knew it had triggered a red-light camera at Pomerado and Willow Creek at around 1000, damn close to Sarah’s house. They knew Langley had been the driver. And they knew the car had been headed away from the freeway. That was all they had.

From the moment the cop, Rio, had called at 1400 to tell them the information on the vehicle, they’d been searching. San Diego was a big city, though, and there were thousands of white cars and ten times more places to hide one. If the kidnapper was a local, he could have parked in his garage and no one would ever see it.

One more hour of good daylight. Shit.

Ryder looked back down at the satellite map. Subdivision after subdivision—most with garages. His gaze moved to the street map. They’d created a grid over it, searched in sections, but had nothing to show for it. Not a fucking damn thing.

He took a deep breath. They’d had to stop for gas, and since the station was next to a fast food restaurant, Mako had walked over to grab some dinner for them. That made sense. It also made sense for the three of them to pull over to the side of the parking lot after filling up and lay out their maps where they could get the big picture whilethey waited for Bryce to return. Ryder suspected this whole search was a waste of time.

Okay, heknewit was a waste of time, but there was nothing else to do, and if he had to sit around and wait and imagine the things that could have happened to Langley by now, he’d lose his mind.

Ignoring the conversation between Griff and Stony, Ryder pulled out his phone and checked the app for the tracking device they’d attached to Trammel’s Jeep Renegade. It hadn’t moved in hours and an earlier ride by had shown it parked and empty. It was a damn pain.

Rio had made it clear when he’d phoned that they were only acting as extra eyes for the police department—the SEALs too—but Ryder knew damn well that if Taggart located the vehicle, he would try a rescue no matter how illegal it was, and his buddy Trammel would be right beside him. Ryder wanted his team there to make sure Langley got out alive, too. While they’d been at the chapel, it had been Sarah, Sarah, Sarah with Langley as an afterthought. Fuck that. His hellcat was every bit as important as the other woman.

But the reality was that she might already be dead. If the guy was the person who’d threatened her, the whole purpose was to kill her. If it was the threat to her friend, Langley was a complication the man didn’t want or need. Ryder pushed theidea away. He couldn’t think like that and function. But it was hard to stop.

“Ski, you listening?” Griff asked.

“No, what did you say?”

Rowland tapped the satellite map, bringing his attention to an area northeast of where they’d searched so far. “Griff suggested that this would be a good place to go to ground.”

“There’s a whole lot of space there,” Griff said, “and if you were a kidnapper worried that a neighbor might see an alert and report you to the police, you wouldn’t hide in a subdivision. Garage or no garage, it’s a risk.”

“You think we should search there next?”

“Why not?” Griff shrugged. “It’s as good a place as any.”

Yeah, it was as good a place as any. They were assuming the asshole wasn’t in Mexico, drinking beer at a bar in Tijuana. They were assuming that if he was after Sarah, he was waiting for a cash payoff and not a wire transfer. They were assuming that if it was the guy who’d threatened Langley, he hadn’t simply killed both women and dumped their bodies somewhere.Fuck.He had to stop thinking like this, but he knew what could happen. He’d seen too much not to know.

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