Page 91 of Claiming Ours
We all stared at the door when it slammed shut, the sudden quiet heavy and unsettling.
My skin itched, the need to see Baylee and make sure she was okay so insistent that I couldn’t, nor wouldn’t, ignore it. I shoved out of my chair, which landed in a heap like Miles’s, and everyone turned to me.
“We all know what’s on the schedule for the week thanks to Juno,” I said to Brandon, who nodded, lips in a tight line. “I need to go check on my girl.”
“Same,” Miles, Aiden, and Brandon echoed.
Finley darted out the door before any of us could get there, leaving a despondent Dax at the table, staring at where she’d just disappeared. That confirmed something was off between them, but I didn’t have the time or the capacity to ask Dax about it now.
We all filed out, each giving the others a nod as we broke apart and headed to our respective cabins—except Miles and Aiden, who lived together with Aspen. Down the road, Oliver’s state-issued SUV disappeared, the roar of the engine slowlyfading. I shook my head while I walked, trying to piece together everything that had transpired in our normally mundane weekly meeting.
The necklace we found near the dead woman was Caroline’s.
What the actual fuck.
What did that mean? With all the rain, it could’ve ended up there from anywhere along that mountain range. There was no doubt in my mind that Miles was already putting together a search team to target that area, hoping to find more traces of his friend—our friend. Too bad the helicopter was unusable, or we could’ve used it to search the hard-to-reach areas.
My steps faltered at that thought. Glaring at the tips of my boots, I considered what West said to Langston about the helicopter being sabotaged. Could whoever was behind all this be one step ahead of us—hell, maybe even two to three steps? How the fuck could that happen? Didn’t experts say it took a while for someone to do something like this so seamlessly, not leaving any evidence behind—to be this good at stealing women without a trace?
Maybe it had been going on for way longer—years, even—before we put the disappearances together.
With that gut-dropping thought, I jogged the last stretch to the cabin, cleared the few steps to the porch in one leap, and slid the key already in my hand into the lock. But when I gave it a twist, it didn’t move, because the deadbolt was already unlocked.
I was positive I’d locked it on my way out, had even checked it twice to be sure. Fear slithered through my veins as I shoved the door open, the force causing it to bounce off the wall, cracking the drywall.
“Baylee,” I bellowed. After checking the main area, I spun on my heel and rushed to my bedroom. “Memphis.” His name echoed through the entire cabin.
Entering the bedroom, I stumbled to a stop at the sight of Baylee kneeling in the middle of the bed.
Alone.
Crying.
Her watery eyes met mine as those sad tears that ripped my heart open streamed down her face.
“He left,” she rasped, ice-blue eyes dipping to the rumpled spot on the bed beside her. “He’s gone.”
Careful to keep my approach slow and calculated, I made my way to the bed and sat on the edge. The second I opened my arms, she shuffled across the king-size mattress and curled against my chest.
Her small hand fisted the front of my shirt while I stroked a hand along her back, hoping to calm her enough to get the full story, because what she said made little sense. The fucker was almost a stranger, sure, but I knew he loved the woman in my arms as much as I did. So I needed to find out, really fucking quick, what happened so I could fix it.
Even if that meant kicking his ass and dragging him back here unconscious to make her stop crying. Damn, her tears gutted me.
“Tell me what happened,” I murmured.
Sniffling, she shifted to tip her face up to mine. “We were talking and laughing after you left for the meeting. Everything was fine. Then it wasn’t.”
“Did something happen?”
“He checked his phone, and it was like his entire demeanor flipped. He jumped out of bed and started throwing on clothes, all while deflecting my questions about what was going on.” Her lower lip wobbled. “What if he doesn’t come back?”
“Did he say anything when he left?” I doubted Memphis would leave her like this, even if it was some kind of emergency that needed his attention. A sliver of worry seeped in, wonderingif it had something to do with his past and addictions, but I quickly shoved that down. “Were you crying when he left?”
That would determine the level of pain I’d inflict on the asshole.
She shook her head. “These didn’t start until you came home.” I winced, hating that I’d caused her tears. “And all he said was there was something important he needed to do.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
