Page 97 of Silver Sanctuary
“You guys need to head back into town. You can’t be out here. If there’s any update, I’ll come find you. Personally.”
“Hank—”
“Nash, I know. I know this is your daughter. I’ve already issued the alert with Amber Graves’s and Adam Domico’s information. I have a deputy trying to locate them now.”
“But that’s Embrie’s backpack. She was here…” Lacy’s voice wavered.
“I talked to Gage. The book bag’s been out here over an hour at this point. They’ve got a head start if they are planning on transporting her across state lines.”
“What are you doing to stop them?” Lacy’s question sounded more like a plea.
“We’ve got troopers at the state lines. They’ll monitor the situation there. It’s very likely that this is related to the money your mother tried to extort from you. Which means, they’ll likely try to use Embrie as leverage to get that money. We need you to be back in Silver Springs in case someone reaches out and a demand is made.”
Lacy nodded, her head moving up and down Nash's chest, but her eyes never left the dogs as they put their snouts to the ground and took off.
“I just want to stay to see if they alert us to something. Just five minutes. Please.”
She looked at Hank while Nash’s arms tightened around her waist.
“Five minutes.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, an indescribable gratitude for the concession filling her body. Little did she know then that the feeling wouldn’t last long at all.
They’d returned to Montgomery defense hours ago. The dogs didn’t alert in the five minutes the sheriff had allowed them to be at the field, so all Lacy could do was pray that nothing came up in the time since she’d been forced to return to town. Part of her heart was screaming that it was good, since Hank had said he would deliver any news himself, and they had yet to see him, but a bigger part of her brain was screaming that with every passing minute, Embrie was slipping through their fingers.
“Here.” A mug hovered in front of her, but she just shook her head. If anything went in her stomach, she knew she’d be running to the bathroom just to throw it up. “You need something. This is warm. I put extra sugar in it.”
She lifted her eyes up off her lap for the first time in at least thirty minutes. Nash was crouched down in front of her, the mug hovering over her knees. There was no way she could drink it, but still, she reached out, hoping that holding onto the mug would ease some of the darkness in the worry lines around her husband’s eyes.
Before he could ask her whatever was on the tip of his tongue, Colt walked in, and her heart skipped when she saw Hank behind him.
“What?” She nearly bowled Nash over as she jumped to her feet. “What is it? Did you find her?”
“No. I’m sorry.” The sheriff looked truly remorseful as he took off his hat.
Lacy let her breath out in one furious burst, the room spinning as her legs shook.
“We were able to locate your mother and her boyfriend. They’ve been taken to the station for further questioning, but Embrie wasn’t with them.”
“They didn’t take her?”
No. No, no, no. Because if it wasn’t them… if it wasn’t someone they knew would keep her safe to try and get money for her return, that meant…
“What are the odds?” Lacy asked.
“Odds of?” Hank replied.
“She wasn’t taken by someone we know. So, what are the odds now? If we don’t find her today…” Her whispered question seemed to freeze the room around her. Everyone stopped moving, all their eyes trained on her. “If we don’t find her… what are her odds of survival?”
“We don’t have to think—” Nash tried to quiet the question, but she needed to know more than she needed her next breath.
“Tell me, Colt.” The gruff man looked back at her with pity in his eyes and she wanted to scream. “Fine. Hank? What are the odds we find her, alive and safe, after the first twenty-four hours!?”
“Don’t answer her.” Nash’s command from beside her lit her veins on fire. She didn’t want to be kept in the dark. She’d rather know what she was facing.
“Yes! Tell me! I have to know! I have to hear it for myself!” She was falling apart in front of everyone. Fracturing into a million pieces in front of the people that mattered most to Nash. But the fallout from that could wait. She had to know.
“Gage? Do you know?” His head shook back and forth, but the lines around his eyes gave him away. “Sloane?” Surely someone who worked with children would have some idea of the statistic. But she didn’t respond. “Hawk?” Nothing. “Gunner? If this was your daughter… if this were Sage, Lily would want to know.”
