Ren didn’t wait to hear the rest; he turned and began running as fast as he could back toward the school.
“Levell, Stutz, come in,” Steve yelled into the walkie-talkie. “Report. Sheriff, we need a report right damn now from Levell and Stutz. We left Natalie with them.”
There was not a sound from them. Ren didn’t even slow down to curse, just pushed his body faster than he ever had. He could hear Lillian and Ashton right behind him.
“I need any available officer to the south side of the auditorium,” Steve was yelling into the walkie through panted breaths.
As Ren rounded the corner of the high school, someone stepped in front of him and he had to dodge to keep from knocking the guy over. He didn’t so much as pause. Every fiber of his being was focused on getting back to Natalie.
He ripped open the door on the far side of the auditorium, leaping over fallen chairs and broken camera stands, bolting up to the stage and out the back door where he’d taken Natalie not thirty minutes before.
Weapon still in hand, he burst through the outer door that led to the alley.
His worst nightmare met him there: two fallen officers lying in puddles of blood and Natalie nowhere in sight.
He planted himself on the ground beside Levell to check for a pulse while someone else did the same on Stutz.
Ren shook his head. There was nothing. Levell was dead. Kid hadn’t been wearing his vest.
“I’ve got a pulse here,” Lillian said, reaching in to put pressure on the wound. “But tell the ambulance to hurry the hell up.”
Ren stood and looked at Steve. “I gave Natalie the tracker last night. We can follow her, but I’ve got to get to the safe house to get the computer with the program.”
Steve nodded, still talking to emergency services. Lillian stayed with Stutz, but Ashton took off running with Ren. They were in the house, booting up the laptop, when Ashton spoke.
“If Freihof was talking to those jerks last night, inciting them to riot this morning, then he either got exceptionally lucky or he already knew about this little plan.”
He’d known. The bastard had known they were coming to Westwater before they’d even gotten there. “I think he has some sort of tap on Steve’s Omega phone. It’s the only means I’ve used to communicate anything about Natalie. Freihof is the one who tortured and killed the owners of the Santa Barbara beach house, probably to try to get answers for what info was missing from the phone calls. But he definitely knew Natalie and I would get here last night. Steve and I talked about that specifically.”
“You think the fire and fight last night were instigated by him, too?”
Why the hell was the computer taking so damn long to boot? “Undoubtedly.”
“We’re going to get her back,” Ashton whispered as they both stared at the screen.
Had someone told him this when Freihof had taken Ashton’s wife, Summer, and her daughter, Chloe? Ren hoped it had worked better than the words of comfort were working on him right now.
He knew what Freihof was capable of. Knew the ways he had tortured Natalie.
Knew she had to be scared out of her mind right now. Freihof had nearly forty-five minutes on them.
The ways someone could hurt another person in forty-five minutes had Ren breaking out in a cold sweat.
The computer finally booted and Ren started the program that would track Natalie, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw the dot on the map was still moving. Movement meant life.
He connected the 4G from his phone to the laptop. “Let’s roll. We’ll be able to get a more accurate location as we get closer.”
Ashton jogged with him to the car. “Where are we headed?”
“Grand Junction.”
“Anything special about that place?”
“Definitely to Freihof.”
* * *
RENCURSEDUNDERhis breath when the tracker stopped. Ashton was already driving well over one hundred miles per hour. The rest of the team—Steve, Lillian, Brandon—were five minutes behind them. A number of other Omega Critical Response team members were on their way to Grand Junction via helicopter.
