Jesse’s cell dinged with a message, and he lifted it. “They just arrived with Wade.”
“He’s here?” Colt asked.
“Yes, but—”
Colt didn’t listen to whatever Jesse said next. He stormed out of the office just as Wade was entering the building, a deputy on either side of him.
Colt went to grab him, but Jesse and Noah each took an arm.
“Don’t,” Jesse warned.
“She’s gone!” Colt shouted at the pathetic excuse for a deputy. “Indie’s fucking gone and it’s your fault!”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“Don’t lie,” Jesse cut in. “We have you on video handing them the key to the cuffs.”
The guy’s face paled. “He threatened my family! What the hell was I supposed to do?”
“You were supposed to tellme,” Jesse growled. “I could have protected you and your family. Now it’s too late.”
The deputies pulled him down the hall while Jesse pushed Colt back into his office, and Noah closed the door after them.
“So Chester and Roman drugged my mother at the party, probably bribed a nurse to tell them which room she’d be in, and freed Gordon so he could take her,” Colt said, trying to piece together their plan.
“Why?” Jesse asked. “That’s so much effort for people who were just after Gordon for money he owed.”
“Because Gordon doesn’t just owe them money…he works for them.” It was the only thing that made sense. “He told them about my mother’s wealth. This is a job to them.”
“If that’s true,” Noah said quietly, “then you’re about to get a call.”
“I’ve already contacted one of our technology specialists.” Jesse lifted his cell and called someone. “Claudia, you ready?” A short pause. “Good.”
Colt frowned when he hung up. “You think you can trace the call without a warrant?”
“She’s bringing a portable trace unit and a frequency scanner. They won’t give us a GPS, but they’ll tell us which tower Gordon’s hitting, and it will narrow the location down a bit over one square mile.”
“That’s nothing,” Noah said.
Colt nodded. “With Becket and Holden’s help, plus the deputies, we’ll cover that easily.”
A female deputy stepped into the room, laptop bag in one hand, map in the other.
“Colt, Noah, this is Claudia. Claud, we’re expecting the call to come to Colt’s phone,” Jesse said.
“Got it. I’ve already circled the local cell towers.” She handed the map to Jesse before taking out her laptop. “I’m going to connect the call-monitoring software to your phone, Colt, using Bluetooth.”
Colt didn’t question the woman, just handed it over.
She hit a few keys on her laptop before fiddling with his cell.
“Connected.” She handed it back. “I’ll log the call’s number and try to see the cell tower it came through using my mobile signal analyzer.”
Colt didn’t have time to try and understand anything she was saying before his phone rang. His spine stiffened as he saw an unknown number.
This was it.
He hit answer and put the call on speaker. “Where is she?”
