“Don’t apologize. I appreciate the urgency. What do you know?”
“Not much,” Harper said from the back seat, causing me to scream and grab my chest.
“I’m so sorry! I thought you saw us.”
I turned in my seat to see Harper, Harlow, and Moose. “No, I missed all of you. Please tell me what you know.”
“Ariel had a flat tire on her way home from school. She called Ink because she couldn’t get the lug nuts off, and he went to help her. After an hour passed, Dice called Ink to see if they needed help. Ink didn’t answer. After several unanswered calls, Dice called Jake to see if he had Ariel’s number. While that washappening, the police showed up at the garage saying they found Ink’s truck abandoned on the side of the road with another car. They said there was a lot of blood on the ground,” she said gently.
A lot of blood.
Whose blood was it? Hers? His? Theirs?
I covered my face with my hands as I began to sob.
“We track our kids with apps,” Ember said. “Do you and Ariel have something like that?”
“Yes,” I nodded and reached for my phone. With shaking hands, I pulled up the app I used to track Ariel’s phone, hoping it would give me her location. Hope filled me when her blue dot appeared on my screen, but that hope quickly disappeared when I realized her phone had been at the same location for two hours. “Where are the cars?” I asked.
“Union Street. About two miles from the high school,” Harper said.
“Damn it,” I swore. “Her phone is in her car.”
“Yeah, Ink’s phone is there, too,” Harper said.
At my confused look, Ember said, “My dad had Byte track their phones. I should’ve worded it better. I was asking if you had another means of tracking her.”
“I don’t, but I probably will after this.”
“Byte can find anything,” Harper said confidently. “He’s checking the traffic cameras now to see which way they were taken.”
Taken.
She said the word I had been trying to keep from entering my mind. They thought my man and my child had been taken. “No,” I whispered, and covered my face again. “No, no, no.”
Harper placed her hand on my shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “I know it doesn’t help much, but we’regoing to do everything we can to find them. Phoenix called everyone in. The entire club is looking for them.”
“That’s what we’re doing, right? Going to look for them?” I was prepared to jump out of her car if she said anything other than yes.
“Yes,” Ember said. “We’re meeting Carbon, Jake, and Mason near where the cars were found, and we’ll see if Moose can pick up a scent trail.”
“I don’t have anything with Ariel’s scent on it.”
“That’s okay. Jake has something,” Harlow said.
“What? How?”
“I didn’t ask,” she said in a way that made me think her answer was calculated, but I didn’t have time to address it.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m glad he has something. Will Moose be able to track her scent if she was in a vehicle?”
“No, not completely, but he should be able to give us an idea of which direction they went,” Harlow explained.
Ember made a sharp turn and came to a sliding stop. “We’re here,” she announced.
“Does your husband know you drive like that?” Carbon asked.
Ember shrugged. “I didn’t know it was a gravel road.”
