“Appreciate it, Mitch.” He shook the man’s hand, much to Mitch’s surprise. “Appreciate it even more if you kept that information to yourself for now.”
“Will do.”
Cubby watched Mitch leave and wondered what the hell that was about and why his deputy hadn’t found anything when he’d searched that area.
“Rona, I need to speak to the boys. You send them to me, I’ll be in the first tent,” he said into his radio.
“Will do.”
As he walked through the runners, the unease inside him steadily built. What the hell was bothering him and why did he think it involved Katie?
“Have you seen Katie, Newman?”
“Nope, but we won the relay.”
“Excellent, and I’ll celebrate with you later; for now I need to find her.”
Newman, who was in the process of stuffing half a sandwich into his mouth, stopped.
“What’s up?”
“Hell if I know, but I don’t think it’s good.”
“I’ll start looking for her.”
Cubby walked toward the tent, asking people if they’d seen her, and when he reached it only, Rick and Tank were there.
“Where’s Brady?”
“He hasn’t come back in yet,” Tank said.
“The last runner went through over an hour ago, why the hell not?” Cubby pulled out his radio again and called Brady, but got no answer.
“Did either of you go with Brady when he searched up by the old Pearson hut?”
They shook their heads and Cubby’s intuition spiked. Pulling out his phone, he called Rona.
“I need you to call Brady’s superior in San Diego. I want anything they got on him, because I have a bad feeling he’s been playing us somehow. Dig up whatever you can, Rona, and do it quick.”
“I can’t believe he’s bad, and anyway, what could he do to us here?” Tank said.
“Mitch Finlay just got back from searching Brady’s grid. He said he found blood, what appeared to be tracks from something being dragged, and new locks on the old hut. Brady was the only one who checked that location.”
“Katie hasn’t come back in, Cubby.”
He’d known she was in danger, felt it inside him, but thought maybe it was his new feelings for her distorting everything. Jake’s words confirmed his fears.
“I saw her at about the six mile point, so she went missing after that,” he said.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
He told Jake what he knew and then they started a search, everywhere, including her houseboat, Jake and Branna’s house, but there was no sign of her. Cubby had gone cold, his body one big block of ice as he pushed aside emotion and focused on what needed to be done to get his girl back.His girl.He’d never thought he’d have a woman permanently in his life, but he would have that, he vowed, with Katie.
“Tell me something, Rona,” Cubby said as he answered her call. He listened and then pocketed his phone. It rang straight away, and it was E.J., Katie’s old boss.
“What?” Jake barked when he’d finished the call.
“Brady has huge gambling debts, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and they wanted him out of San Diego because he was in danger.”
