Ski mask?Holy shit.Knots the size of boulders formed in his gut, and he fought to keep his patience in check.Losing it now would only make Louise clam up and slow down the process.He had to keep his shit together.
Spotting Hank, he gestured him over.
“Who do you suspect it was?Even if you’re wrong it gives us a starting point.”He fought to sound reassuring, but his tone likely held more than a note of impatience.
Hank joined them, his face sweaty and a grumpy expression creasing his cheeks.“What’s going on?”
“Desiree was kidnapped.”He gave Louise’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze.“Tell him.”
“I was outside watching the commotion and someone pressed a gun to my side and hustled me down the street.She put me into my car and made me call Desiree—”
“She?”Hank asked, whipping out a pen and a notepad.
“Yes.Desiree came to the window and she made her get in the back and...and then she drove away.She stopped on Bighorn Street and told me to get out.”
“Who was it, Louise?”Aiden pressed.He needed a goddamn name.Now.
“Ithinkit was Meredith Wilkes.Sure looked like her hair and sounded like her.She was just in the store yesterday.”
Aiden dropped his hands from Louise.“I’ll be damned.”He cleared his throat, the building panic in his chest spreading like wildfire.If Louise was right and Meredith had Dez, this whole thing might not have anything to do with Dez and everything to do with him.“What direction did they go?”
She pointed a shaky hand toward Bighorn Street.
He turned to Hank.“Put out an alert for Louise’s vehicle.”He rattled off the make and model and Louise gave her plate number.Hank nodded his agreement and spoke into the radio at his shoulder.
“I’m going after them,” Aiden called.He pulled his phone from his pocket and ran for his vehicle, yanking his keys out on the way.
Meredith.
Damn, why hadn’t she even crossed his mind?She’d moved in next door to him a month ago, but she’d barely struck up a conversation.Their interactions were mostly hellos in passing.
Had she moved there to be closer tohim?
She could have known that he’d brought Dez home Saturday night...could’ve even been listening or, fuck, watching, while he made love to Dez.The attacks had started Sunday night.
Holy fucking shit.
Meredith was jealous he was seeing Dez and she could very well hurt her.He jerked open his door and hit Wes’s icon.There were too many places around Whistlemore to throw someone off a cliff or dump a body.Meredith had likely gone to the woods, and Wes was the best person to consult regarding the area.
The line rang over the speaker as Aiden pulled away from the curb.
“Man, it’s the middle of the night,” Wes whined groggily.
“Dez is missing.Meredith took her and I need your help.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.”A cough followed, then a groan.“You’re going to have to go over that again more slowly.”
Aiden made an impatient sound and gave Wes a rundown on the details of the night.“I need you to think where someone would take a person if they wanted to...get rid of them.”
“Well, Jesus,” Wes ground out.“There’s like a million fucking hectares of wilderness, but okay.Let me think.”
Silence ticked by.
“Didn’t you take Meredith on a picnic date?You asked me for a spot, but I can’t remember.”
Aiden snapped his fingers, the memory rushing back.“Willow Lake.It’s about twenty minutes deep into the woods, up Pioneer Road.”
A flashback of him sitting next to Willow Lake, surrounded by wilderness and Meredith, blinked through his mind.He’d kissed her there, and then they’d gone to his house and had sex.He couldn’t say they’d hit it off, and he hadn’t called her after that.
