I had no idea how. There wasn’t anything I had that Trey could want, but I’m sure he’d think of something.
As we traveled further north, I couldn’t hold off the despair that crept in, threatening to suffocate me.
“Fuck,” I breathed. “I should have kept him talking. I should’ve at least found out where they were going.”
Trey ignored me, and I side-eyed him to see him tapping away at his phone screen.
“What are you doing?”
“Tracking Addie’s phone.” He quickly flashed the screen to me. “They’re still on this road. Roughly twenty miles ahead, moving north.” Then, “Wait. Looks like they stopped.”
I pressed the accelerator all the way to the floor.
There was no way in hell I was losing Sutton again, not when I’d just gotten her back.
I’d responded to countless vehicular accident scenes over the course of my career, but none of them had ever taken my breath away like coming upon this one. The guardrail protecting drivers from a fairly deep ditch had busted out. It gaped open, the remaining ends mangled. Screeching to a halt, I barely remembered to put the truck in park before Trey and I threw ourselves out and approached.
The sight at the bottom nearly brought me to my knees. The black SUV was, miraculously, resting on its wheels, though based on the disturbance of the lingering snow and brush on the hillside, it had rolled several times on the way down. Its roof was caved in, the windows I could see shattered, the sides, rear, and front ends crushed like tin cans.
With zero regard for my own safety, I threw myself over the ledge. Though I slipped and slid all the way down, I managed to stay on my feet until I reached the vehicle.
I approached the front seat first, where I found Addie slumped behind the wheel. Her head lolled against her chest, and there was blood everywhere. Was she breathing? I couldn’t tell, and though it went against everything I stood for as a law enforcement officer, I couldn’t make myself reach out and touch her to check for a pulse.
Trey reached my level and pushed me out of the way. “I’ll check on her,” he said gently. “Find Sutton.”
Nodding, I moved away from him, peeking into the backseat and not seeing her. But there was no sign of her when I walked the perimeter, either.
“What the fuck?”
Trey’s eyes snapped to mine. “What?”
“Where the hell is she?”
“Look again,” he encouraged me, then hooked his thumb toward Addie when he pulled his hand out of the car. “She’s alive, by the way. I’ll call nine-one-one.”
I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.
My second look at the backseat still didn’t reveal Sutton, and I was about to back away, to venture further into the surrounding area and start calling for her when something caught my eye.
A flash of orange.
The same color as the hoodie of mine Sutton had been wearing Friday when she showed up for dinner.
Sticking my body halfway through the window, I found her curled into the fetal position on the floor in an impossibly small cavity behind the passenger seat.
“Sutton!” I cried. “Trey, I found her!”
Without waiting for him, I headed around to the other side, reaching for the door handle. Naturally, it didn’t budge. Heedless of my own safety and despite Trey’s pleas for me to take a breath and wait for emergency services, I hoisted myself up and slid into the backseat through the busted-out window.
It was a tight fit, the vehicle seeming to have shrunk about three feet in the crash, but I managed to angle myself across the seat so I could reach Sutton. As hard as it was not to drag her out of there and pull her into my arms, I knew moving her was the worst thing I could do for her right now. Instead, I brushed her hair out of her face, my eyes filling with tears as I took in her battered features. Her eyes were closed, lashes sooty crescentsacross her pale cheekbones. Cuts and scrapes marred every inch of her skin, some deep enough to bleed profusely, others more surface level. Purple bruising had already taken up residence around her eyes.
“Please, baby. Please be alive.” I silently begged. Sifting through her mass of hair, I found her neck with a shaking hand and pressed my fingers against her carotid.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
