She rose from her seat.
“Just a minute, Regina,” the chief said. He reached into his desk and pulled out her service piece. He slid it across the desk toward her.
“This was through processing a few days ago, but you were out of town. If the doc clears you, we’d be glad to have you back on Monday as we discussed.”
“Thank you, sir,” she murmured.
She patted the badge in her jeans pocket, drawing comfort from knowing that with everything else in her life spiraling out of control, she at least had her job back. The chief started for the door, and she quickly arranged the shoulder holster and secured her gun before following him out.
It should have meant more. She should have been more relieved. As she walked down the corridor toward the interrogation room, she tried to shake the foreboding that gripped her. It would be all right. She had her job back, and once she explained everything to the guys, things would be okay there too. They had to be.
She took a seat beside David and waited for the prisoner to be brought in.
Two hours later, Regina headed home, her mind in overdrive. Her gut screamed that the guy in custody wasn’t the one. He was a smooth son of a bitch. He said all the right things, and if he hadn’t killed Misty Thompson, he’d sure done his homework.
But he hadn’t so much as blinked in recognition when he’d walked into the exam room. He’d treated her just as he did all the other cops. With polite disdain and smug assuredness.
And his voice was all wrong.
There was enough doubt that the chief had warned her to keep on her toes, even though things had been remarkably quiet since the car bomb incident. David was groaning over the idea of having the wrong guy, and worse, having the wrong guy cop to a murder he didn’t commit.
If this guy wasn’t the one, it meant they were back to square one. No leads. No suspects.
She increased her speed, her reasons for wanting to get back home in a hurry twofold. Not only was she desperate to make things right with the guys, but now she had to worry that a killer was still on the loose. Someone she knew in her gut was after Hutch.
Then she had to bring them all back in for questioning. Whether they were still speaking to her or not. And now, once again, she was going to be faced with their skepticism over her motives. She sighed. How was she ever going to be able to make them see that she loved them and wanted to be with them, damn the consequences?
When she was a mile from the turnoff to the house, she saw a familiar truck pulled to the side of the road. She leaned forward and frowned as she got closer. It was Hutch’s truck.
She pulled up behind it but could see that no one was inside. Dread crept up her spine, and she reached for her gun. Prickles of unease danced across her skin as she slowly got out, her gun in front of her.
As she walked toward the driver’s side door, she saw the scrape of red paint on the white exterior. Sideswiped. Someone had sideswiped him and forced him onto the shoulder.
The door was slightly ajar, but what stopped her cold in her tracks was the splatter of blood on the ground. Her gaze traveled upward to see a smear of blood on the window.
She peered inside but found it empty. She whirled around to look on the ground and found a flurry of footprints, crossing over one another, some pressed deep into the dirt of the shoulder.
A struggle.
Her hands shook and panic swelled in her chest. He had Hutch. The son of a bitch had Hutch. Sheknewthey had the wrong guy.
She took in the black tire marks leading from the far right of the road toward the middle and then back into the right-hand lane. Traveling north.
She ran for her car and yanked open her cell phone to call it in.
Please, Hutch. Be all right.
And then she prayed they’d find him in time.
CHAPTER 35
Hutch’s eyes flicked open, and pain stabbed him in the temple. He winced and closed his eyes again as he tried to figure out what the hell had happened.
A surge of adrenaline rocketed through his veins when he recalled the van slamming into his truck and forcing him to the shoulder.
Before he’d been able to get out and bitch at the driver, he’d been hauled from his truck by a man over a head taller and about a hundred pounds heavier.
Hutch had fought back, but a crowbar to the head had ended the fight in two seconds.
