14
“What?”Mac’s heart plummeted in her chest. “Where’s Sean? Is he okay?”
“Derek said the keys were in the ignition, and the engine was still running. The flashers were on, but Coop wasn’t there.”
“That can’t be a coincidence.” Eric looked at Riley, and then to Trevor and Mac. “Not after what happened here.”
“No.” Mac shook her head. “It’s not.” To Trevor she said, “Call Derek back. We need to track his phone. Hisworkphone.”
“It won’t do any good.”
“Why not?” Mac knew she was panicking, but she couldn’t help it. “If we track his phone, we can—”
“His phone was on the ground behind his truck,” Trevor cut her off. “Derek said it was smashed in, like someone had taken their boot to it.”
“Oh, my god.” Mac covered her mouth, doing her best to keep the bile churning in her belly from rushing into her throat.
“We have to go.” She headed for the door. “We have to get to his truck and search the area. Maybe…maybe we’re wrong.” God,pleaselet them be wrong. “Maybe he pulled over because he got sick or hurt or something.”
“Mac.”
She ignored Trevor and grabbed her purse. “Where on the road was his truck found? Because there’s a stretch that’s pretty secluded before you get to his apartment complex, and it’s possible he’s out there somewhere.”
“Mac!”
“What?” She spun around, yelling loudly enough, the other officers and crime techs in the apartment stopped what they were doing to turn and look at her.
Trevor put his hands on her shoulders, his face as serious as she’d ever seen it. “You need to stop and take a breath.”
“I don’t need to fucking breathe, Trevor. I need to find my partner!”
“We’re going to find him, but not like this. You’re no good to Sean or anyone else if you fall apart now. So take a few deep breaths and calm the hell down, or I’ll leave your ass here. That’s an order.”
Mac opened her mouth to argue but closed it again. Trevor was right. She couldn’t go batshit on them, now. This was too important.Sean’s too important.
“I got the truck’s location from my brother,” Eric spoke up. “I’ve got units on the way with orders to begin an immediate search of the area.”
She glanced over at Derek’s brother. There was a slight resemblance here and there, but the two men’s grayish-blue eyes were the only identical thing about them.
“Thanks.”
The handsome detective tipped his chin. “Riley and I are headed there, now.”
“We’ll follow you,” Trevor told him. To Mac, he said, “You can ride with me.”
As the four of them left her disheveled apartment, she forced herself into a calm she didn’t really feel. She never intended for any of this to happen. Had no way of knowing what the consequences of her actions all those years ago would be. Still, there was no denying what she knew in her gut to be the truth.
Coop had been taken. Was most likely hurt—no way someone would get the drop on him like this if he wasn’t—and it was one hundred percent her fault.
The man she loved, body and soul, may very well die tonight because of her. If that happened, Mac didn’t know how she’d go on.
Twenty minutes later, she was standing beside Coop’s abandoned truck. DPD officers were scouring the surrounding area with flashlights, and a forensic tech was dusting the vehicle for prints. They wouldn’t find him. They wouldn’t find anything.
He’s not here.
The minute they’d pulled up to the scene, Mac knew Coop was already long gone. What she didn’t know was who’d taken him.
There’d been no phone call. No ransom demand or threat left inside his truck or anywhere else. The only thing they’d found was the smashed phone, looking exactly as Derek had described it.
