“Drennan, it’s me.” Every cell in his body strained to pick up some kind of evidence that she’d come home after the doctor’s office. Her car wasn’t in the parking lot, and he’d already tested the doorknob and checked the windows to make sure they’d been locked. “Please. We need to talk.”
She had every reason not to answer the door, but this wasn’t about what’d happened between them. He just needed to know that she was safe. To settle the panic rolling through him in unending waves of acid and tightness.
Harvey knocked again. No answer. “I know you’re upset, and you have every right to be. Just let me know you’re okay.”
But what if she wasn’t? What if she couldn’t come to the door because she’d passed out again or she was throwing up from the morning sickness? What if her abductor had intercepted her? Hell. She hadn’t answered any of his calls or texts, and every second that passed without hearing from her was being etched into his palms by his fingernails. Dr. Yarrow hadn’t seen or heard from her, and there was no way to tell if she’d gone back to the office, but the pathologist had hung up to reach out to the funeral director to check the security system.
“Damn it, Drennan. I’m sorry. For everything. For not supporting you when you told me you were pregnant and all that crap I said at the clinic. It wasn’t true. I know that.” His voice quaked as he recalled every vile accusation he’d used to put distance between them. He couldn’t just stand here letting hishead get the best of him. He had to get control of himself, keep himself level. For Drennan and the baby. Except that place of numbness he’d retreated to as threats arose over the years didn’t exist anymore. “I just need you to open the door. Please.”
Silence greeted him from the other side of the door.
“Screw this.” Determination had him looking for a spare key she might’ve left in case she’d lost her keys or some other kind of emergency. He tossed her doormat and checked the fake plant up against the wall. He burned himself checking the top of the exterior light and got a splinter running his hand over the edge of her doorframe. No key. Frustration and pride battled to win his attention. He needed to get in. There was only one other option. In the name of concern. “I’m going to pay for this.”
Harvey craned his head to one side and thrust his elbow through her front window. Glass sliced across the skin of his forearm and up his biceps, but he barely felt the pain as he reached through the pane for the lock on the window. It snapped to one side with his help, and he shoved the frame upward. In seconds, he’d gained access to the apartment. Which, he quickly realized, was in complete darkness. “Drennan?”
Could she be asleep? He doubted it considering the noise breaking the window had made. In fact, he wouldn’t be surprised if one of her neighbors called the police. But he’d seen the exhaustion in her face and body language the past couple of days. The pregnancy was taking a toll on her, siphoning everything she had. He scanned the living room, everything exactly where he remembered, before heading into the bedroom.
Pushing the door open, Harvey went for the overhead light. He caught hints of her body wash, that light citrus scent that’d haunted him for weeks after she’d left his bed two months ago. She wasn’t here, and a quick glance around told him she hadn’t been for hours.
Tendrils of dread shot up his spine.
He’d started his search in the wrong location.
Backtracking through the apartment, he swept through the living room and went straight into the kitchen. His first instinct had been right. She’d most likely gone into work to lose herself in the case. What had she said? That she had to see this through. She had to finish the investigation into Ellender Garza’s death. Hell. He’d wasted too much time coming here, but he’d needed to take the risk. He had no reason to believe she was in danger, just as when Dr. Yarrow had asked her to search for the victim’s personal items at the scene, but that same sense of knowing—of urgency—took hold.
Harvey grabbed what he needed from beneath the kitchen sink and beelined for the window he’d broken. He wouldn’t make it easier for anyone else to get to her. Duct taping the opening, he secured the broken window as best he could, a little concerned the police hadn’t already rolled up in response to someone breaking in, but he’d worry about that later.
Walking out the front door, he gave her apartment one last glance. Praying with every nonreligious bone in his body that it wasn’t the last time he saw it.
Tearing out of the parking lot, he navigated to the freeway and put the accelerator to the floor. The car accessory system lit up with an incoming call just as he hit the open road. Ranger Simpson. Harvey answered. “Yeah?”
“Wanted to let you know we got a hit on the gun you took off the kidnapper.” The law enforcement ranger didn’t wait for Harvey’s response. “I’ve cross-checked the serial number with multiple federal databases and reached out to a friend in the Salt Lake Police Department, but nothing came back.”
That didn’t make sense. “You said you got a hit.”
“I followed a gut instinct. The weapon you pulled off Drennan Hawes’s kidnapper matches the make and model my law enforcement rangers are issued.”
Every muscle down Harvey’s back pulled tight. His fingers ached from the hold he had on the steering wheel. The oncoming headlights through the windshield filmed over with a red tint as anger overtook him. “You’re telling me one of your rangers came after her?”
He filtered through the faces and names he’d collected over the years working side by side with the law enforcement division, but Harvey hadn’t recognized Drennan’s abductor when they’d come face-to-face.
“No. Every weapon I’ve issued to my rangers has been accounted for, but there is one that was issued outside of my division.” Keyboard taps echoed through the line. “For the superintendent of the park.”
“Pierce Shelton?” Confusion threatened to throw him into a spiral he might not ever come out of. “What the hell does a national park superintendent need with a federally-issued gun?”
“That’s above my pay grade and long before I took over as head of this division.” The key taps ended, and Simpson’s voice lowered as though he needed to be careful of who overheard. “What I’m telling you is the serial number of the weapon you handed me matches the one issued to Superintendent Shelton.”
Air escaped his chest. The red haze cleared—for now—but that part of him he’d always hated rushed to the surface, took control as a new outlet for all the hurt and pain and loss and isolation he’d suffered over the years was exposed. “Drennan was right, wasn’t she? Ellender Garza wasn’t married, but she’d gotten pregnant. By her killer. He killed her to cover it up.”
Simpson shifted something around through the line. “But why go after Drennan? Does she know the victim or the superintendent? Did she see something she wasn’t supposed to?”
The pieces were starting to fall into place, rocketing Harvey’s desperation into dangerous levels. He couldn’t push the SUV anyfaster without endangering his and other lives on the road, but his blood pulsed with need to get to her. Now. She was at the office. He had to believe that. Because if she wasn’t—
“Because she’s an assistant to the medical examiner. She has access to the remains.” Harvey caught sight of the exit for Hurricane and took it as fast as he dared. “The Office of the Medical Examiner is a state agency with high-end security and data protection. The killer must need something from Ellender Garza’s body. I’m guessing evidence that proves he’s the father of the victim’s baby. He had to have been waiting to see who would come back to the scene for evidence, and Drennan walked right into his ambush.”
He’d come so damn close to losing her. Closer than he’d realized.
“You faced off with her abductor, took his weapon from him, and you didn’t realize it was your boss who’d kidnapped her?” Simpson was moving now. Harvey wasn’t sure why or where, but there was a chance he’d have the law enforcement division at his back. “Remind me not to look at your application to my division down the line.”
