“She’s with Atticus and Slade,” Baz announced, his voice trembling. “Molly let her go.”
Thank Christ.
“Okay. Yeah. I love you, too. I’ll be right here.”
Baz disconnected the call, and his father pulled him in for a bear hug. No one moved for the longest time while Baz sobbed against his father’s shoulder.
***
“Do you want us to take youto the hospital?” Slade asked JJ as the three of them sat in Slade’s truck.
Atticus was in the backseat, his heart still somewhere in his throat.
Not five minutes ago, they had pulled into the lot of a convenience store to grab something to drink before they checked out the small, abandoned retail center on the far end of the parking lot, and then there she was. JJ appeared like an apparition, walking around the side of the building as though she’d been out for a daily stroll.
At first, Atticus thought he was seeing things. Like maybe his hope to find her had grown beyond his brain’s ability to reason and had somehow conjured her up out of thin air. But then JJ looked at them and broke into tears. The first thing she did was ask to use a phone, and Atticus shoved his at her while Slade urged her into the truck.
“No hospital, please,” JJ told him, adjusting the A/C vents so they were blowing directly on her.
“Who took you, JJ? Where are they?”
JJ gestured toward the retail center. “They left. You just missed them.”
Son of a bitch. Atticus did not want to think about what Brantley was going to do when he learned they’d let those fuckers escape.
“Which way did they go?” Slade demanded.
“I don’t know.” She exhaled heavily and leaned her head back. “I hid in the bushes and waited till Sonny came back. Molly ran outside and got in the car.”
“We can go after them.”
“No. I just wanna go home. Please. I don’t wanna deal with the police. Not yet.”
She was panting and sweating like she’d just walked a mile.
“Did they hurt you?” Slade asked.
“I’m fine. I swear it.”
“Whatdidthey do?” Atticus asked because he wanted to know. More importantly, he wanted to know why she wasn’t insisting that they call the cops right now so they could chase those fuckers down.
She glanced back at Atticus before she said, “They tied me to a chair.”
“Jesus,” Slade said under his breath.
There was a small smile on her tear-streaked face. “It was a really comfortable chair.”
Slade looked her way, disbelief etched in every hard angle of his incredibly handsome face.
Fuck.
Atticus hadn’t noticed how handsome Slade was. Not before now.
Okay, fine, maybe that wasn’t exactly true. He’d noticed. It was hard not to. Slade was one of those rugged cowboy types who simply drew attention with his presence. However, Atticus hadn’t been attracted to him. Or if he had, he’d pretended it didn’t matter because he worked with the guy. The last thing he wanted was to sleep with a man he had to see daily. And since that was the extent of his relationships, it made sense. Steer clear. It was the smart thing to do.
“She’s delusional,” JJ said as Slade steered the back roads to Coyote Ridge. “She has pictures of her and him, and they’re holdin’ a baby.”
“We saw them,” Atticus told her. “At her apartment. The whole place is wallpapered with his face. It’s creepy.”
