“The phone is off. And the last I knew, she was at Walmart.”
“Maybe she turned off her… Right.” Obviously Tonya had realized that the last thing Becca would do is turn off her phone. “So how do you know she’s at Walmart?”
He shrugged, and she rolled her eyes.
“Creepy stalker app, right? And it showed her last location.”
“I asked her permission before I installed it on her phone.” He didn’t bother watching for Tonya’s reaction. Also, Alan came on the line.
Their conversation went fast. The man had no idea where Becca was, but he’d head home right away just in case. Then Carl answered the unspoken question.
“We’ve got nothing new on Theo.” Nothing but a whole lot of frustration and fury.
They made it to the mega store in twenty minutes. Another five to scan the area to look for his truck. And then a stop at the security office. Tonya didn’t even have to show her badge, because everyone in the area knew who she was. Then it was a long, slow process watching the parking lot video, but eventually it paid off.
They saw her.
And they saw her abduction.
Carl went white hot with fury. Hell, he was a half breath away from going grizzly and smashing up the place, but Tonya kept him calm. She was staring at her phone and using the security office land line to dial, but she paused long enough to shoot him an almost gleeful look.
“We got ’em.”
“What?”
She jerked her chin at the monitor. “They took your truck.”
Yeah, he’d noticed. “I disabled the GPS tracker months ago.”
She shot him a grin. “I know. That’s when I put a real tracker on it.”
“What?” He didn’t know whether to be furious or gleeful.
“I’m the highest ranking shifter cop in the area. You’re my alpha. Of course I’m going to put a tracker on your truck.”
He stared at her. “And you called an app creepy and stalkerlike.”
She grinned. “Doesn’t mean I think it’s a bad idea.” Then she tilted her phone toward him. “That’s where your truck is.”
His expression flattened and his nails lengthened into claws. “I’m going, too.”
She knew better than to argue.
It turned out that being held prisoner was boring. Though Becca was relieved not to be threatened by armed guys with big guns, she discovered that hours of absolutely nothing happening was incredibly tedious. Especially since she couldn’t stand up straight in her little cage. She hadn’t realized until now just how much she moved in an average day.
Fortunately, the break gave her time to talk to Theo the way they never did at home. Call it making lemonade out of lemons, but part of her appreciated the time to really converse with her adopted son.
He finally opened up about feeling the bear underneath his skin. At first he called it a monster, but by hour three, he sounded like he might like being a grizzly. He asked a ton of questions about the Gladwins and Mr. Max. She answered as honestly as she could, even hinted at the growing fondness she had for the alpha, but didn’t go into more detail. The last thing she wanted was to upset Theo, and who knew how he’d react to a new man in her life. Hell, she didn’t even know how she felt about the man bear except to spend every other thought on a prayer that he found them soon.
So time passed. If they hadn’t been locked in cages and afraid they were about to die, it might even have been pleasant.
Becca was just getting Theo to open up about a girl he liked. She’d suspected as much way back in September, when he couldn’t mention his lab partner without blushing fiery red, but he’d said nothing about her since then. Finally, the kid was hinting at the edges of his interest. He wondered how much of his feelings—like for a girl, maybe—were the bear and how much just normal human stuff. Honestly, Becca had no clue, but she certainly wanted to know exactly what he was feeling and what he thought about it and all that stuff boys never ever articulated.
Which made her doubly pissed when the door suddenly burst open and in walked a gangly guy with Einstein hair. Theo’s mad scientist, she presumed. His eyes were definitely a little wild as he glared at all three of his captives and started issuing orders. She wasn’t sure at first who he was talking to until a middle-aged woman sauntered into the room. Her steps were gracefully fluid and she seemed to move with absolute precision. But it wasn’t until Becca saw her catlike, slitted eyes that she gasped.
“They’re awake. Tie them up or knock them out. I don’t care, but we need them both,” Crazy Einstein ordered.
So much for pretending to be asleep. She’d been so involved in listening to Theo that she forgot she was supposed to be playing possum.
