He was right. They didn’t have all the information. They didn’t even know for sure where Jeter was.
And she couldn’t run now. If she ran, there were two women who would die. Bree was the only one who could find them.
She sucked in a shaky breath. “I know—you’re right. I panicked. I won’t run.”
His forehead dropped against hers. “Nobody blames you for a little bit of panic. But whatever we decide to do, we do it together, okay? No running.”
She nodded. “And I’ve still got to do whatever I can to help these women. I can’t leave them to die.”
“And I’m going to be with you every single minute. When I say you’re not alone, I’m not just talking about the long-term, big stuff. I’m talking abouteverything.”
And this was why she loved this man. Because she knew everything he said to her was the truth. She nodded again and he kissed her gently.
“Let’s get you back to the police station. That will definitely be the safest place for you.”
She grabbed her computer as he led her out to the car, Whitaker handing her the cell phone she’d left behind on the way. She winced at the multiple missed calls and texts from Tanner.
Whitaker and Tanner kept her between them, both looking out for possible threats as they stepped outside and walkedquickly to the car. Tanner’s firm hand on her arm—the other one resting close to his weapon—told her exactly how much this Jeter thing was weighing on him.
The uniformed officers gave them an escort back to the police station. Once again, Bree was quickly ushered inside.
Tanner didn’t let down his guard even once they were inside the building. He was taking the threat of Jeter seriously. If Jeter was out and had access to a computer, he could hack into the Dallas PD system and make it look like he was employed there. He could have a badge and access pass within minutes.
The thought had her panic inching back up. Jeter could be anywhere.
Tanner was probably afraid the man would try to kill her. Bree wasn’t. Jeter wanted her for himself.Alive.
Once they made it back to the command room Tanner relaxed a little bit. At least here all the faces were familiar. A stranger would be much more noticeable.
The clock at the front of the wall caught Bree’s attention. It was counting down the minutes until the last two women would be covered in water and drown. Less than three hours.
Bree was going to have to trust Tanner to keep her safe from Jeter. She was going to need every spare minute to figure out where these last two women were.
“I’ve got to work. We’re out of time,” she whispered to him.
He gave her a brief nod before his eyes moved back up, gauging the room. “You work. I promise I will keep you safe.”
Tanner had always done that. Even from that first moment when he’d caught her shoplifting formula and diapers, and had no idea who she was or what she needed, he’d always protected her. He protected her when it meant putting his own life in danger and he’d protected her even when it meant he might lose everything. There was not one bit of her that had any doubt he would protect her now.
She sat down and placed the laptop next to the desktop computer she’d been working on here. Her life was in Tanner’s hands.
The lives of two other women were in hers.
IFTANNERHADthought the circumstances under which Bree was working before were bad, it was nothing compared to watching her trying to work with the threat of Jeter hanging over her.
The killers couldn’t have done anything more to split her focus if they had gone and broken Jeter out of prison themselves. It was one of the very few things that would slow Bree down.
But it still wasn’t slowing her down much.
She was writing code faster than most people could write their name. And she was doing it on the fly, coming up with ways to try to trap the kidnapers, backing them into a virtual corner.
She’d explained just a little bit as the first program she wrote was uploading, then had warned him he probably didn’t want to know exactly what the program was going to do.
She was right. He didn’t care if the program was illegal, not with that clock counting down the minutes those women had left.
The first thing Bree had had to do was reconfigure the live footage that was to come from the victim they’d just rescued. If it didn’t go live, the other two kidnappers would know the police were onto them.
The suspect they’d arrested—the linebacker—was proving quite a bit more interesting than Elliot Webster.
