Page 166 of Deacon

Matty seemed to realize the same thing. He cursed and looked toward the hall. “Fuck. We don’t have time for this. We still have to find Lila.”

That dragged the whole room back to what mattered. I looked toward the bedrooms. “Did she take Jade’s phone with her?”

Evan answered immediately. “Yeah. I think so. It wasn’t in Jade’s room.”

Relief punched through me hard and fast. “I got a tracker on my daughter’s phone.”

Matty stared at me. “You what?”

I already had my phone out, thumbs moving before he finished asking. “I’m not leaving my kid’s safety up to chance.”

He gave one disbelieving snort. “Both Lila and Jade are going to hate that.”

“Fine.” I kept my eyes on the screen while the app loaded.

His mouth twitched despite everything. “But thank God for your alpha male overprotectiveness.”

The three of us crowded around my phone, shoulders nearly touching as the map came up. The location appeared, and whatever relief I’d felt disappeared just as fast.

“That doesn’t make any fuckin’ sense.”

Evan leaned closer. “What?”

I turned the screen so they could see it. “It’s still on the property.”

My eyes went straight to Richard. “Don’t move,” I said, pointing the phone at him. “You stay right the fuck here. You try to leave before I get back, I’ll make what happens next the worst mistake of your life.”

Richard went pale. Matty stepped between him and the door without hesitation. “He’s not going anywhere.”

I was already turning toward the hall. “Let’s go.”

We ran.

Whatever dignity or old resentment might have mattered an hour ago disappeared as we tore down the stairs and across the parking lot after the signal. The app pulled us toward the shrubs at the edge of the property. Matty dropped to his knees and shoved both hands into the landscaping until he came up with Jade’s phone.

“Son of a bitch!”

I kicked the nearest tire hard enough to send pain up my leg. “Damn it!”

The screen in Matty’s hand might as well have been dead. Whoever had lured Lila out had thought far enough ahead to make her ditch the easiest way we had to follow.

I turned to Evan. “Did she say where she was going? In the note?”

“No,” Matty said, still crouched beside the shrubs. “Just that she had to go.”

“Did she take her own phone?” I asked.

Evan shook his head. “No. Just her car, apparently, if she tossed Jade’s phone out here.”

I stared across the dark lot toward the road beyond it. Lila could already be anywhere. I’d put a tracker on Jade because the thought of losing my daughter terrified me, and somehow I had never thought to do the same with Lila’s car.

Then Evan gasped.

I spun toward him. “What?”

“She took her car but not her phone.” Excitement had cut through his fear. “You two don’t know her like I do. She was constantly losing her keys at work, so she got one of those little tracker tag things for them.”

Matty blinked. “And?”