Page 62 of Mountain Shadow

The fact that she wasn’t picking up could only mean one thing: that she couldn’t pick up.

Struggling to keep his fear at bay, he dialed Cédric’s number.

“Jens, mon ami, how are you? Ah, that woman of yours. You won’t believe everything she—”

“Is she still there with you?” Jens interrupted, not caring in the least if he was being rude.

Please tell me she’s still there.

“Uh … no. We had lunch together, and then she drove home. Why, is everything—”

“I’m sure everything’s fine,” Jens lied. With every passing second, the fear inside him grew. “I’ll call you later, Cédric.”

Jens pulled up the home security app. It was there, black on white. Sarah had come home at three p.m. She’d disabled the away mode and enabled the at home mode. Fifteen minutes later, she’d opened the door again, this time without bothering to disable the alarm.

Gael chose that moment to walk by his office. “Gael! Something’s wrong at home. Get the team together, please.”

The younger man didn’t ask any questions, just nodded and ran off.

Jens tried Sarah’s number again, already knowing she wouldn’t pick up.

He forced himself to inhale and exhale slowly. He was in danger of passing out otherwise.

She might be fine.

She’s not fine.

And I’m too far away to do anything about it.

If only he’d already had those cameras installed—

Jens put his jacket on as Damien ran into his office.

“Gael is getting the team together. What’s going on, Jens?”

“Three minutes ago, Sarah walked outside without disabling the alarm, and she’s not picking up her phone.” He took a deep breath, realizing he probably sounded like a lunatic. “We’ve talked about this together, Damien. She wouldn’t forget to turn it off.”

Damien nodded, his expression serious.

“Let’s go. The rest of the team can catch up.”

Jens nodded gratefully. He hadn’t cried in years, but now he felt the pull of tears behind his eyes. He blinked them away roughly.

As soon as they were in Damien’s car, Jens picked up his phone again. “I’m calling Alex. We need to know if he can track Sarah’s phone.”

Before he could hit dial, Gael called them. Damien put it through in the car.

“What’s up, Gael?”

“I’m here with Drake and Hiro, but we have another problem.”

“What problem?” Damien growled.

“Kat isn’t picking up her phone, either.”

“Where the hell is she?”

“We received a call about a dog that’d been hit by a car. She went to check it out, and we haven’t heard from her since.”