Page 141 of No Good Fight

For anything that tells me where he is.

There’s nothing.

The gray morning fades at the edges until even the trees begin disappearing.

The last thing I can still see is Ryder’s truck at the edge of the road.

Exactly where I left it.

29

RYDER

I refuse to believe that I’m going to find Alex’s body. We’re going to find her, and she’s going to be pissed, but she’s going to be breathing.

By the time Remy arrives with others, the dining room has become a command post without any of us deciding to make it one. Casey has the security tablet beside his phone and a notepad. Josh has pulled up a county property map on my laptop. I’m standing over both of them with Alex’s phone on the table where we can see it but nobody has touched it since Remy told me to stop.

Remy comes through the front door already gloved.

Logan follows him carrying a rolled set of papers and a small gear bag, rain darkening the shoulders of his jacket. He takes one look at Josh and me, then goes straight to the table. There’s no question about whether either of us is okay, and I’m grateful for it.

Carter arrives less than a minute later, phone pressed to his ear as he closes the door behind himself. He looks enough like Casey that even now I notice the family resemblance, though whatever Carter is hearing puts a harder edge on his face.

Remy picks up Alex’s phone and reads the messages without commentary. He watches the video of Mrs. Vance once, checks the sender information, then lowers the phone into an evidence sleeve he brought with him.

“She left it unlocked?” Logan asks while unrolling the property plans across the space Josh cleared.

“Not just unlocked,” I tell him. “Conversation open, screen timeout changed so that her phone didn’t lock.”

Remy’s eyes meet mine.

He understands immediately.

“Good,” he says.

The word nearly makes me come across the table.

Josh catches my forearm before I move, but Remy doesn’t flinch.

“I mean good because she gave us evidence,” he says, voice level. “You want me to be emotional about why she did it, I can do that after we have her. Right now, Alex just handed us Preston’s threat, his deadline, his location, proof Mrs. Vance is alive, and a record showing exactly when Alex left your house. We use what she gave us and it takes us directly to her.”

The rage goes nowhere, but it changes shape. It’s not aimed at my friend and the men here trying to help me get through this.

“No offense,” Casey says. “But should this be an official call where they call in SWAT or something?”

Logan plants one hand on the Mason Ridge plans. “We’ve done it before, the official way. It’s almost cost us the women we love. I don’t want Ryder to lose Alex the way I almost lost Poppy.”

The others echo his sentiment, leaving me standing there in awe with men that are here just because they care, and they were asked.

Logan goes on, “The maintenance building is separate from the main residential structure. Old boiler room on the north side, equipment storage here, office in front, utility corridor running south to the exterior service door.”

Casey leans over the map. “That layout is old.”

“You know the building?”

“I’ve been inside the main complex. Not that maintenance wing recently.” Casey traces the south wall with one finger. “There were electrical complaints all over the property. Faulty alarms, bad panels, overloaded circuits. Alex had half of it in her article notes before the fire. She asked me to look over them a week or so ago, to make sure they were relevant.”

Josh shifts the laptop around. “And I’ve got a property report from when redevelopment started. The building was supposed to be emptied and secured three months ago.”