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A silver pickup.

It stops outside the office. A man gets out, speaks to the night clerk, and leaves five minutes later.

Sage grips the edge of the desk.

“I know him too.”

“From the warehouse?” I ask.

“No.” Her voice shakes. “He gave me a ride three weeks ago.”

My chest tightens.

“Where?”

“Outside a town near the Arizona border. He drove me almost two hundred miles.”

“Did you tell him where you were going?”

“He asked why I was traveling alone. I told him I was looking for my father.”

“Did you give him my name?”

Tears fill her eyes.

“Yes.”

The trap becomes clear.

The men didn’t follow Sage across the country.

They used strangers to find her.

At least one of the people who helped her was working for Navarro.

Sheriff Vega orders the deputy to pull a clear photograph of the silver truck and send it to every agency in the area.

The night clerk is missing.

He didn’t come when gunshots were fired outside the motel. He hasn’t answered his phone, and his car is still parked behind the office.

“They took him too,” Sage whispers.

“Or he helped them,” Taylor says.

“We don’t know yet,” the sheriff replies.

An officer enters carrying Hayley’s laptop inside an evidence bag.

“It was running when we found it. There’s a file open on the screen.”

Sheriff Vega looks at me before turning the laptop so we can see through the clear plastic.

My daughter’s school photograph fills half the screen.

Beside it is a photograph of me taken from the Iron Ridge article.

Below them are three names.