Shaking off the paralysis gripping his entire body, he lunged for the trash can and picked up the home pregnancy test, examining the results window. His knees locked and then buckled almost simultaneously, throwing him off balance. It was faint, but there was still a fading pink plus sign.
Evangeline was pregnant?
Another fear hit him, so hard and so viciously that he flailed his arm out to catch himself on the counter. He’d been horrible to her. He’d said horrible things. Had done terrible things. She was alone, desperate, without money or a place to live. That didn’t leave a single mother very many options. Surely she wouldn’t . . .
He shook his head, pissed at himself for making assumptions when time after time she’d proved nothing but trustworthy and loyal. There was no fucking way she would ever abort their child. He’d seen her look of horror when he’d told her that his mother had wanted to abort him and would have if she hadn’t seen the benefits of having a baby.
But she was still missing when according to her mother she should have already landed and been on her way safely to her parents’ home.
He had to call in the troops. Fast. He had to get everyone on the street, explore every option, call in every favor ever owed to him. And he needed to make it clear that if Evangeline was harmed, Drake would seek out and destroy anyone who caused it to happen or even allowed it by not intervening. He would also give a big cash reward to anyone who returned her safely.
He grabbed his phone and began making calls even as he went out the apartment door, hurrying down to Silas’s. He had a key to get in. Maybe Evangeline had come here. Silas had said she’d stayed with him the first night.
He let himself in, frustrated that he’d been unable to reach Silas with his first call. He shouted Evangeline’s name and went from room to room but came up with nothing.
It would be more logical for him to remain here, presumably the last place Evangeline had been before departing for the airport earlier in the day. He would get the word out to all his men for everyone to get over to Silas’s. He typed in his demand for them to meet here and then the last words of his message with a sickness that went soul deep.
Hurry. Evangeline may not have much time.
30
“Evangeline is missing,” Drake announced when all his men had gathered in Silas’s apartment.
There was a resounding chorus of “what the fucks” and demands to know what the hell had happened. Drake held up his hand for silence, his expression black, determination fiery in his eyes.
“As far as anyone knows, this is the last place she had contact with anyone. She called her mother from Silas’s apartment this morning to tell her she would be on a flight arriving just after six Central Time this evening. She never made it on that flight,” Drake said grimly.
Another round of curses rent the air and Silas and Maddox exchanged helpless, furious glances.
“I shouldn’t have left her,” Silas said painfully.
Drake waved off his man’s guilt. “There’s another thing you need to know.” He held up the pregnancy test, watching as his men’s faces turned to shock. “She’s pregnant. With my child,” he added unnecessarily. “She must have taken the test this morning. Before she called her mother. It must have been what prompted her to leave.”
“Then what the hell happened to her?” Maddox demanded, his fists clenched. “If she called her mother and told her that she would be on a certain flight, then she obviously intended to be on that flight. She wouldn’t worry her parents like that.”
“I know,” Drake said quietly. “Which means there’s a damn good reason she didn’t make that flight.”
Fear and uncertainty flickered on his men’s faces as they all exchanged glances.
“I’ll pull up the security surveillance footage starting from this morning when I saw her last,” Silas said grimly. “It’s a long shot, but if something happened to her here, then we should get it on camera. If not . . .”
Drake wouldn’t consider any alternative. Without a firm starting place, there was no way to know where Evangeline could be. His enemies were many and any one could have sought to strike at Drake where he was most vulnerable. No one had had time to figure out that he and Evangeline had broken up or that she didn’t mean anything to him at all. Or that it appeared she meant nothing to him. When she was everything . . .
“Do it,” Drake ordered. “We don’t have much time. Every minute that goes without us finding her . . .”
He trailed off, refusing to give voice to the possibilities.