“I just. . .” Cliff said frantically his hands shoving into his strands of hair as he tried to come to grips with the fact that his woman was missing. “I just need to think for a minute.”
“Okay, in the meantime, I’m going to lock your door. And we can get this figured out.”
In the blink of an eye, Harlan dipped out of the room and then returned, hands shoved in the pockets of his shorts, chest still bare from the tattoo.
“I need to go up to my apartment and track her.”
“Dude, you put a tracking device on her?” Harlan asked as he followed Cliff up the back stairs.
“Yeah. Of course, I did.”
“Man, can you put one on Cassidy for me? Just for my own personal satisfaction.”
Opening the door to the apartment, Cliff ushered Harlan inside before moving toward the hallway with the enclosed room.
“Let’s discuss this after we determine that it works. Sound good?”
The door whooshed open, surprising a bored Ryker.
“Hey, what’s going-” the singer began but was cut off as Cliff shoved him in the rolling desk chair out of the way and leaned over the computer, typing in the tracking application.
“There she is,” Cliff sighed in relief, then the coordinates of her placement flashed on the screen. Curses sputtered from his mouth as he brought up her whereabouts.
“Where is she?” Harlan asked just as the image of his cabin showed on all of the monitors.
“Home, sorry for all of the worry. I’ll take care of this.”
Cliff sped around the turns leading to his home, irritation fueling him forward as Main Street wove into rough side roads. Dust and dirt blanketed around his truck as he accelerated on the path, guiding him to his cabin.
How could she be so careless? Didn’t she know that he’d been worried sick about her? Maybe having her with Logan was a bad idea, he should have listened to her.
Angry thoughts ran through his mind as he pulled his truck up to his cabin, yanking the door to his vehicle open before it even came to a complete stop.
Cliff marched up the steps, ignoring the fact that the front door to his cabin was wide open.
“Alexis! We need to talk. You can’t keep-” he shouted but his words disintegrated into the air as he found Alexis standing in the middle of his living room. Her face was as white as the first snow of the year and her pale lips trembles as they fought to hold back a sob. Blood dripped down from her temple, leaving a path of red on the light green scrubs she wore.
“I’m glad to see that you finally made it,” the voice behind Alexis cracked.
Wade.
Cliff should have known that the man he hired would have been behind this. The drugs, the hushed phone calls, his propensity to make Alexis uncomfortable. Despite the clear background check and glowing references, Cliff could only blame himself
A question lingered though. He had hired Wade before Alexis returned to Carson. Did her father convince him to do this just as he had the caregiver at her group home with the necklace?
Unfortunately, Cliff didn’t have time to ask as Wade produced a gun and shoved it against Alexis’ bleeding skull. Her pain resonated with Cliff as she winced and he wanted nothing more than to pry the gun out from behind his back waistband and take Wade out, but there was a chance that Wade could pull the trigger before Cliff ever got the chance.
The only technique he had in his arsenal was to bide some time. Time for what? He wasn’t sure, but he hoped he could convince Wade that this was all a big mistake.
“I’m sorry, I never got the invite,” Cliff said casually, doing his best to mask the dread bubbling in his gut. “Come on, man. What are you doing?
“I’m doing what I was born to do. Now, you’re going to tell Alexis to leave with me and not put up a fight. If she does, I’ll take her straight to the buyer myself. He’s very excited to get his hands on her.”
“She can hear you, you know?”
“Yes, but our father said she would be difficult. I’m trying to get you to convince her to do otherwise.”
Our father?