Chapter Twenty-Nine
Lincoln
“Lincoln,” I answered my phone. Seeing as how it was Jaxson, I took the call outside the bar. I didn’t need Jayden overhearing anything and calling Enzo. I didn’t trust Jayden.
“I just got word from Sheriff Nelson. He received notification that Harper Madison is at Enzo Ricci’s residence.”
I held my breath. “Do you have an address?”
“Yes.” He relayed to me the address, and I climbed into my truck and high-tailed it across town to the property that Enzo had recently purchased.
The sheriff had already arrived on the scene. Jaxson waited with news to find out what I needed from him. I didn’t trust that she was there, and this wasn’t a setup.
In front of the house was the blue Lotus that I’d seen earlier in the week. There were a few other vehicles along with the sheriff’s car outside.
I pulled out my flashlight and walked along the darkened path up toward the house. A body lay covered with a sheet.
Shit.
Was it Harper?
No one had warned me that she might be dead.
Had Enzo called to confess? I hadn’t asked. I should have, but I’d been too afraid to hear the answer.
I bent down and held my breath. I pulled back the edge of the sheet to reveal a man with thick dark hair and a gunshot wound to the head.
It wasn’t Harper.
I exhaled a relieved sigh and covered the body back with the sheet.
“Lincoln!” the sheriff shouted at me from the front porch. “Use gloves or don’t touch that damned body.”
Shit. I knew that. I hadn’t touched the corpse, but I should have been thinking more about it being an active crime scene.
Was the dead man the person who had grabbed Harper and taken her against her will? How was he connected to Enzo?
I hurried up the porch steps toward Sheriff Nelson. “Have you seen Harper yet?”
“Yes, the news media will be here any minute, and we need to get her out of here and to the nearest hospital before people start snapping pictures and trample the crime scene.”
Who called the press? Had they gotten wind of her abduction? Had the news media been listening to the police scanner and discovered that she’d been found?
“I’ll take her.” I wasn’t leaving her side.
I rushed past the sheriff and stammered in through the front door. “Harper?” I shouted, listening for her sweet voice.
What had Sheriff Nelson meant about needing to get her to the hospital? It was a two-hour drive, and he hadn’t mentioned the local clinic, so it had to be pretty bad. Was she injured? What had they done to her?
“Lincoln?”Her soft voice carried through the corridor.
“She’s this way,” said an Italian man with a fancy suit and thick dark hair. I didn’t know if he was Enzo or someone else, but I followed.
Harper sat in a tall blue chair in a darkened office. Bookshelves lined the walls at every corner. There were no windows, just a desk lamp that illuminated the dimly lit room. The overhead lights appeared off or not working.
“Are you okay?” I asked, bending down to her level.
“What am I doing here?” Harper asked me. Her eyes were glazed and squinty, her lips dry. Had she been drugged? “Enzo?” Her brow furrowed as she glanced from me to the Italian man hovering beside me. “I don’t remember anything.”