“Is she okay?” Tears trickled down Bianca’s cheeks.
Luke sighed. “I don’t know.”
Jeremy’s heart was beating like a drum and a ringing filled his ears. “So where is she? In a hospital?”
“No,” Luke said as Bianca flung herself at her father and he held her tight. “She wasn’t in the Jeep. It was wrecked. Bad. But she wasn’t inside.”
“Oh, God,” Michelle said and while Luke was shaking his head, trying to stop her, she blurted out, “He’s got her! The damned Star-Crossed. He did this! Oh, for the love of God . . .”
Bianca let out a howl.
“Shut up, Michelle, we don’t know that. We don’t know anything!” Luke bit out.
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The honking continued.
“Who the hell is that?” Luke demanded.
Jeremy snapped out of it. “My ride.”
“Mommy!” Bianca sobbed brokenly.
“Shh, baby, it’s gonna be all right,” Luke said without enthusiasm. Without belief.
Jeremy knew better. Nothing was going to be right. Not if everyone stood around here doing nothing. No way was he going to stick around. Without a word, he ran out of the room while patting his pockets to make sure his keys and wallet were with him. His father finally woke up and started yelling his name, but Jeremy took off through the front door, across the path he’d shoveled yesterday and toward the driveway where Tyler McAllister’s Chevy Blazer waited.
Chapter Nine
So maybe Santana wasn’t as bad as she’d originally thought, Selena considered. At least he did seem to care for Pescoli. He sat at her desk, answered questions, glared at her, his square jaw tight, his razor-thin lips compressed to an unyielding line. He hadn’t been able to offer her any further clues to Regan’s accident or abduction, but he seemed genuinely worried.
“That all?” he asked as a phone rang down the hall.
“For now.”
“You’ll keep me in the loop.”
She didn’t bother to answer or even to smile.
“Then I’ll check in.”
“Do that,” she said, her headache returning. Santana wasn’t next of kin, he wasn’t even related to Pescoli. And he wasn’t a cop. “Remember that this is a police matter. The sheriff’s department and the FBI.”
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“Meaning?”
“That sometimes when a person is involved with a victim, even a potential victim, they try to help and end up getting in the way.”
“Are you warning me off?”
“If you’re thinking of doing some investigating on your own? Yeah. Leave it to the professionals.”
“I work with horses.”