Which was all the more reason to get this sorted out as soon as possible.
Hopefully, without his family being completely destroyed in the process.
Right now, there were major divisions. Jonathon and Clara on one side, him and Aggie and Summer and Luke on the other, and Sam and Naomi remaining neutral. Nick didn’t want anything to come between Aggie and her sisters. For most of their lives, they hadn’t had any relationship at all, but in the last eighteen months they had grown so close. And with Aggie talking about the possibility of trying to get pregnant, he wanted their child to grow up knowing its cousins and extended family.
Once Luke was cleared, he thought everything would go back to normal. Logically, he knew that Jonathon was only doing his job. If the evidence suggested that Luke was the killer, his brother-in-law had to pursue it. When he had still been a cop he had gone after those he believed were guilty of committing a crime without showing any regard to the person’s family who may get hurt along the way. Sometimes he had even deliberately set out to hurt people if he thought it would close a case. But it was very different being on the other side of things.
He pulled into the driveway of Hope and Chance’s new house and immediately knew something was wrong.
There were no lights on.
It was after five in the evening and already mostly dark, there should be lights on.
Aggie’s car sat in the driveway, so someone was home.
Perhaps there’d been an emergency and Aggie, Summer, and Hope had headed out somewhere in Hope’s car?
Nick checked his phone for messages but there were none, only the voicemail from Aggie from hours ago. If they had left in a hurry Aggie would have called him.
That she hadn’t meant that she couldn’t.
Fighting to keep from flying into a panic, Nick pulled out his gun—he had a permit to carry a concealed weapon and kept one on him at all times—and cautiously headed for the front door.
It was unlocked, which added to his anxiety. If it had been locked, he might have been able to convince himself that Aggie and her friends had just gone somewhere and his wife had forgotten to text him.
The house was silent.
Carefully, he checked and cleared the study on his left. Given that the house was mostly empty it didn’t take long.
He turned his attention to the lounge room on his right.
As soon as he stepped into the room, he saw her.
Even in the shadows he knew it was his wife. It was like he could sense her.
Nick threw on the lights and ran to her.
Aggie was slumped on one of the couches, her eyes were half-open, and her mouth moved, but she didn’t appear to be making a sound.
While he ached to check her out more closely, something was obviously wrong with her, and she didn’t seem to register his presence, he knew that Summer and Hope might still be here too, also hurt.
Again, the near-empty house worked in his favor, and he was able to quickly ascertain that the kitchen, dining room, family room, downstairs bathroom, and all three ensuite bedrooms upstairs were empty.
He called for an ambulance and the police as he returned to his wife.
“Aggie?” He dropped to his knees beside the sofa and cupped her jaw, angling her face in his direction. Her blue eyes were unfocused and seemed to stare straight through him.
Keeping hold of her face, he picked up her wrist with his other hand and took her pulse. It was weak. He noted the mugs on the floor.
She had been drugged.
He had worked long enough as a cop to recognize the symptoms.
If he had to guess he’d say Rohypnol.
Her clothes didn’t appear to have been messed with, add that to the fact that Hope and Summer were nowhere to be seen, and he felt comfortable ruling out sexual assault as motivation for the drugging. It appeared to have been used to facilitate an abduction. Was it a coincidence that the two women had been shot at a couple of days ago and now they were both gone? Luke was going to freak out when he learned Summer was missing.
Nick tapped at Aggie’s face, hoping to spark a response from her. “Aggie. Aggie,” he said again.