44
RAMSEY
I leanedagainst the fence of the round pen. Onyx was despondent in a way that said she knew something was wrong with Shiloh. She missed her friend and confidante. The only being she’d truly begun to trust.
My chest ached with the thought of it. The weight of it all tugged on the bones and organs as if it would rip it all apart, and I would bleed out on the ground. Somehow, Shiloh had become the glue that held it all together. Without her, I was only pieces.
Kai pressed into my leg, and I reached down to rub behind his ears. “We’re gonna find her.”
“We will.”
I turned at Hayes’ voice. “Anything?”
He shook his head. “Not yet.”
My fists clenched, my fingernails piercing my palms in a way I knew would leave scars. But I didn’t give a damn. I welcomed any pain that would distract me from the shredding feeling in my chest, the utter annihilation that was ripping me apart.
“Every minute is time she’s being hurt. Terrified. Every second is a chance that something’s happening to her that she might not come back from.” The words tore from my throat, shredding that, too.
Hayes gripped my shoulder, squeezing to the point of pain. “Shy’s strong. She’s gonna fight. Hell, she’ll probably find a way out of there before we get to her.”
But I didn’t want her to have to fight her way out. She’d done that for too much of her life. And I didn’t think Howard Kemper would let her get away this time. “He’s obsessed with her. He could do anything.”
Hayes’ jaw hardened. “We have to hope that means he’s keeping her alive and unharmed.”
But he’d harmed her before. Shiloh had just hidden how badly from her family. What he did to her now when she was a grown woman could be so much worse.
Hayes squeezed my shoulder again. “We have to hold on to hope.”
“It’s killing me. Ripping me apart,” I rasped.
“I know.”
“I love her so damn much. That hurts, too. But it’s the kind of pain I could live with. I can’t live in a world without Shiloh.”
Hayes’ grip on me loosened a fraction. “You won’t have to. It’s not going to happen.”
He moved then, pulling me into a hard hug. No one had made a move to touch me other than Shiloh in years. Even Lor didn’t try. The signals to stay far away were too strong.
This simple kindness almost broke me. Instead, I hugged Hayes back. We stood there for a count of ten, gripping each other’s shoulders with a ferocity that bled with our need to get Shiloh back, a determination for only that outcome.
I clapped Hayes on the back and released him. “We’re gonna find her.”
“Damn straight.”
“Is the doc talking?”
A muscle in Hayes’ jaw ticked. “He folded the second Ruiz picked him up. Wouldn’t stop talking the whole ride back to the station.”
I hoped that asshole fried. That he landed in a cell and never got to grace the outside again. “Were you right?”
Hayes nodded. “He helped Howard fake the seizure and then bribed a mortuary employee to put the tag from Howard’s body bag on a John Doe.”
“Tell me they got him, too.”
“They did. He lawyered up, but his boss at the mortuary was only too happy to give all the corroboration Ruiz needed.”
Kai butted my hand, and I gave him a scratch. “Does the doctor have any idea where Howard might be now?”