“I didn’t have a choice, ma’am.”
“Well, where are you headed?”
“Little Rock.”
“We’ll be there in less than two hours. I’ll watch over you so you can get some rest. You look exhausted and heartbroken.”
Tessa nodded and blinked away the tears that filled her eyes. “Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m sorry, dear. I can tell you the pain lessens in time.”
“I hope so because if I have to live like this for a long time, I won’t be able to handle it.”
“Get some rest.”
Tessa nodded, pressed her forehead to the cool window, and watched the miles fly by.
Chapter Eighteen
“Goddammit, where the fuck is she?” Nate yelled at his friends who had assembled to help him look for Tessa. This would be the second night without his little, and he felt like he would lose it. He had every available person looking for her and filed a missing person report on her, so every cop was looking too. He was so worried he hadn’t been able to sleep or eat.
“We’ll find her, man,” Cooper said.
“I need to see her now,” he said.
Cooper squeezed his shoulder. “We’re trying.”
“Fuck, I know. Thank you.”
“What did the note say again?” Cole said.
Nate read it out loud, and actually hearing the words out loud somehow made them worse than saying them inside of his head.
He wracked his brain, trying to think about what might have happened. He thought they were doing good. The last week had been stressful, making him quiet, but he hadn’t thought it affected her this much.
He looked across the room at Jade and walked over to her. She’d been really quiet since they walked in the door.
“Hey, honey, do you know anything?’”
She swallowed. “I haven’t talked to her. I’m sorry. If she calls, I’ll tell you.”
The way she fidgeted, he could tell she knew something, but he knew trying to get her to say it if she didn’t want to would be like pulling teeth.
A man Nate had met a few times before gripped his little’s hand and practically dragged her. The guy looked around the room, stopped when he saw Nate, and headed for him. Please let this be some information about his baby.
“Hey, man. I don’t know if you remember me. I’m GageStanhope, and this is my little Brylee.”
Nate shook his hand.
“I just got word that you were trying to find someone, or I would have gotten to you sooner. I had something interesting happen to me a couple of days ago,” Gage said. “I was leaving this building and ran into a little that was by herself in the elevator. She was about Brylee’s height with long, dark-brown hair and light brown eyes. She had been crying badly because her face was swollen, and her eyes were red. When I asked her about her daddy, she told me she didn’t have one.”
“Why in the fuck would she say that? And what was she doing in the building?”
“I don’t know,” Gage said. “I took her home with me. She and Brylee pretended not to know one another, and she lied about what her name was. The woman slept in Brylee’s playroom. She was sleeping when I got up. I went to the meeting I had set up and then planned to go back home to figure out the problem.”
“She’s there?” Nate asked hopefully.
Gage shook his head. “No, I’m sorry, but she was gone by the time I got home.”