Her Last Goodbye (Morgan Dane Book 2)(101)
“Good point.”
Meeker County was a twenty-minute drive from the sheriff’s station. Lance followed the GPS until it led them to a narrow county road in the middle of the woods. Not a streetlight in sight.
“What is the house number?” Lance asked, slowing the vehicle and squinting through the windshield. The houses were spaced very far apart on the rural route. The last mailbox had been nearly a mile back.
Morgan scrolled on her phone. “Two hundred thirty-eight.”
Lance stopped the Jeep. “That’s two fifty and the last house was number two twenty-seven.
“How can there be no house?”
“The address is wrong.” Lance turned the Jeep around. “Could be a simple error.”
“Or not.” Morgan set a hand on her stomach, where anxiety burned like a smoldering match. “I don’t like this at all. Elliot omits his brother’s name from the list and doesn’t mention the fact that his brother is a convicted sex offender. Then Derek’s home address is listed incorrectly?”
“This isn’t right.”
“No.”
“Would you call Sharp and put him on speakerphone?” Lance asked.
Morgan held the phone between them as they waited for Sharp to answer.
“What’s up?” Sharp asked.
Lance explained the error regarding Derek’s address. “Could you double-check the house number and pull up a satellite photo of the area?”
“I’ll will. I’ll call you when I have something.” Sharp hung up.
“We need to talk to Tim and Chelsea,” Morgan said. She checked her phone. Tim hadn’t called her back yet.
“Do we really want to upset her when we really don’t have much information?” Lance asked. “We have no backup. The sheriff is convinced the Burns brothers kidnapped Chelsea. We have no proof Derek is the one who actually took her.”
“No. We don’t. We also have no evidence that he’s going to come after her again.”
“But you think he will?”
“Yes,” she said. “If we’re right and the sheriff is wrong, then Chelsea’s kidnapper is still out there. What if whoever broke in to my house wanted to get to Chelsea through me? Chelsea and Tim deserve to be warned.”
Derek Pagano was the center of too many coincidences. Morgan remembered the man who’d broken into her house. He’d threatened to take Sophie for insurance that Morgan would cooperate. Had that been Derek? If so, he was willing to go to great lengths—and hurt children—to get what he wanted.
Chelsea.
How would they protect her? All they had was a hunch that her kidnapper wanted her back.
Morgan straightened. “Turn the Jeep around.”
“What are you thinking?” Lance asked in a suspicious voice as he made a U-turn.
“Head for Tim and Chelsea’s house.” Morgan reached for the armrest as the vehicle lurched. “We need to talk to them.”
“OK.” Lance pressed the accelerator, and the vehicle surged forward.
“He branded her with an infinity symbol.” The brand was the one thing that separated Chelsea from the other two women. It was unusual. Personal. Intimate. “Chelsea’s kidnapper intended to keep her forever. He won’t let her go easily. He’ll know about the arrest of the Burns brothers, and that the sheriff considers the case closed.”
“And that the sheriff will pull the car sitting in her driveway,” Lance finished.
Morgan tapped her phone with a fingertip. The fact that Tim hadn’t returned her call worried her.
“We need to make a stop. I have an idea,” Morgan said. “You’re not going to like it.”
“Wonderful.”
Outside the car window, clouds obscured the moon. Night smothered the landscape.
Was he hiding out there? Waiting for Chelsea to assume she was safe and drop her guard?
Chapter Forty-One
Chelsea woke with a start. The darkness suffocated her. She drew in a gasp of air, and her heart leaped into a full panicked sprint.
“Hey, Chels. It’s OK.” A light clicked on. Tim was sitting in a chair by the window, an electronic tablet on his lap. He got up and moved to the side of the bed. He put a hand on her forehead. She flinched.
“I’m sorry.” She couldn’t help it.
“Don’t worry about it.” He smiled to cover the hurt in his eyes. “You can’t expect to go through what you did and not be affected. We’ll get through this.”
He put his hand out on the bed, palm up, and waited for her to take the initiative. She didn’t want to. She didn’t want to be touched at all. Her body hurt. From her face to her feet, there wasn’t an inch of her that didn’t ache.