A weekend was not going to be long enough, but it was a start. He’d already made it clear to Kit that he was off the clock. He was going to take Fiona over to the site he’d selected for their claiming ceremony. It would be a good time and place to explain to her what the ceremony was all about.
The guys were gathering in the living room, though it was a while yet until supper. Plenty of time still for Fiona to join them. The team had had a big break at the Friendship Community, blowing King’s biowarfare lab wide open. Felt as if things were turning in their favor at last.
His phone rang. He saw Fiona’s number and instantly got a hard-on. “Hi, babe. What’s up?”
“Kelan?” Her voice was breathless. “No. No. Stop it! Kelan, help me—”
Static came across the line. Kelan froze. “Fiona? Fiona?”
“Fiona’s not your worry anymore,” said a man. “She’s heading to her true home. If you know what’s good for her…and you, you’ll forget you ever knew her.”
Kelan straightened and frowned. “Who is this?”
The line went dead.
Shock froze Kelan as he stared down at his cell phone. None of the guys in the room moved either. He felt as if he were watching himself from a safe distance, someplace soft and numb, where he couldn’t feel the blood leaving his heart in an undertow of fear.
He looked at Greer. “They have Fiona.”
Greer hurried over, phone in hand. “Fee’s phone shows her moving south on Highway 287, back toward Colorado.”
Kelan pocketed his cell and went into the hall, heading for the garage. He grabbed a set of keys to one of the team’s SUVs and had the door to the garage open when Kit stopped him. Kelan shrugged free and jogged down the steps into the garage.
“Hang on, Kelan,” Kit said. “Fee could be God knows where by the time you make it down to where she is now. We don’t know what we’re dealing with, if she’s bait to get to you, to us.”
Kelan glared at him. “I know my woman’s been taken by our enemies. I know she’s headed south. And I know I’m hitting the road. Send me updates when you have them.” He looked at Kit just before getting into the SUV. “And if I’m bait, they can have me.”
Kit’s lips were pressed tightly against his teeth. “Angel, take shotgun,” he snapped.
*
Kelan navigated onto the narrow mountain road that Wyoming called a highway and sped toward Laramie, where he’d be able to pick up the road Fiona’s captors were on.
Angel monitored her progress on his phone. Kelan looked over every few minutes, watching the red dot blink in and out. It was a lifeline for him; as long as it beat, she was still alive, still traceable.
Five minutes later, it stopped moving. “What happened?” Kelan barked.
Angel changed the screen to get more detail about the location. “They probably tossed her phone. Looks about twenty minutes outside of Fort Collins.” He glanced over at Kelan. “It’s just her phone, man. I’m sure she’s okay. They wouldn’t take her just to kill her. She’s leverage for something—she has value to them. For now, at least.”
Kelan met his eyes. His hands tightened on the wheel as he faced forward again. There were only a few ways to get to Laramie from Fort Collins, where her university was, and only a single route from Laramie up into the Medicine Bows, where the team headquarters was. He should have met her. He should have picked her up. There was so much distance between them. It had been his greatest fear something like this might happen.
That it might have happened even if she’d switched to the University of Wyoming instead of continuing at Colorado State University was cold comfort at the moment.
He should have hired a bodyguard. At the very least, a chauffeur.
But even that was no guarantee of her safety. A chauffeur could have been compromised or killed. The truth was there was no level of security that could have ensured her safety against someone intent on harming or abducting her.
Because of him and the work the team did.
He should have insisted she sit out a semester or two until things settled down in the mission.
“This wasn’t your fault, bro,” Angel said quietly.
“She was mine to protect. It is my fault.”
Angel pointed to a barren stretch of road between two low hills. Fiona’s Acadia was parked on the opposite wayside. They were on the same highway she’d taken to come up to Wyoming; she hadn’t even made it a half hour out of town when they’d grabbed her.
Kelan pulled off the road. They crossed the street to her vehicle. The dirt in the wayside had been undisturbed since the rainstorm a few days earlier, letting them clearly see the tracks her SUV made, along with those from other vehicles that pulled in front of and behind her. They probably forced her from the road, sandwiched between their cars.
“There’s another set of tire tracks over there,” Angel said, pointing back the way they’d come. “The tracks look as fresh as these, but who knows if they’re connected.” He crossed over, then came back, tracking the dusty footprints. He looked at Kelan. “They come from this side.”
Kelan glanced in both directions down the long road. He followed the two sets of large hiking-boot prints, seeing no smaller footprints that would have indicated Fiona crossed the road on her own volition. Maybe they carried her. Or an accomplice might have taken her phone south to dispose of it, while the other vehicles took her north. Who knew where she was.
He closed his eyes and mentally searched for her energy. He was certain she was still alive; he could feel her fear. She hadn’t used her emergency necklace yet—or the secondary security bracelet he’d given her. Maybe she couldn’t. Or maybe she was waiting for a safe moment. He hoped whoever had her hadn’t taken them.
“Let’s go get her phone,” Kelan said, certain that was all they’d find.
“Want me to drive her car?”