“Johnny, take her home and let us worry about this.”
“Your nephew was kidnapped would you stay home with his mother?”
“I’m a cop,” Cary pointed out.
“And as such you would have no business working a case that personally involves you but you’d do it anyway, wouldn’t you?”
Cary gave him a squinty-eyed look, it cleared and he muttered, “Fuck.”
Johnny turned on his boot and stalked to his brother and Addie.
“You take her home. I’ll call Iz and Deanna and tell them to reroute there. Then I’ll call Dave and Margot to come over.”
“You wanna give me the lowdown?” Toby formed a question that was a demand.
“At Izzy’s. Let’s get her somewhere safe and familiar.”
Toby gave him a glower before he nodded and started to move Addie.
She stood solid and grabbed on to Toby’s tee. “What if they bring him back here?”
“They’re not gonna bring him back here, honey,” Toby whispered. “When he comes home, he’ll come home so let’s get you home. Yeah?”
She stared at him, her face searching then it set, and Johnny knew she was going to dig in but then it went slack and she said, “Yeah, Toby.”
Toby gave Johnny a look and led her out.
Johnny yanked his phone out of his jeans and followed them.
He made his first two calls quick, on the road, tailing Toby and Addie.
The last call he made, they were out of town, close to Izzy’s, and he pulled off to the shoulder to do it.
She answered after two rings.
“Johnny?”
“Cops at the daycare center where Eliza’s nephew was kidnapped this afternoon say the kidnapper looks like Stu.”
“Mother of God,” she whispered.
“You get ’hold of your fucking brother, Shandra, and you make him bring that boy to me.”
“Stu wouldn’t—”
“He would.”
“Not a baby.”
“He would.”
“And not you. He wouldn’t hurt you.”
“I’m not to you what I was before.”
“He still loves you and he knows I do too so he would never—”
“He needs money and he’s desperate and he’ll do anything he has to do to make sure one person is all right. Stu. Now you fucking call him, Shandra, and get me back my boy.”
“I’ll call him, Johnny. Right now.”
He didn’t thank her and he didn’t say goodbye.
He disconnected, checked his mirrors, pulled back on the road and drove to Izzy’s.
“You’ll get him?”
“I’ll get him.”
“You’ll bring him back?”
“I’ll bring him back.”
“You’ll bring him home?”
“I’ll bring him home, sp?tzchen.”
Eliza had hold on him almost like her sister except her hands were gripping his head right behind his ears and her body was pressed tight to his.
Her face was pale. Her eyes were haunted. And her hold was so hard, if she had it in her, she’d crush his head.
He’d had to tell her. He’d had no choice. When this was over, that was something he couldn’t keep from her and still keep her. So while Margot and Deanna saw to Addie in the kitchen, he’d taken her aside and told her. It was up to her if she shared.
But Eliza, like Toby and Dave, both he’d shared it with before she got home, knew he suspected Shandra’s brother.
That did not rock her or make her look at him with revulsion.
It made her visibly fill with hope.
But even if she could get past it, when he found Stu and beat him bloody, he’d still get another few licks in just for Johnny having to tell his woman his ex’s brother kidnapped their boy.
She yanked his head down so his forehead collided with hers.
Staring him in the eye, hers burning, she forced out a guttural, “Go.”
Then she released him.
He bent in quick to touch her mouth with his and he turned.
His eyes slicing through Toby, Dave and Charlie, who had arrived five minutes earlier, all of them standing close to Johnny and Izzy in her front hall, he growled, “Let’s roll.”
They followed him out of Izzy’s front door, across the porch and down the steps.
“Charlie, you’re with me. Dave, you’re with Toby,” Johnny ordered.
“We can spread out, cover more area if we all take our own trucks,” Toby returned.
He stopped and looked at his brother. “You know him. Before he went bad, you were friends with him. You know his hangouts, his friends, the women he’s been with, they don’t. You cover the ones east and north. We’ll cover the ones south and west. You run out of options, you call me and I’ll give you more. Ben’s out with a bud, he’s heading to that hunting cabin Shandra’s dad had. But this way, we get in a situation, it’s better two men against one than one man alone against whatever he’s got going on in his head. Be smart. Let Dave drive. You navigate. Now roll out.”
What he didn’t say was that it was also better that they found him. God only knew what Stu Bray would do if cornered by cops, and Johnny didn’t want Brooks anywhere near that situation. He was already having severe difficulty dealing with the situation as it stood. Stu trapped and desperate and Brooks with him, Johnny couldn’t even allow himself to contemplate.
Toby took a beat before he nodded then sprinted toward Dave’s truck, a truck Dave was already in and had running.
Johnny turned to Charlie. “You drive.”
“Gotcha,” Charlie grunted, not hiding he was keeping his shit together by a thread and that thread was unravelling.
They jogged to Charlie’s truck and both of them angled in.
Charlie was kicking up dust and gravel when he asked, “South or west first?”
“South,” Johnny told him. “Toby fill you in on who we’re looking for?”
“Yep.”
“Right. There’s a dive bar down south Stu hung out at.”
“He’d take a kidnapped baby to a dive bar?”
“He banged the owner on and off. She lives over it and he’d take Brooks there.”
“Right.”
Charlie peeled down Izzy’s drive.
When they made it down the lane to the road, he turned south.
“Jesus Christ, seriously?”
Her name was Sharlane. She still owned the dive bar. And as Johnny had thought practically every time he’d seen her, she’d be very pretty if she wasn’t so obviously hard as nails.
“Would I joke about that shit?” Johnny growled.
“The cops came by before you but they didn’t say why. Fucking hell.” She ended that on a mutter.
“Sharlane, his mom has known he’s been missing now for nearly two hours. If you got anything on Stu—” Johnny said.
She whipped out her phone. “Give me your number. I see him, I’ll call you, Johnny.”
“I walk out of here, I can trust that?” Johnny asked.
She pinned him with a look. “Left me high and dry with a bun in the oven, an abortion bill to pay and did it stealing seventy-three bucks from my wallet. He’s not gonna come back here. But if he’s stupid enough to do that, I’ll give him a place to hide out. Then my first call will be you. You’ll have five minutes, Johnny. Because my second call will be the cops.”
Right.
He could trust that.
And Johnny wondered briefly if Stu knocking up Sharlane was the reason he’d knocked over a bank three years ago.