Darkness surrounded them as he glared up at the entrance to Prescott Robinson’s home.

  “Their lawyers shut us out,” Delilah said as she came to stand beside Memphis. She and Archer had followed in their rental while Saint, Elijah, and Memphis had been in the lead car. “We’ve been involved with the locals in the hunt, but there aren’t any solid leads for us.”

  There were about to be. He looked at Elijah. “We still think it’s someone close to her.”

  “Intimately close.”

  “Then we’re going inside.”

  Saint braced him as he walked, and though he hated it, Memphis needed the support. Elijah was on his left, Saint on his right, and they went up those steps with Delilah and Archer at their backs.

  One of the front doors swung open. Alec blocked their path. “You should never have gotten past the guards at the gates—”

  “Yeah, I’ll tell you what I told them,” Memphis growled. “Get out of our way or I will destroy you.”

  Alec raked him with a glance. “So much for keeping her safe. You know that you killed —”

  He lunged for him. But Saint beat him to the punch. Literally. Saint swung out a powerful fist and drove it straight into Alec’s jaw. The guard fell back onto his ass, dazed.

  “Didn’t want you tearing stitches,” Saint said.

  Memphis marched into the entranceway even as Kathleen rushed toward the guard. She crouched next to him as her hands fluttered in the air around him. Horrified, she looked back at Memphis. “What are you doing?” she cried. “You can’t just—”

  He pointed at her. “We’ll start our questions with you.”

  “Help!” Kathleen screamed.

  Really?

  Help came running. Help in the forms of Benedict and Prescott Robinson. Eliza’s brother’s eyes were red-rimmed. His face haggard. He looked like a man on the very edge.

  “Change of plans,” Memphis decided. His hand swung toward Benedict. “We start with you.” He marched toward him. Didn’t even need Saint’s help. “Why the hell do you feel so guilty?” He could see the guilt on Benedict’s face. It infuriated him. “What did you do?”

  “Don’t say a word,” Kathleen called out. “We need the police. Prescott, call Detective Jones—”

  Prescott didn’t move. He seemed to have aged twenty years. “I’ve hired every PI in a hundred-mile radius.” His breath shuddered. “No one can find her. My baby just disappeared. One minute, she was in the back of a patrol car—”

  “Why the hell was she there?” Memphis thundered.

  “Cops were taking her into protective custody,” Elijah told him.

  “Then she was gone,” Prescott finished. “No one saw her. No one knows anything. Her phone was still in the house. Just a dozen texts on it from Bethany. All before Eliza vanished. Her friend is devastated. I saw a news story where Bethany was nearly hysterical…”

  “I’m calling the cops if you won’t.” Kathleen jumped to her feet and rushed across the foyer.

  “Don’t call anyone.” Prescott’s voice firmed. He stared at Memphis. Looked at the people behind him. “I don’t know them.”

  “They’re with me.” The whole crew had his back.

  “You…trust them?”

  “With my life.”

  Prescott’s lower lip trembled. “I trusted you with my daughter’s life.”

  Memphis took the hit straight to his heart.

  Saint jumped in front of him. “He was fucking shot! Two bullet wounds and enough blood loss to scare even the devil. It’s not his fault that she was taken, you sonofabitch! It’s mine. He had me in town to watch her, and I screwed up. The only thing he’s ever asked me to do and I—”

  Memphis touched his brother on the shoulder. “The one we blame is the one who took her.” Growled.

  Saint jerked his head, but Memphis knew his brother wasn’t believing those words. He should.

  “You know me,” Archer spoke up to say. “We’ve done business together for years.”

  “I know you were suspected of murdering that young woman…your ex-fiancée…”

  “Archer didn’t do it,” Delilah snapped. “We found the real killer. Proved his innocence. You must watch the news like everyone else. I’m sure you saw the story.”

  “Yes, I need Detective Jones, please.” Kathleen’s frantic voice. “Get him out to the Robinson—

  “Put the phone down, Kathleen,” Prescott ordered.

  Memphis glanced at her. Alec hovered by her side. Alec’s hands fisted and released. Fisted. And—

  “It’s my fault,” Benedict burst out.

  The weak link. Memphis focused on him. “Why?”

  Benedict’s breath sawed out. “She called me. A-all those years ago. Called me and wanted a ride because she wasn’t feeling well…She wanted my help. All she ever did was help me. Got my ass out of messes over and over…Lizzie just wanted a ride home.” He rocked forward. Back. “She wasn’t feeling good. Said everything kept spinning. She needed me. The only time. Ever. Lizzie was with Bethany, but Bethany didn’t want to leave…Lizzie just wanted to come home.”

  Memphis’s heart hurt far more than the bullet wounds. I will bring you home, sweetheart. “But you were drinking, too. You got pulled over by a cop and tossed in jail—”

  “Wasn’t drinking.” He swallowed. “I was high. Bethany could always get a hookup, and she’d given me stuff earlier in the day. When Lizzie called, I wanted to go to her, but I crashed my car after driving half a block. Then I couldn’t remember any damn thing until Dad got me out of that cell the next day. And by then…” His shoulders hunched. “Jesus. Jesus. My sister was gone! It took me days to even remember that I was supposed to get her, I was so messed up, my memory trashed…”

  Like Eliza’s had been.

  Benedict’s guilt-ridden face lifted toward Memphis. “I wanted to be better. I haven’t used since then, I swear it, and when I met with you at your hotel…and you—you said you’d find out what happened, I wanted you to hunt down the bastard. But I knew you’d also figure out what I’d done, and I was so ashamed. She needed me…”

  “She needs you now,” Memphis blasted. “She needs you, and she needs me, and we’re not going to start weeping in fucking corners. Eliza is still alive. She’s out there, and we are going to bring her back.” He nodded. “Or maybe she’ll bring herself back, just like she did last time. Maybe she will walk right through the doors any minute…”

  Please, baby, please come back through the doors.

  He even looked toward them. But—

  Ding.

  His eyes jerked toward Delilah. She had her phone out, and her face darkened as she read whatever news had been sent to her.

  Not Eliza. Please, God, just not—

  “We found the payout,” Delilah said. She motioned toward a watchful Elijah. “He called some of his forensic accounting buddies to help us out. Took some untangling, but we found the original payment that was sent in order to make Eliza disappear years ago.”

  “Make her disappear?” Benedict rubbed a hand over his face and swiped away the tears on his cheeks. “What are you talking about?”

  Prescott took a halting step toward Delilah. “Are you saying…someone paid to make my daughter vanish?”

  Delilah nodded. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  “This is absurd!” Kathleen cried. She still gripped the phone in her hand. Had she hung up? Memphis didn’t know. But…

  He knew guilt when he saw it. Panic. Fear. “It was you.”

  Her mouth dropped open. Then snapped closed. Her frantic gaze flew around until it finally landed on Prescott. “Throw these people out! They don’t know what they are talking about! They don’t know—”

  “You had an affair,” Memphis said flatly. “Eliza caught you. She was going to tell her dad. Stop him from marrying you. You paid for her to vanish. That way, you could have your big engagement. You could have everything that you wanted.”

  “No! No, that is not what happened! Not at all!” Kathleen’s voice was nearly a screech. She bounded toward Prescott and grabbed his arms. “It wasn’t—”

  “Ten thousand dollars,” Delilah announced. “That was the amount of money that disappeared. It was hard to track because you pretended it was part of the catering fee for your engagement party, but it wasn’t. Elijah’s forensic accountants talked to the caterer. Got the receipts from their end. You gave that money to someone else.”

  Even Alec was starting to glare at her.

  Prescott stared at Kathleen as if he’d never seen her before. “Why?”

  “I…it’s not what you think!” She tightened her grip on him. “I just…I was going to get incriminating photos of her! Stuff I could use to stop her from telling you about the one time—only once—that I messed up. I loved you, and I wanted to be with you. She was just supposed to get really drunk or high and then…then she was going to—”

  “Who did you pay?” Memphis cut through her words because time was wasting.

  She gasped. Turned her head toward him. Blinked.

  “Who?” But his mind was spinning. Bits and pieces. Things all coming together. Too late. Too slow…

  Eliza had been with Bethany seven years ago.

  Bethany had given Benedict drugs.

  Bethany had stayed close with Eliza, stayed right by her side all of these years even as other friends had turned away.

  He’d once told Eliza that the female victims would have felt comfortable getting into the car with a police officer. They would have felt comfortable with Bethany, too. He’d seen the tall redhead with Eliza the night that he’d first crossed paths with his princess. The night she’d poured a beer on him.

  Because Bethany had dared her…

  “Bethany,” he whispered.

  Kathleen’s head moved in a jerk. A jerk that was a yes…

  “She’s a real estate agent,” Delilah told him. “I did a brief background check on her, too, when you started getting me to look at those close to Eliza. Bethany would have access to a ton of properties…”

  “She makes acquisitions recommendations at Robinson Corporation,” Prescott said, sounding dazed. “She…”

  “She was probably the one who recommended the corporation buy the damn sunflower field,” Saint snapped.

  “Get the cops, get the Feds,” Memphis thundered.

  Elijah already had his phone out. “On it.”

  “We need an APB for Bethany. We need to look at every property she’s recently visited, we need to search every—”

  “I’ve already looked at every sunflower field within a five-hour radius,” her father confessed. “Sent team after team…”

  “She’s been on the news.” Benedict had gone white as his skin bleached of all color. “She was crying for my sister. She was at my door…less than two hours after Eliza’s disappearance. She was crying and saying how sorry she was for me.”

  Two hours. “That gives us a search guideline.” Two hours. “Every bit of property she’s visited,” he growled again. “We need to look for something close but isolated. Something that would allow her to keep Eliza prisoner. She wouldn’t make the same mistakes this time. She’d have Eliza locked down tight.”

  He thought of the profile they’d made on the perp. Someone in Eliza’s inner circle.

  Bethany.

  Someone obsessed with her.

  Bethany.

  Someone who wanted to hurt her.

  Bethany.

  Someone well connected. Someone who could travel easily, without attracting undue attention.

  Bethany.

  Someone who could easily lure the victims.

  Bethany.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. Eliza had been afraid her abductor could be standing beside her, and she’d been right.

  Kathleen shook her head. Again and again. “I never…this isn’t…This isn’t what I wanted!”

  Prescott jerked his hands from her. “Get the hell out of my house.”

  “Prescott!”

  Memphis spun away from them. Stormed for the door. Eliza. He had to get—

  Alec stepped in his path.

  Healing bullet wounds or not, I will end—

  “Let me help?” Alec asked.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Eliza!”

  She jerked. Her lips were parched, broken open in slits. Her left ankle was broken, too. Maybe her ribs. In the long hours that she’d spent in the dark, Eliza had realized that Bethany hadn’t lied.

  The bitch really had thrown her down.

  But that bellowing shout…that wasn’t Bethany…

  “H-here!” Eliza tried to call, but her voice was too weak. She’d been left alone for so long. She was weak and tired. And she’d screamed at the beginning. Screamed and screamed.

  No one had heard her.

  Did Amelia scream, too? Did Layla scream?

  “Eliza!” A man’s roar.

  She kicked out with her foot. The one that wasn’t freaking broken. Hit the wooden ladder. Made a little thudding sound. She did it again. Again.

  And there was a wrenching, groaning creak as a door was opened. Not really a door. More like…

  She squinted because a flashlight was being shone down on her.

  Like a trapdoor in the floor. A trapdoor…

  She knew the smells around her. She was in a barn. But not handcuffed in a stall.

  A hidden trapdoor in the floor.

  She was in the ground. I’m in a grave. I’ve been left in a grave.

  “It’s all right,” he told her as he rushed down the ladder. “You’re going to be okay.”

  Eliza flinched away from the light. Her wrists were raw and bloody. She’d fought and fought to get out, but the pole had truly been cemented in the ground, and she couldn’t break free.

  “I’ve got water for you,” he said. “Here, take it.”

  He was a familiar voice behind the light. When he put a water bottle to her lips, she drank greedily, almost choking because—

  “Where is she?” he asked softly.

  I know that voice. Eliza strained to see. He’d put the flashlight down. “D-Daniel?”

  “Where is Bethany?”

  “I…” Talking was so hard. She wanted more water, but he’d taken the bottle away. “D-don’t know…”

  “What did she tell you?”

  Eliza shook her head.

  “Did she mention the others?”

  “She…k-killed…”

  “It’s okay. I know. I know what she did. I’m not going to let her do that to you.” His hand brushed against her cheek. “You should have just stayed in the patrol car. I was trying to keep you safe.”

  Daniel had found her. That must mean he’d brought lots of cops with him. But…why weren’t the others rushing in to save the day? She wanted out of that hole. Get me out of this grave.

  “She disappeared from her house about an hour ago, so I knew she’d be coming back to you. I had to get here first.” He looked up. “Did you hear that?”

  She hadn’t heard anything.

  “It was a car,” he said. He sprang up. Pulled the trapdoor closed again.

  Why? “Wh—”

  He turned off the flashlight. “It’s okay.” Low. Soothing. “I’m going to get her when she comes inside. I’ll stop her, and she’ll never hurt you again.”

  “Cuffs…” Eliza rasped. “Off…please…”

  “I’ll get them off. But you have to be quiet. Don’t make a sound. We don’t want her to know I’m here.”

  She could barely think. Barely focus but…this didn’t feel right.

  OhmyGod, Eliza! Like anything feels right. He’s a cop, and he’s here to help you. He’s here to…

  “Did she mention me?” Daniel asked her.

  Eliza stopped breathing. “N-no…”

  “Good, good.” He stroked her arm.

  She refused to flinch away, but she wanted to so badly. So very badly.

  “I’m going to take care of her,” he promised. “Then we’ll never have to worry about Bethany getting between us again.”

  I’m not worried about her getting between us. I’m worried about her killing me.

  And now…now…

  I’m worried about you, too. Because Daniel was crouching behind her. She heard him pull out his gun, and he was staring straight up at the darkness.

  He had also made no move to get the cuffs off her.

  ***

  Splitting up had been the best course of action. They’d gotten a list of potential properties to search, places that Bethany had visited or listed in the last six months. Places that were completely vacant and private enough to be used as holding spots for Eliza.

  She is still alive. She has to still be alive.

  Memphis wouldn’t consider any other option. His Eliza was alive.

  The locations they had were also close enough that Bethany could have dumped Eliza then gone right back to act as the grieving and shocked friend.

  Archer and Delilah had taken some of the places. Elijah and Alec had been another team. And that left…

  “The ranch is about five miles away,” Saint told him, speaking in the comm unit that connected them. They were flying in a chopper—Archer and Prescott had gotten them all choppers, and they had raced away to search. “We’ll be there in just a few minutes.”

  Not fast enough. The last three stops had been fruitless. He needed to find Eliza.

  “She’s still alive,” Saint said.

  Memphis moved his head in a nod. He wouldn’t believe anything else. He couldn’t.

  But…

  But Bethany Bancroft was missing. Her neighbor had told a patrol officer that she left about an hour ago and…

  And the detective, Daniel Jones, had also gone off the radar. Camila had told them that he’d wanted to follow up on some hunches, but when they’d all tried reaching out to him, he hadn’t answered his phone.

  “There it is,” Saint announced.

  The dark ranch waited. The chopper began to descend. Memphis’s heart seemed to pound in time with the whir of the helicopter’s blades.

  ***

  Steps creaked overhead. Dirt rained down on Eliza. She couldn’t see the dirt, but she could feel it. Her breathing seemed too loud.