Admitting to himself that it wasn’t her who bothered him so much as it was his own reactions to her, he noticed not even halfway across the parking lot that she wasn’t in the vehicle. Switching direction, he headed to the garden.

  Eager to speak with her, he did a quick visual once-over as soon as the garden was in view.

  Drawing closer, Paul scrutinized the area a little more closely. He didn’t see anyone or notice any movement. Heart thudding, telling himself not to jump to conclusions, he entered the garden seeking Haley and nothing else. A minute or two later, he stood by the big cherub statue, and swore aloud.She’d promised she’d stay put. If not in the car, then the garden.

  Had looked him in the eye and given him her word. She’d be in the vehicle, or the garden. Period.

  Where in the hell was she?

  He circled the garden again, checking every crevice, behind every shrub, finding nothing.

  Frustration and anger warred inside him as he made the last turn at the back corner of the garden and...

  The glint caught his eye.

  Fear-laced adrenaline pushing him, he grabbed up the flip-flop, and spun around. Once. Twice.

  She wouldn’t walk out of her flip-flop and leave it there.

  Could she have been chasing someone?

  God, let her have been chasing someone.

  The only other alternative, that she’d been taken against her will, was too god-awful to consider and still focus enough to find her.

  He never should have left her alone. Yeah, his business in the brothel had been better conducted with him by himself, but he should never have left Haley.

  If anything...

  Who would she have been chasing?

  Could she have seen her sister? Was Kelsey still alive as Haley had once suggested?

  Shaking his head, he pushed forward down the small sidewalk leaning to the shed, found nothing out of place, no sign of Haley, or anyone else, and turned back. Running at full force, his phone already at his ear, he raced to the SUV. Checked her side for any evidence she might have left there for him, and his heart sank.

  She’d left her phone. Haley never would have gone for a walk, without her phone. Sick with worry, feeling helpless for the first time in many years, he completed his call to the Pahrump Police Department, basically hearing that they’d do what they could, but an adult who could have just made a bathroom run or similar wasn’t a high priority. Disconnecting, he set off at a run.

  Whoever had lured Haley, or taken her, had no idea what he was up against. Paul wasn’t an expert because he’d bought his way into the position. He was one of the best skip tracers in the world because he found people who’d been invisible for decades.

  He would find Haley.

  He just hoped to God he wasn’t too late.

  * * *

  The searing pain in her neck had dissipated. Haley processed the dull ache as one of several discomforts attacking her as she continued to be pulled backward, with hard jerks. She still hadn’t seen her captor. He’d stopped not far from the garden, pushing the barrel of a gun to her ribs as he looped some kind of plastic tie around her hands and tightened it, then applying a smelly, rough cloth around her eyes, tying it so tightly it cut into the skin at her temple. He’d pulled her backward again, then, rather than pushing her forward.

  To keep her from more readily figuring out where she was going? The direction at least?

  To keep her further helpless and off guard?

  She knew one thing.

  She was not going to die as her sister had, having it appear as an accident, with no evidence left behind to find a killer. She’d kicked off her second flip-flop during one of the jerks, hoping that her kidnapper was facing forward. When he’d failed to stop, or react in any way, she took the move as successful.

  And took heart.

  She might be less muscled and smaller boned, but she was mentally and physically strong. She was smart.

  Paul would be counting on her to keep it together and get herself out of the mess she’d run into.

  He’d give her hell for that too, likely kick her off the case.

  She’d deal with him later.

  First, she had to save herself. There was no telling how long Paul would be inside the building. And her disappearance might just trigger his ire as he assumed that she was off on her own sleuth pursuits again.

  Easier to think of him angry, than worried.

  Anger was an emotion she could use. The only emotion that was likely to do her any good at the moment.

  Her heels raw from being dragged over dirt and rocks when her feet couldn’t keep up the backward pace, she longed for softness. Cotton.

  Sunrays warmed her face; smells around her changed from humanity—parking lot gas, cooking food—to open air. She’d been trekking barefoot, starting and stopping, for at least half an hour. Figured herself someplace out in the desert. Some of the sharp stings to the bottom of her feet were probably cactus needles. And prayed there were no rattlesnakes or scorpions in their direct path.

  Or maybe that there were and they’d attack the man holding a gun to her ribs while he dragged her as though she was an inanimate object.

  He never spoke.

  And neither did she. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of hearing her pain.

  Her foot hit a bigger rock, with a pointed tip, and she felt the skin on her heel tear. As though that rip went up through her entire body, she filled with terror. And then anger.

  Anger at the man who thought he could treat her as he was.

  Anger at whoever had hurt her baby sister.

  And livid anger on behalf of any baby that might be in wrong hands.

  For a second she wondered if maybe help would come. Thought of elfin man, who she’d been seeking in the garden, stumbled and choked as the grip around her neck tightened.

  She had to get free. To overtake a person who was easily half a foot taller than she was. And twice as bulky.

  Thirsty, hot, desperate, starting to feel a little delirious, the nurse in her told her she was suffering from shock, not exposure, while she just kept trying to find ways to turn fear into anger.

  Her captor stopped again just then, while she was refilling her well of venom, and she had no conscious thought. No plan. No sight. But her butt had been bumping against his thigh forever. And that made her mad.

  Swinging around suddenly, she freed her right kidney from the barrel of the gun, brought her heel up to where she thought his groin would be and landed a blow with all of the force she had in her.

  The gun went off.

  Chapter 11

  House Security was combing the grounds, cabins and rooms in the resort as well, having jumped immediately when Paul ran in reporting that his partner was missing.

  His partner—no insinuation intended, just easier in the moment than taking time to explain his complicated relationship with Haley. Within five minutes uniformed men and women were dispatched to their search areas, with Paul invited to join in. He chose to set out on his own, looking for he knew not what, but trusting he’d know if he found it.

  On foot—because if Haley had been taken by car, she was already too far away for him to catch up to her and he’d have more of a chance finding a clue at the abduction spot—he’d just started up the dirt part of the road into the ranch when he heard the gunshot.

  And he knew.

  As security crew who were closest ran toward the small pine orchard bordering one side of the ranch, he ran back for the SUV and headed across the desert, slightly ahead of the off-road vehicles filled with security guards who were also heading toward the pines.

  One shot.

  Chances of survival were better if there was only one hole to repair. As long as no vital organs were hit.

  God, if he’d lost her...

  A world without Haley in it...

  He missed a dip in the hard ground, bottomed out and sprang up out of the seat, hitting his head on the roof of the vehicle.

  Because, once again, he was losing his mind.

  Over Haley.

  Haley. She had to be okay.

  The shot might not have had anything to do with her disappearance.

  Pulling up just behind the first security guard who’d made it to the scene—a young man in his twenties who’d been almost on the grove when the shot had been fired—Paul was out of his vehicle in time to hear the guy say, “I found the gun! No one’s here.”

  Paul skidded to a halt beside him, seeing the gun on the ground, the desert landscape giving up no other clues. Rocks were scattered, but that was normal. Nothing soft enough there for footprints.

  Most importantly to Paul, he saw no blood. And didn’t hang around for scuttlebutt. Back at the SUV, he opened his door, hand reaching with the key to the ignition before he’d even taken a step up—and nearly dropped it as he saw the woman huddled on the passenger floor, looking up at him with a mixture of fear, anger...and pride in her eyes.

  “I kicked him in the balls,” she said. And then her chin started to tremble.

  Inside the car in seconds, he instantly backed around to head out of the desert, and away from Sister’s Ranch. Paul reached for Haley, took the hand she reached out to him, but when she would have scooted up the seat, shook his head.

  Him. She’d kicked him in the balls.

  The bastard better have had his pants on at the time... Haley’s shorts were intact, her shirt, too.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Fine. Except my feet which sting like hell. And I’m probably going to have a stiff neck.” She licked her lips and he handed her a bottle of water. She sipped, swallowed and sipped again. Not greedily. Just steadily.

  But the bottle was shaking in her hand.

  “We should get you to the ER, just in case.”

  “I’m an ER nurse, Paul. I know I’m fine. Other than being scared out of my wits, having to walk barefoot in the desert with my hands tied and blindfolded, , having my hair pulled and an arm clutched around my neck, nothing happened. I didn’t fall. No bones are broken.”

  “The gunshot...” He could still hear the sound reverberating...

  “It went off as he went down when I kicked him. I scraped by head against the ground to get the blindfold off and ran back toward the parking lot before he had a chance to pick the gun back up, and I have no idea what he did after that. For all I know, he’s still back there, cursing me...”

  “We found the gun. No one was there.”

  “He was wearing gloves.”

  So there’d be no fingerprints. And chances were, no valid registration of the weapon, either.

  “Did you get a good look at him?” At least. Please.

  “Not a glimpse. He had me blindfolded before we were even out of the garden. But I did see a guy that looked like Jeanine’s description of elfin guy. Hoodie and all. That’s why I was in the garden.”

  There were smudges around her eyes and her temples were red. The blindfold explained that.

  He noticed chafing on her wrists, and anger boiled.

  He tempered it with a deep breath.

  He’d get the guy. One step at a time.

  After putting a call in to Sister’s Ranch Security to let them know he had his partner and was heading in to the Pahrump police to make a statement, he called the police with an update and let them know he was bringing Haley in.

  He’d wanted off the property before anyone attempted to convince him not to get the police involved. He didn’t know that they would. He just knew he wasn’t taking any chances.

  By then he’d hit pavement.

  “And your wrists?” he asked, reaching a hand over to help her up onto the seat. No way a guy who’d just had his gonads sent up inside him would have been able to run a mile and half to the road in the time that Paul had driven it.

  “I cut the plastic tie on the edge of the wheel well before I climbed back in the car. Thank you for leaving it unlocked, by the way...”

  “You saw me drive up?”

  “Yeah. But no way I was going to expose myself to you or anyone and make a fuss while the guy was still on the loose. I didn’t want my discovery to give him a chance to get away.”

  Which he apparently had done anyway.

  Still, smart move on her part. She’d kept her head about her.

  And he couldn’t help but admire the hell out of that.

  Haley didn’t argue with Paul’s suggestion that they get the hell out of Pahrump. As soon as they were finished at the police station—with a promise from them to scour every inch of the crime scene—they were on the highway back to Vegas.

  While it seemed as though days had passed, it was just a little past noon. And they had a baby to find.

  * * *

  All Haley could think about was finishing their quest.

  The thought of a baby possibly waiting at the end of this, a little body she could hold, a life that could be joined to hers forever, even through occasional visits, kept her drive on high.

  And maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Paul just yet.

  She would. There was no doubt in her mind about that. But after the look in his eyes when he’d first seen her in the SUV, the unabridged flash of emotion, she knew they had things to clear up between them before they parted for the rest of their lives.

  Feelings that needed to be hashed out, or, perhaps, the second time around, talked out, and put to rest. They’d both been so eager to be out of the marriage that they’d signed on lines, no one fighting for anything, and run in opposite directions. Her to a more modest home in Santa Barbara. And him to various places, until he’d ended up in Mission Viejo.

  And, maybe, they both had scars that needed to be healed before they could move on to healthy relationships with other partners.

  For the moment, she wanted to get to Vegas to check into a different hotel, one that wasn’t sitting all alone out in the desert, with adjoining rooms, and take a shower before they got on with the day’s business.

  “How sure are you that you saw the guy with the dark gray hoodie, or just saw someone in shadow that made him look shrouded in gray?” They weren’t five minutes out of Pahrump before Paul’s questions started.

  She was surprised it had taken him five seconds out of the police station where he’d seemed to commit to memory every word of the report she’d given there.

  “About seventy percent,” she told him. “At first, I thought I was seeing things, but I caught a second glimpse. He had a head covering of some kind. Who wears a hoodie in June? It has to be the same guy, right?”

  “He could have been bald. And in the shadows, with the bright sun affecting your vision, it could have looked like he had a hoodie on.”

  She could see the logic in what he was saying. And still felt like there was a good chance she’d seen the dark gray hoodie.

  “It’s partially important because who you thought was the gray hoodie guy could have been your abductor.”

  “That guy wasn’t out to warn me to be careful, fearing that he’d brought danger upon me.”

  “I’m not suggesting it was the same person, only that the man you saw today could have been the one who abducted you.”

  Now that made more sense. It wasn’t like the garden had been overrun with people. She’d thought herself the only one there—in pursuit of the shadowy gray, elfin man.

  “The guy who took me, he was bigger than the man I saw,” she said slowly, thinking about it. She shivered, weathering a huge shard of fear as it surged through her. Wanted to duck again.

  And didn’t.

  She wasn’t going to let the bad guys win. She had Paul on her side and he was the best there was. They were going to find out what was going on and get justice for Kelsey.

  And for any child she might have had.

  “It’s possible he took you for sexual purposes.” Paul’s tone was softer, but no less tough, as he put the statement out there. He glanced her way. She felt his warmth.

  And had to brace herself against an onslaught of emotion.

  She could have been raped. She hadn’t been.

  She wasn’t going to borrow tragedy. But she knew what he was telling her.

  The abduction might not have had anything to do with Kelsey’s situation.

  It could have been as simple, and as ugly, as wrong time, wrong place. Particularly considering she’d been a woman alone at a brothel. There would always be those who thought they should have for free what others paid for. In the sex world and in all other business worlds, too.

  Paul had told her on the way to the police station that he’d found no evidence at all to support a theory that Kelsey had ever been at Sister’s Ranch.

  “I’m just glad to know that Kelsey wasn’t working there,” she said aloud, to solidify the direction her thoughts were taking.

  “We don’t know that for sure.” His tone sounded warning. She knew he was doing his job—the job she needed him to do—but wished he’d quit thinking the worst of her sister.

  The two facts didn’t sit well together. If he only thought rosy positive thoughts of Kelsey, he wasn’t likely to find her, either.

  “People don’t just disappear, as Kelsey did over the past year, when their lives are above reproach,” he continued in a tone different than any that he’d used in the past two days. He wasn’t sparing her feelings. “They disappear because they don’t want to be seen for some reason. Usually criminal reasons.”

  She nodded. She believed him.

  And she still hated that he hadn’t ever been able to love her family —in spite of Kelsey’s and Gloria’s sometimes difficult behaviors.

  But then, she hadn’t ever warmed up to his father all that much, either.

  Just two of the many strikes against them.