“Do you know exactly what mountain Mark climbed?”

  She nodded. Named a peak. And he narrowed his search to there. He could be wrong. Had to start somewhere. Typed in various coordinates, looking for areas that would fit trenching and diagonal dumping coordinates.

  Theresa, sitting so close that her knee was touching his, worked her screen with a thumb that didn’t quit. “You a speed reader?” he asked at one point, giving his eyes a rest from the small screen he had to work with.

  “Yeah. I sing, too,” she added, and he didn’t know if she was being sarcastic or really had a good voice. He wanted to ask.

  Specifically did not allow himself to do so.

  He’d expect, with all of the specific guidelines narrowing his search, that there’d be one or two areas of interest to him. He had seven. In three different directions from where he sat. Could take three days to a week to get to them all.

  He looked for roads into the regions. No way Eric Fitzgerald could haul a toilet system up a trail, even with determination and trolleys.

  And it wasn’t likely Claire and Neve were going to be up for serious climbing, either. Not without training.

  “Did Mark ever say whether or not his parents were preparing right where they lived? Or was their bunker elsewhere?”

  “He didn’t specifically say...” She drew out the word. “But he was claustrophobic. Not in any debilitating sense. But he didn’t like to have the curtains closed in the house. And when we went to Disney World, he opted not to go on any of the rides that took us underground or in tunnels...” She looked at him, her gaze wide. “It makes sense, doesn’t it, that he spent time in their bunker?”

  “It sounds like they could have been living there, at least part-time, even then. Maybe they slept down there? I know some doomsdayers do that.” He knew a veteran with PTSD who did. Granted, the bunker was more of a tented camping spot, but it was down an incline into a cave in Arizona. The bunker gave Dave peace. Highly unlikely that Mark Fitzgerald had had the same reaction.

  And Ezra had thought he’d had it rough with a famous, revered father who turned out to be a lying, bribe-taking criminal, sending innocent people to live in dark cages.

  But not Ezra. Ben Colton had only ever treated his children with love and respect.

  An hour later, Ezra had a map with possible bunker locations, with road access, charted on it. They intended to head out at daybreak. If they got lucky, and were able to quickly eliminate places, they could get five narrowed down to one in a day.

  And have the girls home before darkness fell a second time. One night of adventure might be fun. Two nights trapped underground, with no contact with their mother, could prove to be emotionally scarring.

  “It’s probably a good idea to order room service for breakfast,” Theresa said, as he saved his map and went to plug in his phone. “The kitchen opens at five, and we can have it packed to go. Eat on the way.” She’d already retrieved the padded brown in-room dining menu from the desk not far from his bed. Was perusing it while he made plans to sleep in his clothes on top of the bed serving as his bunk—something he’d done many times in his life.

  “Oh,” she said, looking over at him standing there looking at the daybed by the window.

  “What?”

  “Prickly pear.”

  “What about it?”

  “They have prickly pear jelly on the menu. Mark hated prickly pear anything,” she said. “We were in Arizona once before we were married, and some friends of his from college had told us we had to try these prickly pear margaritas, which I did, and they were fabulous, but Mark wouldn’t even try it. Said he couldn’t stand the stuff. I just figured he’d had it before and really had a distaste for it, but now...with you asking me about him, our backdoor way of learning about Eric and Jennifer...what if a memory from his childhood had something to do with his reaction?”

  “Prickly pear grows in the Rockies, mostly lower elevations,” Ezra said, moving over to join her by the desk. He stopped a good foot away, had almost grabbed her shoulders with hope as another thought occurred to him. “Say the Fitzgerald bunker has prickly pear growing nearby and Mark stepped back into it. Or walked into it in the dark. Maybe he never had a bad incident with it, but it was something he saw by the bunker entrance, so the thought of it just reminded him...”

  “Maybe his parents made him drink juice from it if the plant was growing in abundance on their land,” Theresa joined in.

  Her comment spurred another. “Now add a six-year-old compost fertilization on the surface within fifty yards of the bunker surface,” he continued. “It stands to reason that vegetation would grow more profusely with fertilization...”

  “So tomorrow, when we’re driving, we look for areas with healthy prickly pear growth...” Her voice faded, but the light in her eyes did not. “Maybe it won’t be the prickly pear. Maybe it’s one of these other things we’ve homed in on. We’re going to find them, Ezra.”

  It was a long shot.

  A really long one.

  Mammothly long.

  But any kind of shot at all was better than none.

  * * *

  They had a plan, and they needed rest.

  She needed some distance from the man who’d become a lifeline to her. A few hours of sleep to give her some perspective.

  In the bathroom, Theresa went through her shopping bags, found the sweats she’d grabbed from an endcap, the gray, doomsday-appropriate T-shirt she’d snatched without even looking at the price because it had a unicorn on the front of it. Toothbrush, toothpaste... She’d done well, considering the state she’d been in when she’d been given ten minutes to shop.

  It took her less than ten minutes to get ready for bed. Ezra headed into the bathroom right after she came out, giving her a chance to get into bed, snuggle the soft, fresh-smelling covers up to her chin, turn toward the wall—with her back to the daybed—and will herself to sleep.

  She heard the water running. Heard him pee and flush, too, though she tried really hard not to listen. Heard water running again. And his bag rustling some more. She heard the turn of the doorknob. And the swish of his feet on the carpet as he passed by the end of her bed.

  With a click, the light went out.

  And...her nightmare started.

  As though the light switch in the room also controlled a mechanism in her brain. As soon as darkness consumed the room, and the moment became officially designated as sleep time, Theresa’s mind went from rational to worry mode, igniting a series of scenarios that scared her to death.

  The girls trapped in the ground, in the dark, lost and clutching to each other as they cried for her.

  Visions of bad things that could be happening lingered around every mental turn she tried to make.

  Eric losing his temper with them as they failed to conform to his idea of who they should be.

  Were they hiding someplace? Under something?

  Had they eaten?

  Claire was such a picky eater... Had Jennifer been patient with her as she tried to find something the little girl could eat without triggering her gag reflex?

  Mark had never understood that one—always thinking that Claire just had to be taught to eat her food. She had to understand that even if she didn’t like something, she just had to chew and swallow and make it gone.

  Until the night he’d forced her to sit in her seat across from him, put a spoonful of peas into her mouth, and chew and swallow them. She’d done so. She’d adored her daddy.

  And as she’d swallowed, the peas had failed to make it past her throat. She’d gagged and spewed peas all over the table.

  Neve’s laughter had saved that day. After a moment of shock, Mark had laughed, too, and then Claire had.

  Theresa had been cleaning up the mess...

  Her stomach ached, muscles clutching against each other, and she pulled the bed’s extra pillow down to apply soft pressure, hoping to ease the pain.

  Had the girls been crying for hours? Were they dehydrated?

  Had her babies learned how to hold guns? Had they been forced to aim and fire?

  She moved again, trying to find comfort where there was none.

  Oh my God. What would happen if one of them got sick? Or fell and broke an arm or cut themselves? It wasn’t like their grandparents were just going to waltz them in to see a medical professional. They had no paperwork, no records, no insurance information.

  And there was an Amber Alert out on the girls. Eric and Jennifer would know that. They’d avoid any chance of being recognized.

  The Amber Alert had to be canceled. Immediately. Someone had to get one of the band of doomsdayers who all hung together to get word to Eric and Jennifer, letting them know that they’d be free to get medical treatment for the girls with no repercussions.

  Tom Smith. They could make him do it. He owed them for shooting at them. And he’d want his compatriots to have the immunity she was offering. Should she get up and call him right then? If Neve or Claire got sick in the night, the morning could be too late.

  She could use her burner phone. Text him...

  Or call for a rideshare and go see him herself. That way she could sign whatever she’d have to sign saying that no charges would be pressed. He could hold her hostage in the event that someone tried to intervene and take Eric and Jennifer into custody.

  Could the police charge them anyway, even if she said no, since there’d been a kidnapping?

  Oh, God.

  Her babies had no medical protection. They could already be hurt.

  What if there’d been an accident during gun training?

  Chance of that was huge. Six-year-olds with loaded guns?

  And Neve...bless her...she didn’t always listen the first time around. Her little mind spun with such great stories of her own that sometimes things just didn’t sink in.

  A vision of Neve calling out to her sister, telling her to look, and a little finger hitting a trigger...

  Claire!

  Neve would scream. There’d be blood...

  Stop.

  She could say the word. Fear, despair, dread...they didn’t dissipate.

  For the first time since her baby girls were born, she hadn’t been there to kiss them good-night. To tell them to have sweet dreams.

  Hope was gone as tears trickled out from tightly squeezed lids. She couldn’t cry. Her nose would run and then she’d either have to sniffle, which would be loud, or get a tissue, blow her nose, which would be louder.

  With the hand clutching the comforter to her chin, she wiped at the tears.

  Through all of Mark’s illness, times when she’d had to work the night shift at the home, the time she was sick with the flu, she’d always kissed her babies’ cheeks good-night—albeit with a face mask on when she was sick—and told them sweet dreams.

  All the years of never missing, and her record was broken.

  Tears spurted from the corners of her eyes, fell across her nose and to the pillowcase. Her nose ran. Burying her head, she tried to stifle her sniffle with the covers.

  The girls were gone.

  What if she never saw them again?

  What if...?

  Her mattress moved, sinking from weight on the edge of it. “Hey.”

  She knew the voice. Trusted it.

  But there was nothing that it could say to help...

  “Talk to me.”

  There was nothing to say. Nothing anyone could do that would...

  “Help me,” he said.

  What? She stilled. Waiting. Of course she’d help. If someone needed her help, she’d... Ezra. She rolled to her back, looking for his face in the darkness. Could make out shadowy outlines of features. “What’s wrong?” Lifting her arm, she touched his neck with the back of her hand, testing for skin warmth. Did he have a fever?

  Mark had run them regularly there at the end.

  “I don’t know what to do here. How to help. I’m lying over there listening to your restlessness, hearing you cry and... Earlier, you were going to tell me how to help you, and then Dom called and... Help me help you, Theresa.”

  He sounded so pathetic. Seriously. He was lost, needy. A man like Ezra wouldn’t sit well with an inability to accomplish what he’d set out to do.

  Even as she had the thoughts, she recognized that they were still a bit inane, but there was some truth there, too.

  He really wanted to help.

  How could she tell such a strong, risk-his-life-for-the-good-of-others fighter that he was powerless?

  “I’m so sorry this is happening to you,” he said. “You’ve been through so much, and...”

  “Stop,” she said, supine in her unicorn T-shirt, covers up to shoulders, looking up at him. “Please, Ezra, the last thing I need right now is sympathy.”

  Her face felt stiff with drying tears. A reminder that she’d been lying there feeling sorry for herself.

  “What do you need?” he asked, his tone softening.

  And it dawned on her. He knew.

  Did he know?

  Maybe subconsciously?

  Did he feel it, too?

  The flow of emotion between them... It had been there before the girls had been taken.

  She’d sworn to do whatever it took to keep herself focused so that she’d be able to nurture her girls when she got them back.

  Staying in that bed, alone in the dark, wasn’t healthy for her.

  “I need warmth,” she said, shivering in spite of the covers.

  “You want me to turn up the thermostat?”

  “No.” Her voice was dry. Husky. Filled with fear and exhaustion, tears and need. “I want arms around me,” she told him honestly.

  He didn’t stand, move away. He didn’t reach for her, either.

  “I’m so tired, and know I need to sleep, but my head...lying here alone... I need hope. And you give me hope, Ezra.”

  The covers moved, the mattress dipped, and he was there, fully dressed, filling up the darkness as he pulled her against solid muscles that protected her from bad guys.

  Chapter 17

  Shockingly, Ezra slept. Lying with Theresa snuggled up to his chest, breathing softly, evenly, he’d thought he’d give her a bit and then gently extricate himself to return to his own bunk.

  The next thing he knew, daylight was peeking around the edges of the drapes he’d drawn the night before.

  They’d never said a word. From the second he’d slid down on her sheets, there’d been not one attempt at conversation. She’d relaxed against him and within minutes had been out.

  All the anguish she’d been putting herself through, and in his arms, she’d found peace.

  You had to like a woman who knew what she needed and had the guts to ask for it.

  Because he couldn’t focus on the rest of it. Her peace. His arms. There was no future in it. So no permission to go there.

  She awoke as he started to slide away from her. Pulled herself off his chest. Let him go. He didn’t look back.

  Or speak.

  He just made a beeline for the shower. A cold one. To wake himself up. And to calm himself down, too.

  And by the time he’d reentered the room, she’d been up and waiting for her turn in the bath. He already had breakfast there and waiting when she exited twenty minutes later, dressed in a pair of brown cotton pants, another long-sleeved lighter brown shirt and her boots. Breakfast in hand, they hit the road.

  They discussed the omelets. The route they were on. Filling up with gas. And the clear skies. Neither mentioned the night they’d spent in each other’s arms.

  The first two locations on his map were a bust. One area was off from a single-lane dirt road that had been blocked for some time by two fallen trees that had clearly been the result of a lightning strike at least a year before. Vegetation had already grown and covered the spot. There was a scattering of prickly pear, though, and Ezra scouted the mostly flat, open area on foot anyway, with Theresa in the truck researching message boards and websites for information about doomsdayers. He’d found no sign of any kind of human presence, period.

  They’d wasted a couple of hours.

  Another single-lane dirt road, miles off from a county highway, led them to the second area. Badly rutted—to the point that Theresa was holding on as they bounced along—the road had clearly not been traveled on recently. Still, he persevered, and they spent an hour walking the flat land that met all bunker criteria, with no sign of footsteps, tamped-down vegetation from someone or something having gone through the space, and no sign of any kind of cover or cave opening.

  “There’s prickly pear, though,” Theresa said as they made their way back to the Jeep. They’d scared up rabbits, too, and had walked to the chorus of multiple birdcalls.

  The sun was climbing steadily, and Ezra felt the tension start to build again. Within himself, but in his companion as well. Theresa’s expressions were growing stiffer, her sentences less wordy.

  Dom hadn’t called yet that day.

  They’d rushed out just after dawn and had gotten nowhere.

  While time ticked and Claire and Neve experienced life unknown to them.

  He needed a plan B. Didn’t have one.

  Every soldier knew you didn’t enter the battlefield without a plan B.

  “We’re doing something,” Theresa said as she climbed back in beside him. “If nothing else, we’re narrowing down areas they might be by knowing where they aren’t.”

  He and this woman were in sync. There was just no denying it.

  He glanced her way. Smiled.