Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 102361 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102361 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
“Her car is in the driveway,” Blake reminds me. “I’ll call the hospital and see if anyone with her description is in the ER.”
He walks away to make that call.
When my own phone rings, I blink at Chase’s name and answer it. “Please tell me you found her.”
“I’m sorry, no. I’m checking in to see if she came home.”
“No, not yet. Can I file a missing person’s report?”
“Not until it’s been twenty-four hours.” His voice is grim. “But I have our guys looking for her unofficially while they’re out on patrol. Tell me what you know.”
I run it down for him, feeling the frustration swell as I go through it all over again, my family listening in.
“Let’s keep each other posted,” Chase says. “I’m sure she’s fine. We just have to find her.”
I hang up, and our gazes fly to the front door when it opens, and Millie and Holden walk in.
Fuck.
“We drove all over town just now,” Holden says grimly. “We didn’t see her.”
“I’m going out of my motherfucking mind.”
“I get it.” Holden claps me on the shoulder, and I know he does.
Millie was missing once, trapped in a deep hole on his property, and we all rallied together to find her, riding our horses over a hundred thousand acres. Holden was as out of his mind as I am now.
“Who has Birdie and Bryce?” I ask Dani.
“Your parents. They’re on standby, and want to be updated, but we didn’t want the kids here when everyone’s afraid.”
I nod and let out a breath.
Come on, Wildfire. Where the fuck are you?
I’m going to spank her ass until it glows for scaring me like this.
The door opens again, and Connor strides in, followed by Miller and Simon, his security team.
It’s a full fucking house.
“Any word?” Connor asks me as he presses a kiss to his wife’s forehead.
“No.”
“If you give me Juliet’s cell number, I can track her location,” Simon says, pulling his laptop out of a bag I didn’t notice him carrying. “As long as it’s on, I can see where she is.”
Thank fuck.
He boots up the computer, and I stand behind him as I give him her number.
“It takes just a minute,” he murmurs.
I push my hands through my hair and look up at the ceiling, but then Miller, who’s looking over Simon’s shoulder, says, “Has anyone checked the house across the street?”
Not bothering to answer or even look at anyone else, I take off at a sprint, through the door and across the street.
She’d better be okay.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
JULIET
It’s so fucking cold in here.
I’m shivering, and my teeth are chattering. My legs both went numb long ago. I don’t have any idea how long I’ve been suspended up here, but it got dark a while ago, and let me just tell you right now, it’s scary as fuck in a secret attic after dark.
The noises are the worst. The skittering. The creaking. At one point, I thought I heard voices, but it turned out to just be me talking to myself.
I might be going crazy.
Or going into shock.
Maybe this is what hypothermia feels like because I’m so damn cold.
Every once in a while, my phone will ping with a text, or Brooks’s ringtone will start to play because he’s trying to call me, and it makes me cry because I know he has to be worried. If the roles were reversed, I’d be terrified and tearing the world apart to find him.
He’ll find me.
Eventually.
Will I still be alive when he does? I mean, I know that sounds dramatic, but no one knows the attic exists, and I didn’t tell anyone that I was coming over to the house.
So stupid.
For about the tenth time, I try to wiggle my way back up, but the piece of wood that cut the hell out of my leg is still embedded in the skin, and when I try to work it back up, it hurts all over again.
Not to mention, I’m so cold that I’m numb in half of my body, and my arms don’t want to work.
The dark is the worst. If it were light outside, it would still suck, but it wouldn’t be this scary. This creepy.
That’s an understatement.
“This is terrifying.”
Something skitters over the floor behind me, and I gasp, then let out a whimper.
“Go away,” I say, but my voice is scratchy because for the first hour or so, I screamed my ass off.
No one came.
My phone rings, and when I look down between my legs to the floor below, I see that it’s Chad returning my call.
“Sorry, Chad. I’m a little hung up.”
I giggle at the thought. I’ve officially lost my marbles. And when something moves next to me, I scream, flailing my arms, hoping that I knock whatever the hell it is across the room.
“I want out of here!” I yell and try to drag myself out of this hole once more, gritting my teeth when the wood drags through my flesh. “Fuck, that hurts.”