Chapter 30

SAWYER GROANED ANDbatted at the hard hand shaking him. His head felt as though it weighed two tons. And the headache? Unspeakable pain that made him want to puke.

“You with me?” Jesse asked.

“Head hurts,” he muttered.

“Yep. Me, too.”

“What happened?”

“Based on what I saw on the security footage, we were pistol whipped by Lorenzo Reyes.”

And just like that, the fog cleared. “Janie?” Sawyer struggled to sit up, his gaze taking in his teammates. Janie was nowhere to be seen. “Where is she?”

“Gone.” Brody reached down and hauled Sawyer to his feet.

He swayed a few seconds, then steadied. His stomach lurched as though it planned to turn itself inside out. Luckily, his stomach stayed in place. “What do we know?”

“Not enough.” Logan motioned for Sawyer to join him at the counter where he’d set up a laptop. Janie’s sat phone and GPS jewelry were on the counter as well. “Watch.”

The burning need to get out there and start looking for the love of his life boiled up inside Sawyer. “We need to go,” he snapped. Standing here watching security footage wasn’t on his agenda. He needed to find Janie. Now.

“Go where?” Max rested his hand on Sawyer’s shoulder. “If we had more than a general direction, we would have hauled you into an SUV while you were still unconscious and followed Janie. We don’t have enough information yet.”

“Settle.” Brody pointed at Sawyer. “We’ll get her back. First, you need to see this.” He nodded at Logan, who set the camera footage in motion.

Although he itched to get moving, he made himself watch the footage Logan had set up to run at a fast speed. His hands clenched into fists as he watched events play out, stunned at Janie’s boldness in protecting him from further harm.

As he continued to watch the action unfold, he noticed her left hand. On reflex, he patted the inner pocket of his jacket and discovered it was empty. “She took one of my knives,” he murmured.

Logan straightened. A slight smile curved his lips. “She armed herself. Tough lady.”

“If the Reyes men don’t discover the weapon,” Max said.

Sawyer’s eyes narrowed when on the screen, Lorenzo Reyes slapped Janie. “He’s mine.” Anger burned through him at the thug’s treatment of her.

“If you get to him first,” Logan murmured. He stopped the video feed a minute later when Maria and her family hustled Janie from the building.

“Did we get a plate number on that SUV?” Sawyer asked.

“I called it in to Zane. He’s hacking into traffic cams as we speak.”

“We’re on a short clock. Hernandez has no reason to keep Janie alive once he has her in his hands.” The thought of Janie not being in this world made Sawyer sick. He needed her.

“We know what’s at stake, Sawyer, but we need a direction,” Brody said. “As soon as we have one, we’ll head out.”

Not good enough. Janie was everything to him. He turned to Logan. “I asked you to search for Vatos Locos holdings in the area. Did you finish the search?”

His friend nodded. “There are several in the Middle Tennessee area.”

“Are they close together or scattered?”

“Scattered.”

Finding a direction didn’t seem too hard a task. The question was how far out were the holdings and how many traffic cams would confirm the direction? Time was short. Janie’s life could literally be measured in minutes if she was in Hernandez’s hands now.

A chance. A slim one, but a chance. He’d take it.

Jesse handed him a capsule and a small bottle of water. “Take it. No arguments. You have to be functional, and I can all but see the pain in your head.”

He swallowed the capsule and eyed the medic. “What about you?”

“Already took the meds for myself, too.”

Sawyer turned to Logan. “Talk to me.”

“Speculation only. It’s not productive.”

“Talk.”

“They took your woman for a reason.”

Sawyer stilled. He thought back through what they knew and what they didn’t and realized his friend was correct. “If all they wanted was to snip off a loose end, they would have killed Janie, not gone to the trouble of taking her with them.”

“Why do they want her?” Logan prompted. “If not to silence someone who can identify Hernandez, what do they want?”

“Why is she valuable to them?” Brody asked.

“Two reasons. One, she’s a direct link to the team who killed so many of the gang members.”

“And the second reason?” This from Max.

“Money.”

His teammates glanced at each other, then back at him. “Explain,” Brody said.

“David has a gambling problem. He owes a chunk of money to the gang.”

Brody frowned. “Janie’s a new small business owner. Does she have the money necessary to bail her brother out of debt?”

“Yes, and no. She has money left in trust from her Granny Irene. One stipulation, though, was that she couldn’t give it to David. Granny Irene left David a lump sum, and that’s all he was to receive. If Janie tries to give more money to her brother, the will stipulates the rest of the money left in the trust goes to charity. She and her brother will both end up with nothing.”

“Does David know that?” Jesse asked.

“He should.”

“Doesn’t mean his wife knows the truth,” Logan said. “Especially if he didn’t tell her everything.”

“Or if David used Janie as a bargaining chip to get more time to come up with the money to pay off his debt,” Max said, his expression grim.

“David is still unconscious, so we can’t demand the truth from him.” Sawyer dragged a hand down his face, coming up with solutions and discarding them almost as fast as they appeared. “If they took Janie for money, I’ll give them every penny I have.”

“You know it doesn’t work that way,” Brody murmured. “They’ll take the money, then kill you and Janie both.”

“With me by her side, Janie has a chance to survive. Alone, she has no chance at all. I don’t care about the money. I love her, Brody.”

“Think with your head, not your heart. Paying them won’t solve the problem.”

“I don’t have a better solution. Do you?”

Silence descended on the group.

Logan’s phone signaled an incoming message. He grabbed his phone and scanned the screen. “Zane sent the traffic cam footage.”

“Put it on screen,” Brody said. “Let’s see where the vehicle went.”

Once again, Logan set the footage to run at a higher speed.

One shot caught Janie in the backseat with Lorenzo. His arm was wrapped around her neck. Lorenzo was biting her.

Without thinking, Sawyer took a step toward the laptop, his fist clenched.

Jesse grabbed his arm. “Hold,” he snapped. “We need to see it all.”

“I’m going to kill Reyes.” Sawyer’s voice came out harsh. No one had the right to hurt Janie, especially a no-good thug like Lorenzo Reyes.

“Later. Right now, we need every bit of information we can get from the footage to save your woman.”

Right. He shrugged off the medic’s hold and nodded at Logan. Shoving his fury behind a concrete wall in his mind, Sawyer refocused on the screen.

He prayed his teammates could pick up clues to the destination of the Reyes family because Sawyer’s attention was riveted to glimpses of Janie. Every time he saw her, good old Lorenzo was touching her. Janie’s hair, face, neck, and ears were all favorite targets of the slimeball holding her so tightly against him.

Every so often, Sawyer noticed a look of smug satisfaction on Maria Moran’s face. She was in full agreement with what was happening to Janie. That woman had a lot to answer for. If David was lucky, he’d live long enough to divorce Maria. Janie must be devastated at the betrayal by her sister-in-law.

He frowned. Was Maria behind the plot to kidnap Janie? If so, did David have a say in the event planning before he arrived in Hartman? For Janie’s sake, Sawyer hoped that wasn’t the case. Despite David’s treatment of her, she loved her brother.

Something on the screen caught his attention. “Freeze that.”

Logan did as ordered.

“Back up five seconds.” When the picture on the screen shifted to the one he wanted, Sawyer moved closer to the screen. He pointed to the right side of the picture. “Can you enhance that, Logan?”

When his friend did as requested, Sawyer studied the screen. “Clean that image. I think it’s a road sign.”

A moment later, the image on the sign became clearer. Highway 31. He turned to Logan. “Does that mean anything to you?”

“Maybe. There are two compounds in that direction. Depends on where they go from here.”

“How many more traffic cam clips do we have to watch?” Brody asked.

“Two.”

“Let’s see them. We’ll decide what to do once we’ve seen the footage.”

Logan set the first clip in motion. Another quick shot of Janie plastered up against Lorenzo, her expression one of fear. Lorenzo’s mouth was against Janie’s ear.

The last traffic cam footage showed Maria turned around in her seat to watch her cousin paw Janie. The clip ended seconds later.

“That’s it?” Sawyer asked. “No more footage?”

“None.” Logan glanced up, a smile beginning to curve his mouth.

Hope blossomed inside him. “What is it? Share with the class, Fletcher.”

“I know where they took Janie.”