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“And?”

“Emmaline escaped last night with another girl.”

“Is she okay? Is Cate with her?”

“Cate wasn’t the other girl. Emmaline told the judge that she didn’t know where they were being held, but they’d gotten out and flagged down a car. The driver gave them a ride to a gas station and let them use his cell phone to call for help.”

“So where is Emmaline now?”

“That’s the problem.”

“Get to the point, Gray.”

“The FBI Agent they told Judge Swisher they had called says he never heard from them, so either he’s lying or they had a bogus number and called someone who wasn’t who they thought he was.”

“Did he give you the agent’s name?”

“It was dad’s buddy, Philip Monroe. I think we have to assume that the number they called belonged to someone else.”

“Or Uncle Philip is involved with the Continental Alliance.”

“We’ve known him our entire lives,” Gray said.

“Doesn’t mean he’s squeaky clean.”

“Innocent until proven guilty.”

“Not when it comes to Cate’s well-being. I’ll go with guilty until proven innocent in this instance.”

Samanthatoweldriedherhair and walked to the bay window to see who had pulled into her drive. A smile formed when she saw Gavin’s Range Rover.

She threw the door open and met him on the porch. “You got your car back.”

“You dare call my babya car?”

A laugh bubbled up. “SUV?”

“Okay. I’ll accept that.” He sidled up next to her and leaned against the porch rail. “Gray was tired of driving me around, so he had it brought up here.”

“Now your brother won’t have to chaperone if we go out.”

“Does that mean I can take you out? You’ll let me?” He grinned and moved closer, invading her space, but she didn’t mind one bit. “Thought we needed to back off anything personal. After all, you can’t stand billionaires and one who works in New York, he must be the epitome of evil.”

“All true.”

“Yet, you’ll allow me to escort you somewhere alone?”

“We need to get to the bottom of this missing persons situation, and to do that, it only makes sense that we spend time together. We’re going to need to eat meals, so we might as well share those meals.”

“Yeah?”

“Unless you object.”

“There is nothing about you, Samantha, that I find objectionable.”

“I’ll remind you of that next time I annoy you.”

“You available for dinner? I have some news I want to share.”