Page 150 of Distress Signal

Finally, Owen dug in his pocket and passed the keys to his rental over.

I clicked the lock button to locate it, then rushed toward it and threw myself behind the wheel, peeling out exactly as the fucker who had taken my girl had.

While he had a headstart, there wasn’t anyone on the planet who knew this land better than I did—except, of course, my family—and that gave me an advantage. I drove on autopilot, navigating the curves and hills of the access road that connected our ranch to the county road ahead, pressing the speedometer to sixty, seventy, eighty.

Was it reckless? Absolutely.

Did I give a fuck?

Hell no.

Reagan’s life was on the line. At the moment, mine didn’t matter.

When I reached the T formed by the ranch drive and the county road, fields expanded in all directions.

Nothing but silence and stillness greeted me. Not even a flash of taillights.

“Fuck!” I screamed, slamming my fist over and over against the steering wheel.

Taking a stab in the dark, I headed right, where the road would take me further away from town, deeper into Lawless ranch land. My head was on a swivel as I sped down the dirt lane, whipping toward trails and two tracks that cut into the woods and fields in either direction. I gave myself five miles before I had to accept the driver—and Reagan—had slipped through my fingers.

I reluctantly turned around and headed back to the ranch.

“What the fuck was that?” Lane asked when I parked near the barn and climbed out of the SUV. “You can’t just go all cowboy and take off whenever you feel like it!”

“Let all these people go,” I said. “None of them are responsible.”

“How do you know?”

“Because one of them snuck free of your little round up and took off down the road. I was trying to catch them. I think it’s safe to assume they have Reagan.”

My words were flat. I couldn’t even consider where my girl was now, what state she was in, what she was enduring at the hands of some unknown creep.

“Fuck,” Lane muttered, scrubbing a hand down his face.

“Yeah. Great work, Sheriff.”

Lane lifted his finger into my face and stepped closer, but Owen stepped in and shoved us apart before fists could fly.

“What we’renotgoing to do is turn on each other,” our eldest brother said.

“He’s being a prick,” Lane retorted.

“Some asshole just took the love of my life away from me!” I screamed in his face. “How do you think you’d feel?”

Lane stilled, as though he hadn’t stopped to consider that—hadn’t reminded himself that Reagan was now the center of my universe.

“Fair enough,” he said, backing off, then raising his voice to speak to the guests. “Sorry about that, folks. Everyone can go home.”

A mass exodus ensued, and when the final car disappeared down the drive, we gathered in a loose circle.

“So now what?” West asked.

“Now, we head to my house,” Trey said.

An hour later,I sat in Trey’s living room while he and Lane were holed up in Trey’s office, combing through the Swallow footage from that day and night seven years ago and tonight’s from the big house. I barely noticed what was happening around me, my eyes focused on some middle distance while I tried not to think about what was happening to Reagan.

“How’s it going in there?” Owen asked when West rejoined us.