Page 67 of Distress Signal

“I know, but there’s something I need to do that’s more important than work, and I want you to come with me.”

“More important than work,” he mused. “Let me guess: this involves Reagan.”

“Of course it does,” I snapped. “You gonna help me or not?”

“Obviously. I’ll head over now.”

“Great. I’m hopping in the shower, so let yourself in.”

“Always do,” West said, then hung up.

I raced through the shower, using my shampoo as body wash, which I spread around with my hands, not bothering with the loofah Aria had bought me ages ago.

Had to admit, though…women knew what the fuck they were doing with those things. It got into all the nooks and crannies and made my skin smooth as fuck.

By the time I toweled dry, dressed, swiped on some deodorant, and brushed my teeth, West was waiting in the living room, scrolling through his phone.

“Took you long enough.”

“Fuck you. It took fifteen minutes.”

“And I’ve been here for ten.”

I walked over and kicked his feet. “Get up and let’s go.”

“Where exactly are we going?” West asked once we were in his truck.

“Airport.”

He caught my eye, a brow raised in question, so I quickly explained about Reagan’s dream.

“That hero complex is gonna get you in trouble one day,” he chuckled. “Bursting into women’s houses without permission.”

“Technically, it’smyhouse, and I thought she was in danger.”

“So what’s our plan?” he asked.

“Grid search.”

“Off the record?”

I glared at him. “You know Lane would never condone this. He’d insist on calling in the fucking National Guard or something, and the last thing we need is a bunch of those assholes hogging my airspace.”

“Fair enough.”

When we arrived at the hangar where my Cessna Skyhawk was stored, West pulled his truck right inside and killed the engine. We climbed out and headed for the long table along one wall, above which hung several maps of the area and state.

Focusing my attention on the one of our county, I tapped the surface. Thankfully, the map was already divided into a grid, each square representing ten square miles. Dusk Valley was located in the southernmost county of Idaho along its shared border with Oregon. I dragged my finger to the quadrant in the bottom left corner of the state. “We’ll start here, work our way east until we hit the edge of the county, then head north and back to the west.”

“And you’re sure this fucker is keeping Lainey somewhere in the county?”

I shook my head. “Not entirely. I mean, I don’t have any reason to suspect that except a gut feeling. But if they met here seven years ago and she was taken from here, I think logic dictates he’s local, right?”

“Agreed,” West said, then picked up one of the maps on the table—replicas of the ones on the walls, this one the same as the one I’d been pointing at. “So let’s go.”

While I went through my pre-flight checklist, West sat in one of the chairs we kept in here and started jotting down notes and coordinates, which is precisely why I’d brought him along. While I focused on flying, he’d be responsible for keeping us within the grid by updating the nav system. He was also responsible for ruling out any areas we could safely do so, mainly our ranch land and any bordering farms we were familiar with, where we knew no such house like the one from Reagan’s dream existed.

We didn’t speak. Didn’t need to. We simply relied on the “woo-woo shit” to guide us, communicating in looks and gestures.