Page 81 of Search for the Truth

The call ended right after that.

Liam cussed again.

He called back, but no one answered. By the time he made it to the parking lot and was out of his truck and running, he had already called in every able-bodied person from the McCoy County Sheriff’s Department.

But he wasn’t about to wait around for them.

Liam checked his gun as he ran through the parking lot and burst through the lobby doors of the main office. He took the stairs two at a time and put all of his attention on the hallway that led to the offices at the right end.

A cell phone was discarded on the tile halfway between him and the open door at the end of the hallway.

It was Theo’s.

Liam stepped over it and kept his gun aimed straight ahead and ready.

Yet no one appeared.

Liam swung into the office and found it empty. He would have backtracked had he not noticed the windows.

One was broken. The other was opened wide.

Surely no one had gone out them...

He hurried to check. His stomach lurched at what he saw outside.

The metal overhang from the first story stretched across the full width of the building. It wasn’t until midway across that the slope led to a flat roof that was connected to a storage building. There the roof was flat and easier to manage.

There he could just make out four figures, all moving fast.

Even at the distance, Liam could see Blake clearly.

ASMUCHASshe didn’t want to admit it, Blake was at a serious disadvantage.

Their rooftop escape might have worked had Elijah’s helper not broken into the office the second that she had been able to disarm Elijah. Instead, the best she and Theo could do in the moment was flee through the window that had been shot out by accident.

She had let the boy lead the way, and again had the bald man not been right on their heels, they might have been able to scramble down the side of the current building they were on and make a run for it.

Instead, they had been cornered on a rooftop with two men both holding guns.

Blake extended her arms out as wide as she could and put herself firmly in front of Theo.

She was out of breath but managed to keep her voice steady.

“He doesn’t know anything. Let him go and we can talk.”

Elijah, who seemed to be struggling the most, laughed through his spurts of trying to regain his breath.

“You’re—you’re in no position to—to negotiate,” he said. “We—we will talk though.”

He lowered his gun after looking at the bald man at his side. The fourth man from the ambush at her home. He was unmoving as he kept his gun aimed at her.

“Tell me where—where it is,” Elijah said, holding his side until breathing seemed to come easier. “Tell me where the flash drive is.”

Blake shook her head.

“I do that and we’re dead,” she said. “Let him go, though, and I’ll tell you whatever you want.”

It was a bluff.