Page 46 of Silver Sanctuary (The Silver Springs #3)

Twenty-Eight

A sheriff’s deputy?! Was there no end to the places that people would be trying to hurt her from? He was a man with power.

There would be no justice for what he had done to her—the way he’d hurt her, leaving her with no care as to whether she lived or died. He’d had no fear about spitting on her, kicking her, because he held all the power. And he knew, just like she did, that no one would believe her.

No, that wasn’t true. Someone had.

“Thank you. For believing me,” she whispered.

Nash’s eyes left the road for one second. “Always. I’ll always believe you.”

His bloodied knuckles tightened back around the steering wheel, and her mind went to Embrie. She had to be so scared. Someone had tricked her, and by now, Lacy was sure her brilliant girl had figured that out.

It was her mother—it had to be. She didn’t pay the blackmail, so this was her punishment. Her mother hadn’t even hidden the threat. She’d told Lacy flat out that she was going to take Embrie. She was going to do the most painful thing possible to Lacy, and she made good on her word.

Her eyes wouldn’t focus, black and white dots dancing dangerously in her vision.

“Baby, please, just try and breathe.”

Lacy’s chest ached as her body jerked at the command.

God, why was it so hard to hold herself together.

She needed to be strong. She needed a clear mind.

They hadn’t talked about what happened at the school—not about him hitting a deputy, or her saying thank you.

Because she did want to say it, but she couldn’t.

It was like she was trapped in her mind, behind the panic that was growing stronger with each passing second.

Nash’s hand squeezed down on her thigh. “Breathe, Lace. I want to get to that field, but I’ll pull over this truck if I need to.”

No! They had to get there. She forced herself to take in a shuddered breath. It hurt—a million times worse than when her ribs were battered and bruised.

“I’m sorry. I—I’m trying. Drive. I’m fine.” She winced at her words. “Not fine.”

“I know.”

She focused on her breathing, because if Nash could hold it together, then she could too. They would find Embrie, and then she could fall apart. Once she knew her daughter was safe. Once she had her back in her arms.

“I just want to get there. I want to know what they found. If they found…”

Nash nodded, the fingers around the steering wheel turning white from his grip. They rode the rest of the way in silence, every second ticking by a sick reminder of how far her mother could have gotten with Embrie. And if Adam was with her …

“Right there.” Nash flipped on the turn signal as they rounded a corner, red and blue flashing lights and a dozen or more sheriff’s department vehicles sat scattered around the shoulder of the road.

Hank Porter, the Clarence County Sheriff, was standing alongside several deputies, Embrie’s backpack being passed in front of two search-and-rescue dogs.

Lacy moved, but this time Nash was faster. His hand clamped down on her arm, holding her in place until he was able to park on the shoulder of the road. That was all the time she’d given him though, because the next second she was bolting out the door, sprinting full speed at Hank.

Until Hawk stepped out into the road and wrapped his arms around her. It wasn’t until that moment, until she saw the look on Hank’s face but couldn’t reach him, that she let herself even imagine the worst case scenario.

“Let me go! Let me go, Hawk!”

His hands let go, but his eyes went right over her shoulder, to Nash, while he blocked her path.

“Lacy, you have to listen to me.”

“Where is she?! That’s her backpack! EMbrIE?!” she screamed. “Embrie!”

“They don’t think she’s here.” Hawk’s admission had her fighting even harder to get over to the deputies. She needed answers. There had to be something that they knew.

“They have the SAR dogs here, though?” Nash questioned.

“Are they… are those the dogs that search for bodies?”

Her knees gave out, but Nash moved to wrap his arms around her just as Hawk did the same.

“Whoa. No. I mean, these dogs are trained in that, yes. But that’s not… they just want to see if they can get a trail. That’s all, Lacy. ”

Nash pulled Lacy out of Hawk’s half hold and tucked her into his chest. “They just want to get a lock on her scent, sweetheart. They’ll sweep the field and see if they pick up a trail, but most likely, her backpack was dumped here.”

“They knew about the tracker?”

“More than likely they just suspected it, knowing Embrie’s ties to us and what we do,” Hawk admitted.

The sheriff walked away from his deputies.

“You guys need to head back into town. You can’t be out here. If there’s any update, I’ll come find you. Personally.”

“Hank—”

“Nash, I know. I know this is your daughter. I’ve already issued the alert with Amber Graves’s and Adam Domico’s information. I have a deputy trying to locate them now.”

“But that’s Embrie’s backpack. She was here…” Lacy’s voice wavered.

“I talked to Gage. The book bag’s been out here over an hour at this point. They’ve got a head start if they are planning on transporting her across state lines.”

“What are you doing to stop them?” Lacy’s question sounded more like a plea.

“We’ve got troopers at the state lines. They’ll monitor the situation there.

It’s very likely that this is related to the money your mother tried to extort from you.

Which means, they’ll likely try to use Embrie as leverage to get that money.

We need you to be back in Silver Springs in case someone reaches out and a demand is made. ”

Lacy nodded, her head moving up and down Nash's chest, but her eyes never left the dogs as they put their snouts to the ground and took off.

“I just want to stay to see if they alert us to something. Just five minutes. Please.”

She looked at Hank while Nash’s arms tightened around her waist .

“Five minutes.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, an indescribable gratitude for the concession filling her body. Little did she know then that the feeling wouldn’t last long at all.

They’d returned to Montgomery defense hours ago.

The dogs didn’t alert in the five minutes the sheriff had allowed them to be at the field, so all Lacy could do was pray that nothing came up in the time since she’d been forced to return to town.

Part of her heart was screaming that it was good, since Hank had said he would deliver any news himself, and they had yet to see him, but a bigger part of her brain was screaming that with every passing minute, Embrie was slipping through their fingers.

“Here.” A mug hovered in front of her, but she just shook her head. If anything went in her stomach, she knew she’d be running to the bathroom just to throw it up. “You need something. This is warm. I put extra sugar in it.”

She lifted her eyes up off her lap for the first time in at least thirty minutes.

Nash was crouched down in front of her, the mug hovering over her knees.

There was no way she could drink it, but still, she reached out, hoping that holding onto the mug would ease some of the darkness in the worry lines around her husband’s eyes.

Before he could ask her whatever was on the tip of his tongue, Colt walked in, and her heart skipped when she saw Hank behind him.

“What?” She nearly bowled Nash over as she jumped to her feet. “What is it? Did you find her?”

“No. I’m sorry.” The sheriff looked truly remorseful as he took off his hat .

Lacy let her breath out in one furious burst, the room spinning as her legs shook.

“We were able to locate your mother and her boyfriend. They’ve been taken to the station for further questioning, but Embrie wasn’t with them.”

“They didn’t take her?”

No. No, no, no. Because if it wasn’t them… if it wasn’t someone they knew would keep her safe to try and get money for her return, that meant…

“What are the odds?” Lacy asked.

“Odds of?” Hank replied.

“She wasn’t taken by someone we know. So, what are the odds now? If we don’t find her today…” Her whispered question seemed to freeze the room around her. Everyone stopped moving, all their eyes trained on her. “If we don’t find her… what are her odds of survival?”

“We don’t have to think—” Nash tried to quiet the question, but she needed to know more than she needed her next breath.

“Tell me, Colt.” The gruff man looked back at her with pity in his eyes and she wanted to scream. “Fine. Hank? What are the odds we find her, alive and safe, after the first twenty-four hours!?”

“Don’t answer her.” Nash’s command from beside her lit her veins on fire. She didn’t want to be kept in the dark. She’d rather know what she was facing.

“Yes! Tell me! I have to know! I have to hear it for myself!” She was falling apart in front of everyone. Fracturing into a million pieces in front of the people that mattered most to Nash. But the fallout from that could wait. She had to know.

“Gage? Do you know?” His head shook back and forth, but the lines around his eyes gave him away.

“Sloane?” Surely someone who worked with children would have some idea of the statistic.

But she didn’t respond. “Hawk?” Nothing.

“ Gunner? If this was your daughter… if this were Sage, Lily would want to know.”

“Lacy—”

“No!” Nash wrapped his hands around her arms. Her eyes never moved off the center of his chest. “Lacy. Look at me. Look. At. Me.”

“I can’t.”

One hand lifted off her arm, his thumb tipping her chin up so her eyes were forced to meet his. “We are not doing this right now. We are not giving up hope after the first hiccup. She is going to be back in our arms. She will be okay.”

“But it isn’t my mom. We don’t know… And I thought it was the worst possible outcome for it to be her. But not knowing is so much worse. Not knowing… and not having anything to go on…”

“Statistically speaking, nearly eighty percent of children are found within the first few hours, Lacy,” Colt’s voice cut through the panic.

“It’s been more than that now.”

“There’s still a very good chance that we will find her sometime before tomorrow. Or even in the coming days. There are tips coming in to dispatch and we’re investigating every one,” Hank said.

“But she wasn’t taken by family. I read that her chances are less if?—”

“What do you mean you read?” Nash asked.

“I’m sorry. I had to know. I tried to look on my phone but I didn’t understand. It said the odds were so much better if she was taken by family. That’s what I was holding out hope for. But if my mom doesn’t have her… if she wasn’t with her… then who has my baby?”

“It’s true that the odds of recovery are slightly better if a relative of the child is involved in the abduction, but we don’t need to be getting into the specifics,” Hank said.

“Let’s focus on hope. We are going to find her.

Less than two percent of missing children’s cases last longer than a few days. ”

“But how many of those children are returned unharmed?”

“Stop! Please!” Nash begged, but it wasn’t as loud as the blood pounding in her head.

“No. I want to know—I need to know. Please, someone answer me. Please. I’m begging here.”

He nodded, but before he could speak, Sloane cleared her throat.

“I know it feels like something you can hold onto, but the number is not important. Deputy Ford could tell you that twelve percent of children remain unharmed after twenty-four hours or longer following their abduction and it just wouldn’t matter because each case is its own entity.

I know it might feel impossible, and it’s probably beyond frustrating to hear everyone tell you it over and over again, but it really is best to just think about her coming back.

Visualize that. Hold on to that hope. Right now, there is nothing to suggest a different outcome. ”

Lacy’s chest seized. She couldn’t breathe. Her hand reached out and latched on to Nash.

“We’re going to find her. We’re going to find her and we’re going to bring her home.”

“I’m sorry.” She turned into his chest, letting the pressure of his hug ground her. “I made a scene. I’m losing my mind and that’s not helpful. I’m not being helpful. What can I do? What else can I be doing?”

A kiss landed on the top of her head and everyone moved away, low voices now adding a steady hum to the room around them. “Nothing, baby. It’s horrible, the waiting. It’s suffocating—I feel it too. But you’ve given all the information you know. We just have to wait.”

Suffocating. That’s exactly how she felt. There was no use being in the office, thinking every time a phone rang, every time one of the guys stood up and moved around, that there would be news for her. “I can’t be here. I can’t… I just need….”

“Let’s go outside for a minute.”

“No.” She pushed away from Nash. “I need space. I n-need to be alone. Please. Just leave me alone.”