Page 37 of Valor (Long Hot Summer: Christian Romantic Suspense #2)

GIBSON

It doesn’t matter how long I stand here in the living room of Lani’s apartment, it doesn’t feel real. It doesn’t matter that I already called her parents. That I consoled a sobbing Ruth while trying my best to navigate a furious Tommy.

It can’t be real. She can’t be gone.

I’ve tried every way I can to get in contact with her brothers, but until they check in on the satellite phone, there’s no hope of reaching them where they’re currently at. Given they’re the best trackers around, I’d seriously hoped to have them on the first plane back to the States.

Honestly, the convenience of Lani going missing while her brothers are out of town doesn’t escape me. This was planned. It had to be.

But why?

By who?

There’s been no call for a ransom, so unless they’re biding their time to build up fear in Ruth and Tommy, I can’t see that being the reason. What am I missing?

I survey the apartment again, letting my gaze travel from the front door all the way through the living room. The blood on the carpet belonged to Lani, as did the droplets that led into the kitchen.

The dress she’d been wearing last night is nowhere to be found, which means she was wearing it when she left.

My heart twists, nausea burning my throat.

Would she be gone if I’d just come back like I’d wanted to last night?

How soon after I dropped her off was Lani in the fight for her life?

Tears sting my eyes. God, why? Why her?

Someone knocks on the door, so I head over and open it. Deputy Brown is on the other side, her expression serious. Her blonde hair is pulled out of her face, slicked back without a strand out of place. She slips through the crime scene tape and steps into the apartment.

“Anything?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “None of the cameras picked up on anyone leaving.”

“They couldn’t have just vanished.” Frustration pulls at my frayed nerves. “It’s not possible.”

“There are blind spots,” she says. “But someone had to have been really looking for them.”

“This was planned.” I study the damage. “To abduct her during the two weeks her brothers are out of town? It’s too coincidental.”

“So it has to be someone who knew their movements. Do we have a list?”

“Tommy and Ruth are working on that.” I swallow hard. “I’m headed over there in just a few to check in.”

“How are they doing?”

Everyone in town knows the Hunts. They’re a staple in this community, always coming together to help anyone in need. Just as they’d done when Tommy found a two-year-old Lani wandering around in the cold, hungry, crying, and wearing nothing but a diaper.

They’d brought her in and adopted her as one of their own.

“They’re broken,” I tell her truthfully. No need to sugarcoat their pain. “And feeling even more helpless with the brothers gone.”

She nods. “How are you doing?”

I turn toward her. “Why do I matter?”

Deputy Brown arches a brow. “Sheriff, we all know what she means to you.”

Her words are a dagger to my heart. “I need to find her, and that’s all I can focus on right now. Everything else is just noise—a distraction.”

“We’re going to find her.”

I nod, doing everything I can to hold it together in the midst of Lani’s space. Her perfume still lingers in the air. The coffee cup from yesterday morning is still in the sink. Her purse tossed on the floor. “Thanks. I’ll check in when I have something.”

With an understanding smile, she slips out of the apartment and shuts the door behind her.

I head into the kitchen. It was the only place the apartment wasn’t tossed. I open the fridge and see a Post-it Note with her writing on it stuck to the front of a bottle of creamer.

Get more, Lani. You’re not giving up coffee today so stop acting like it.

I smile, tears burning in my vision. That is so like her, to leave notes like that to herself. I bet she smiled when she saw it. Honestly, it’s probably been moved from bottle to bottle for weeks. “I’m going to find you,” I say aloud to her empty apartment. “And I can’t be trusted to do the right thing when I find the person who did this to you.”

* * *

“The list is small,” Tommy says as he hands me a list with five names on it. “The boys don’t like to advertise when they won’t be in town.”

“Understandable.” I scan the list again, going over each name for the third time since he handed it to me. “Three of these are your ranch hands.”

He nods. “Though I can’t imagine they had anything to do with it.”

Ruth hasn’t spoken the entire time I’ve been here. She’s in the kitchen now, staring out the bay window into the darkening sky. A storm is brewing, a nasty one at that. But it’s not going to stop me from searching tonight.

I’ll scour every road in the county if I have to.

“We won’t know if Lani told anyone,” I say. “But I plan to ask around the hospital more tonight. I talked to the day shift today, but the night shift should be starting here in an hour or so, and I plan to interview them, too.”

“Her clinic?” Tommy asks.

I nod. “I spoke to her assistant over there. Sherry hasn’t noticed anything strange, or anyone hanging around that shouldn’t be. But she’s going to let me know if that changes.”

Tommy nods. I can see the fear and grief in his expression, the way he’s barely holding together. “I can’t imagine what she’s going through. Is she scared? She used to get scared of the dark,” he says, then drops his head as tears spill from his eyes. “She was so scared, and she’d ask me to come in and hold her hand while she fell asleep.”

Emotion burns in my chest.

Ruth crosses over and takes a seat beside him. She leans against her husband, and he wraps an arm around her.

“I’m so sorry,” I tell them. “I can’t help but wonder if I’d have just gone back. Or if I’d taken her with me to the diner?—”

“It’s not your fault,” Tommy replies. “How could you have known?”

It’s not logical to blame myself, I know that, but logic doesn’t matter when my heart is broken. “I’m going to find her. If I have to tear this world apart to do so, I will bring her home.”

Ruth reaches across the table and covers my hand with hers. “We know you will.”

There’s a knock at the front door, so Tommy pulls away to answer it. Seconds later, my mom is rushing in with a casserole dish in her hands.

“I am so sorry, Ruth,” she says, tears in her eyes as she sets the dish down and rushes over to embrace Lani’s mom.

Ruth hugs her back and begins to cry, her shoulders shaking. “I can’t believe someone would do this to her.”

“Gibson will find her,” my mother says. “You just stay strong.”

“I’m trying. But—” She begins to cry again.

“I know, honey.” She pulls away and looks between Ruth and Tommy. “I’m here now, so tell me what I can do. Need me to clean? Cook? I brought dinner, but if you’re not in the mood for it, I can put it away for now.”

Ruth sniffles and smiles. “Thank you, Debbie.”

“Anything. You know that.” She turns to me. “Have you eaten?”

“I—” I start to lie, but guilt shuts me up. “No.”

“Not at all today?” Ruth asks, turning toward me.

“There hasn’t been time. And frankly, I haven’t been hungry.”

Ruth turns to my mother. “Looks like we’re eating now. Tommy, you haven’t eaten since breakfast. Get over here and get a plate.”

He hesitates.

“Lani wouldn’t want you starving yourself on her behalf. She would be downright angry with the both of you for missing a meal. Get over here and eat. It’ll take half an hour.”

What if she doesn’t have that long? is all I want to ask. But I don’t. Instead, I cross over and take the offered plate, let my mom pile food on it, then take a seat at the table. Unable to help myself, I turn to the left, and my heart aches at the sight of the empty chair where Lani ate tacos just a couple of days ago.

God, help me. Please. Guide me so I can bring her home.