Page 41 of Valor (Long Hot Summer: Christian Romantic Suspense #2)

GIBSON

Doctor Alan Pierce finishes talking to a young boy with a fresh cast on his arm. Something about skating without proper protection. The boy’s mother lingers at his side, a smile on her face. She’s relieved that her son is safe.

That he’s going to be okay.

I wish I could bring the Hunts that same relief.

The man steps away from the bed and heads over toward the nurses’ station, where Riley and I have been waiting for upwards of ten minutes. I’ve almost charged in there half a dozen times at least, ready to flash my badge and demand he take time away. The only thing that stopped me is knowing if it were Lani in that room treating that kid, she’d have kicked my butt up and down these halls for the interruption.

“Sheriff, Mr. Hunt,” he greets. “Any word on Lani?”

I shake my head. “I was hoping you had something new for us.”

“I wish I did, but—” He trails off, expression shifting as he contemplates something. “Actually, I did have a strange phone call earlier.”

“What about?” I demand, a flicker of hope within my chest. Did the abductor attempt to make contact? Did Lani?

“Well, with Lani out, it’s just me and the on-call surgeon, Geoff Phillips. I’d made a couple calls to some of the doctors who’d canceled their interviews in hopes one of them might change their mind. While, admittedly, most of them didn’t bother returning my calls, one did, and said he was surprised to hear from us.”

“Why?” Riley asks.

“He said that a woman reached out to him from this office saying that the position had been filled, and he was no longer needed.”

It doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with Lani, but it is strange. And right now, strange is all we’ve got.

“I take it the position wasn’t filled?” Riley confirms.

“No. We’ve been looking for another doctor for months now. Ever since we knew when Janet would be taking maternity leave.”

Crossing my arms, I consider what this could mean. “I thought Lani said the doctors were sending their cancellations in through email.”

“That’s the thing, he claims he never sent that email. I don’t see how it could be linked to what happened to Lani, but?—”

“If someone was using the cancellations to keep her here at the hospital, it could have everything to do with it,” I tell him. “What’s his name?”

“Eric Street,” he replies. “He’s coming in first thing tomorrow morning for a quick interview, 8:00 a.m. You’re more than welcome to come by and speak to him.”

“Thank you, we will,” I say. “Any chance we can get a look at the emails sent to the hospital?”

“Sure. Right this way.” He leads us down the main hall of the small hospital, then enters a code and opens the door to an office. Two desks are inside, one with his medical degree hanging over it, and the other with Lani’s.

Lani.

It’s the second time I’ve been in here since she’s been missing, and still my heart aches as my gaze lands on the photographs behind her desk. An image of the two of us at my senior prom. I know she thought I only took her because she was homeschooled and I didn’t want her to miss out, but I’d been seriously hoping she’d see me as more than a friend that night. As someone worth waiting for when she left for college.

There’s another right beside it, this one of her and her brothers, them in military uniforms, her in scrubs. I watch Riley’s gaze linger on it and a muscle in his jaw flex. He’s barely keeping it together. They all are.

“You can use my computer,” he says, logging in and opening the hospital’s email folder. “Just lock it when you’re done.”

“Thanks,” Riley says.

“No problem. I’m praying for her,” he says, stopping right before leaving the room. “She’s my friend, and I want her home safely.”

“We all do,” I tell him.

He offers me a tight smile before leaving the room.

Riley gestures to the computer. “All yours, Sheriff. I’m no Tucker, and I’m just as likely to accidentally delete something.”

With a slight smile at his candid admission, I take a seat in the chair. “Can you give Tucker a call and see if he can come down? He might be able to find something we can’t.”

“Definitely.” Riley withdraws his cell, so I start combing through emails, looking for anything that might be a red flag.

* * *

By the time Tucker has arrived, I’ve pretty much given up hope that there’s anything here. Other than the fact that the emails are all nearly carbon copies of each other, they appear to come directly from the email addresses the candidates submitted on their applications.

Which means either I’m missing something, or the doctor is lying. Since I can’t see what he would get out of the latter, I’m guessing it’s the former.

“Help has arrived,” Tucker announces as he replaces me in front of the computer. Reaching into the messenger bag he’s carrying with him, he withdraws a black box with a cable and a small computer.

He attaches the black box to the computer, then another cable to Dr. Pierce’s desktop.

“Let’s see what’s here.”

Riley’s phone dings. “Dylan got nothing from the neighbors. No one recalls seeing anyone strange hanging around the building or hearing anything the night Lani went missing.”

Another dead end.

We’re running out of time. I can feel it. It’s been nearly forty-eight hours. Two full days of Lani missing.

“Interesting.” Tucker leans in closer to the screen, so both Riley and I flank him.

“What’s interesting?” I ask.

“Sheriff, are you sure you want to be this close to me when I’m doing undesirable things that may or may not stretch and/or break multiple laws?”

“If it helps to find Lani, I don’t care if you break all the laws. Just find something.”

Tucker looks from me to his brother. “We’re a bad influence on him. Remember when he got mad that I left something in his mailbox that wasn’t actual posted mail? I thought he was going to turn me into the postmaster general himself.”

“Time, Tucker. We’re running out of it,” I remind him.

“Just trying to keep my head level,” he replies smoothly, then taps something on the keyboard of his monitor. “So, the emails that supposedly came from the potential hires were sent from this hospital.”

“Which means?—”

“Which means whoever sent them broke into at least a dozen different email accounts and sent the hospital those cancellations. Likely after they’d called and told the candidates they were no longer needed.” He pulls up half a dozen windows onto the screen, each of them showing a different send address with a candid cancellation.

“How did no one pick up on the fact that this is virtually the same message?” Riley demands as he leans in to read them.

“I don’t know, but it’s a copy-and-paste job for sure. A few changes, just enough to keep whoever was reading them off the trail, but I’d bet my lovely acre of Hunt Ranch that it was the same person.” He leans back, brow arched. “It’s strange though.”

“What’s strange?”

“Whoever took Lani has been really careful to cover their tracks. So much so that we’ve found virtually nothing in two days. This is sloppy. So, makes me think that they either didn’t have a lot of time, or they didn’t think we’d ever draw a link.”

“Can you tell which computer they were sent from?” I ask.

“Not this one,” Tucker says. “But—” Keys click as he types something in. “I can find out which computer sent the emails, then if we can get our hands on a list of all the addresses for the devices on the network, then— Bingo.” He writes a series of numbers down onto a piece of paper, then offers it to me. “This is where they originated from.”

I stare down at the numbers. “My gut tells me this has everything to do with Lani.”

“Then let’s start with her computer,” Tucker says as he stands and crosses over to his sister’s desk. “All right Lani. Let’s see if you listened to me about password protection—and she did.” He beams up at us. “I’m in.”

“How did you get in so fast?” Riley asks.

“Well, when you’re the one who taught everyone in your family how to set an uncrackable password, it’s easy enough.”

“You can get into all of our stuff?”

“Sure can, Riles14.” He grins, and Riley glares at him.

“I’ll be changing my password as soon as we find her.”

Tucker ignores him as he taps a few things on her keyboard, then holds out his hand for the piece of paper. I offer it to him and watch as he compares it to something on the screen. “Your gut is right. The emails were sent from Lani’s computer. The internal IP address is the same.”

The pit in my stomach grows. “If you helped her create an unbreakable password, then how did someone get into it?”

Tucker shakes his head. “I don’t know, but we’re going to find out.”