Page 21 of Vanishing Point (Bent County Protectors #1)

Thomas hung up with Rosalie. She was going to try some not strictly legal methods of determining Eric Carter’s whereabouts and report back to him. He was glad to have more eyes on this, but mostly felt a sick tangle of guilt over worrying Rosalie. Over all the ways he’d failed this.

Failed.

Where the hell was she? Who was this friend? The only thing that kept him from going absolutely ballistic was that Mrs. Harolds had said the friend, the driver of the car, was a woman.

Not that women couldn’t hurt people, but it wasn’t Vi’s ex-husband. If Rosalie came back with absolute proof Eric Carter was in Virginia and had no connection to this, maybe… Maybe it was all a misunderstanding.

He wanted to believe that more than he wanted to take his next breath.

He tried to stay out of the way of everyone processing the house. He let Laurel and Copeland make the phone calls. He focused on his notebook, writing down a list of everything he could think of that would need to be done. Then he’d go through each piece, one by one, until she was found.

She was going to be found.

Thomas wasn’t sure how many hours passed of seeming nothingness , but eventually Copeland and Laurel came to where he’d situated himself at his kitchen table. Notepad and phone in front of him.

He kept checking it to make sure he hadn’t missed a message from her.

“A few updates,” Laurel said. And it was her cop-to-victim voice, so he knew it was only bad news.

“We got the identity of the person who rented the car,” Copeland said. “Dianne Kay. Postal Inspector Dianne Kay.”

The postal inspector was the friend? He supposed the description Mrs. Harolds gave matched, but it didn’t make any sense.

Why had she come back after questioning Vi?

Why wouldn’t she have gone to the front door?

Why would she park on the opposite street?

Why would Vi leave out a window to get to her?

He wanted to feel relief, but dread was the winning emotion.

“At least, she was a postal inspector,” Laurel said. “I called her office, but I was forwarded to a different inspector who told me Dianne Kay put in her two weeks last week. Then didn’t show up to work yesterday.”

“But…she was working by questioning Vi this morning.”

“Apparently not officially,” Laurel said. “I talked to her supervisor, trying to get some information on the case she was working on and what it might have to do with leaving with Vi. He wasn’t very forthcoming. We’ll need warrants and to wade through all kinds of federal red tape.”

“We don’t have that kind of time.”

“We’ve got an APB out on the car. They put out an emergency ping on the postal inspector’s phone, but it’s been turned off.

I put Vicky on starting to get whatever paperwork we need to get a hold of her case information, and we’ll be getting a search warrant to get the inspector’s phone location history.

Hopefully we find Vi before that matters, but it’s good to have it rolling. ”

“All the deputies have a description of both Vi and Kay, and anyone not on a call is going to be on the lookout for either woman or the car. Day and night shift. It’s early to call it a missing person, early to assume this is nefarious, but…”

“But we all damn well know it’s nefarious.” Thomas pushed out of his seat. He went to stand by the front window. The sun was setting. Most of the police officers had dissipated. Some would be running tests on what they’d found. Some would be going home.

And somewhere out there, Vi was… God, he needed her to be okay.

So he turned back to the table, his list. And as he went over it, he realized there was something they were leaving out. “What about Eric Carter?”

Laurel and Copeland exchanged a look.

“What about him?” Copeland asked.

“Where is he?” Thomas demanded.

“We’re still figuring it out,” Laurel said calmly.

She held up her hand when he all but exploded.

“We called his precinct and it’s his scheduled day off.

We asked them to verify his residence, but the person we talked to refused.

So, we’re working on getting another agency out to his residence.

One we can trust. I’ve got Zach pulling some FBI strings. ”

Thomas let out a long, slow breath. FBI strings were good. And it was better this way, because Laurel was right. After everything they’d heard from Vi, they couldn’t trust the precinct Eric worked for.

“If he’s not there, I want his credit card records pulled immediately. And his cell phone pinged.”

“We’ve got everything set up to do that immediately once we get word.”

It was something and it was nothing , because it didn’t find Vi. And the wheels of justice moved far too slow when people were in danger. He walked away from the table again, needing to move. Just…move. He narrowly missed stepping on a mangled little stuffed animal.

His heart just cracked in two. He picked it up off the floor. “Mags can’t sleep without it,” he muttered. Franny had taken Magnolia back to the ranch, and they had plenty of stuff out there to get Mags through the night. But…

Laurel held out a hand to take the stuffed animal. “I can drive it out to—”

But Thomas didn’t relinquish the lamb. “No, I’ll do it.”

“You’re going to exhaust yourself, Thomas.”

He knew Laurel was worried about him. “I have to do it. I have to see… I just have to.”

Laurel swallowed. He could see the emotions in her eyes, and he hated it. They’d worked too many cases together where the people in trouble were people they loved.

They’d never failed before. He wouldn’t fail now. “I’ll head out now. Keep me updated.”

“Thomas…” But Laurel didn’t say anything, and Thomas didn’t wait around to hear what she had to say.

There was nothing to say. He’d overlooked something. He hadn’t been observant or diligent enough, and who suffered? Not him. Vi. Again.

He could try to believe she’d left of her own accord.

He could try to fool himself into thinking he’d deliver the lamb stuffed animal, and Vi would just be at the ranch.

He wished with all his might that she was just tired of him, his overprotectiveness, and…

anything. Anything that could make this about leaving him and not about being hurt or in danger.

He could suffer through anything else as long as she was okay. He told that to himself, to God, to whatever deities wanted to listen, as he took the long, lonely drive out to the Young Ranch.

But when he pulled up, he hadn’t convinced himself of anything. He knew something was deeply wrong, Vi was in danger, and he didn’t know how to fix it.

So what good was he?

With lead limbs, he got out of the car and trudged up to the front door, lamb in hand. The door flew open before he was even up the porch stairs.

“Is there any news?” Franny demanded.

“I’m sorry, no,” Thomas managed, though his voice sounded mangled even to his own ears. “I just wanted Mags to have this tonight.” He held out the lamb.

“Tata!” She squealed happily from where she’d been playing with blocks on a rug in the living room.

She pulled up on the couch onto her feet and then toddled over to him.

He stepped inside so she didn’t try to come out.

She reached up for him, for her lamb, and he handed her the stuffed animal, picked her up in one fell swoop.

It was worse than being shot.

Worse than anything he’d ever experienced. Her excitement at seeing him, the way she leaned into him, held on, happily babbled to him. When he’d failed her mother, failed her .

Still, he closed his eyes, held on and squeezed tight. “I’m sorry, sweets,” he whispered. “But I won’t stop until she’s home.”

V I’S THROAT BURNED from where Eric had choked her. It made every breath in and out painful.

He was good at that. Always had been. And he’d used it—those hurts and pains no one else could see, that were minor enough to suffer through, as a reminder.

No one crossed Eric Carter.

But she had crossed him. Maybe she hadn’t been able to put him behind bars, but her trying had been enough that it had forced him to agree to the divorce or risk getting out who he was.

She had lived almost two years without him. She’d had a child, and since he hadn’t brought Magnolia up, she was almost certain Eric didn’t know about her.

That, and Thomas, and her cousins and her friends—new and old, all worked inside her to remind her that she would not fall back into the trap of thinking Eric controlled the world.

She wouldn’t go down cowering. She wouldn’t go down at all. She would swing and swing and swing, until Thomas found her.

And she shoved aside a niggling fear he wouldn’t get here soon enough. She sat in her chair, breathed as easily as she could with the burn in her throat.

On the terrible off chance she didn’t escape this, at least everyone would know she’d gone down fighting. This time, she wasn’t running away.

She looked from Eric to Dianne and decided that, if nothing else, she was damn well going to get some answers.

“I still don’t understand how you two connect.”

“We met at a law enforcement conference in Fort Worth,” Dianne said with a little smirk. “Four years ago.”

Four years. Vi could only stare at Dianne for a moment, and really the smirk made it clear what she meant by four years.

She wanted to laugh, and then thought…what the hell? She let it fly, earning arrested glares from Eric and Dianne.

“So, you were cheating on me?” She laughed again. All his talk about love and devotion and… Wow. Just wow .

“Maybe if you weren’t such a frail little sad sack I wouldn’t have had to,” Eric shot back.

“Burton introduced us. Eric and I bonded over law enforcement, because I wasn’t too stupid to finish school,” Dianne said.

But the barb didn’t land for a number of reasons, mainly because suddenly Eric’s attention was on Dianne. And it was not good.

“Shut the hell up,” Eric said, giving her a hard shove.

She stumbled back a little but caught herself on the wall.

Eric followed, hulking above her while she pressed herself against the wall.

“What the hell is wrong with you? Are you stupid ? You don’t give the hostage information , you useless waste of space. ”

“I’m sorry,” Dianne whispered. Not so smug and happy with herself now.

But he stood there for ticking minutes, menace and violence shimmering in the air around them. Dianne looked at the ground, looked like she was trying to melt into the wall.

Finally, Eric relented. He turned away from her, grabbed a gun that had been propped up in the corner.

“I’m going to go see what I can hunt up for dinner.” He dramatically waved around his giant gun. He aimed at Dianne for a moment, cocked his head.

Vi held her breath, and if she wasn’t mistaken, Dianne did too.

“You better shut your mouth, Dianne. I don’t want to have to hurt you again, but you’ve made a lot of big mistakes the past few days.”

“I’m sorry, Eric.”

He grunted, lowered the gun slowly. Then shrugged. “I should be able to get some deer or elk. You better be ready to butcher and cook when I get back.”

“I am. I will. I’ve been practicing.”

“You see, Vi,” Eric said, turning to her. “A man provides for the woman he loves, and she makes his dinner. He provides. She supports. Why could you never learn that?”

Vi thought of all the dinners she’d made. Reheated. The lunches she’d packed. The breakfasts she’d gotten up early to make from scratch, so he didn’t get mad. So he didn’t hurt her.

Only now that she was out of it, with the help of Mags and therapy and Thomas and her cousins did she fully understand…

It would have never been enough. She could have been perfect in every way, and he would have found fault. Because she was not the problem.

He was.

Once Eric was gone, Vi studied Dianne. Could she get through to her now that Eric was openly threatening her?

Based on Dianne’s frantic scrubbing of the kitchen counters, Vi didn’t think so. But maybe Vi could show her the truth.

“He gave you that black eye.”

Dianne ignored her, but her only chance of actual escape, at least before the police managed to track her down, was to get through to Dianne.

“Do you think you can do everything right and he’ll stop?

Because he won’t. This will be you.” Vi pointed to herself with both hands, since her wrists were zip-tied together.

Dianne looked down at her haughtily. “I don’t believe that. I know how to learn a lesson. See? I made a mistake and he didn’t hit me, did he? He gave me a warning. Because he knows I can get better.”

“He shoved you and held a gun pointed at you.”

Dianne didn’t say anything. Just went back to furious scrubbing.

“There’s no lesson to learn. No perfection to claim. He will beat the will to live out of you, and then you’ll be wishing he’d just kill you and get it over with.”

Dianne whipped a furious gaze at Vi. “You’re the one who’s going to wind up dead.”

“Maybe, but you’ll only be next.”

“He won’t kill me. He loves me. And it took a lot for him to trust me after what you’d done to him.”

“You mean, when I was busy scrubbing his counters terrified he’d come home and beat me again, and you two were apparently having an affair?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

But Vi absolutely knew exactly what she was talking about. Now she just had to think of what she could say that might get through to Dianne. Was there anything? Was there anything anyone could have said to her to get it through her head that she didn’t deserve what Eric was doing to her?

“He’ll never come back, you know. That man you first met. Who charmed you. Who you thought was building you up, making you forget whatever failure you were mired in.” She could see it clearly now, but in the moment she’d only seen someone giving her attention.

Not someone who made sure she knew how little she deserved it.

Not someone who knew just what wounds to press on.

She’d spent a good amount of years thinking maybe she deserved the abuse if she could be so blind, but to see him do the same thing to someone else, to make a victim out of someone else to the point this woman was willing to hurt other people…

No, she wasn’t stupid. No, it wasn’t her fault. And if she got out of this, she certainly wasn’t going to be worried about anyone thinking that anymore.