“Sissy,” she’d teased when she caught his attention. “You should come to boot camps with me. Tyler’d kick your ass.”

Jonas had been at school so Tate had made the decision to end his workout a different way, right in the hall. She didn’t complain. She liked him sweaty.

She liked him any way she could get him.

That fear clawed deeper and his calm slipped, his eyes got blurry, his mouth got dry.

“Focus, Jackson, f**kin’ focus,” he muttered to himself, his vision cleared and he moved through the dark, silent rooms and then came back to the weight room and stood still.

No forced entry. No signs of struggle. She wasn’t out on a quick, secret errand; she’d left the candles burning.

She’d opened the door to someone she knew. She wouldn’t disarm the alarm, unlock the door and open it to someone she didn’t know. She’d learned that lesson. She’d be cautious. Unless she knew who was on the other side.

Trusted them.

There were a lot of people Laurie trusted and they all centered around one place.

As he heard the sirens approaching, he pulled his cell phone out of his back pocket, flipped it open and called Krys.

“Hey Tate,” she answered.

“Who’s there?” he asked without a greeting.

“What?”

“Who’s at the bar?” he asked.

“Why?”

“Who’s at the f**kin’ bar, Krys?” he demanded.

“Um…” she hesitated, “Izzy, Bub, Jonelle, Jim-Billy, Nadine, Steg, Stoney –”

He’d asked the wrong f**king question.

He interrupted her. “Who’s not there?”

Another brief hesitation then, “You, Laurie… um,” she paused, “Tate, I wanna get you what you need but I don’t know what –”

“One of us, who’s not there, someone Lauren would trust.”

“Dad!” Jonas shouted from upstairs, his voice strong and scared at the same time. “The cops are here!”

Krystal heard him. “The cops are there?”

“Lauren hit the panic button. Jonas and I were out pickin’ up her Christmas present. We’re back. She’s gone.”

Silence and then Tate felt her terror coming through the line.

“No, Tate, no,” she whispered and he heard the tremor in her voice.

“What’s goin’ on?” Tate heard Bubba ask, his voice firm but distant, coming through Krys’s phone.

“Who’s not there, Krys?” Tate repeated.

“Tate –” she started.

“Who’s not f**kin’ there!” he roared.

He heard her phone jostling as he heard footsteps coming down the back steps.

“Tate?” Bubba was on the phone.

“Lauren’s been nabbed, it’s someone she knew. Look around, Bub, who’s not there?”

“Fuck, f**k, f**kin’ shit!” Bubba shouted. “Hold on, I’m doin’ a scan.”

“Jackson,” Frank said as he approached Tate.

“Give me a minute,” Tate said to Frank.

“Tate, buddy, no forced entry,” Frank said quietly.

Tate speared Frank with a look.

“Give me a f**king minute, Frank,” Tate ground out.

“Dalton,” Bubba said in his ear.

Dalton. Dalton was on when he’d fired Tonia but she was local, he had the rest of the night after the bar closed to pick her up and play with her.

Dalton was one of them. Good-looking. Easy smile. Not tall, not built but still lean and strong definitely bigger than the petite Sunny and what she was used to with Shambles. Lived local but not all his life. Moved there a few years ago. But outside of the fact he was a good bartender and dependable employee, Tate didn’t know one f**king thing about him.

Totally fit the f**king profile.

“Go to the office, check the back schedules, timecards. Find out if he was on the night Neet was murdered and if he was on the night that girl got done in Chantelle.”

“You remember dates?” Bubba asked and Tate knew he was on the move.

“Check the internet. Get Krys on it,” Tate ordered.

“Don’t have broadband to the bar, bud,” Bubba said quietly, he was in the hall.

“Someone in that bar has got to have a phone with internet access and if they don’t, we got a f**kin’ phone, make calls. Find the dates, check the schedules, I want info in ten minutes, Bubba, faster, you can do it. And pull his application, fax it to me.”

“Got it,” Bubba replied and Tate heard the disconnect so he flipped his phone closed.

“Dalton?” Frank asked.

“Jonas!” Tate bellowed. “Come down here!”

“Tate, Dalton?” Frank repeated.

“Call the Feds,” Tate demanded instead of answering as his son ran down the stairs.

“Dad?” Jonas asked.

“Computer, Bub. Go fire it up. Now,” Tate ordered and Jonas took off toward his office.

A couple more officers were coming down the stairs as Frank kept talking.

“Tate, buddy, now think about this. This might not be what you think. It might not be May-December. It’s Christmas, Laurie could be doing anything. I get you’re tweaked, Neeta, Tonia. But Lauren isn’t his type and you cast suspicion on someone in something like this –”

His vision got blurry again and his hands clenched into fists as his body leaned into Frank.

“You hesitate one more f**kin’ time when I tell you to do something, I swear to f**kin’ Christ, I’ll rip your goddamned heart out. Call the f**king Feds!”

Frank stared at him for half a second, then lifted his hand to the radio at his shoulder, pressed the button and muttered, “Dispatch, we need a 10-18 call to Special Agent Tambo. Suspected May-December activity at Jackson residence. Out.”

Tate heard Jacinda in Dispatch reply with a shocked, “Jackson residence? Out,” but he wasn’t listening. He was walking to his office.

* * * * *

Lauren

“You shouldn’t have fought me, Laurie,” Dalton whispered. “Why’d you fight me?”

I tasted my cloth gag and blood.

This was because I’d woken up in Dalton’s truck, sorted out my head, realized I wasn’t bound and then opened the door, rolling out to the earth even though the truck was speeding through the hills. This did not feel good and I suspected I did myself damage but I still got up and did my best to make a run for it, straight through the spiky pine and leafless aspen of the hills surrounding where Sunny had been attacked.