Touch Me Not (Manwhore, #1)(82)

She searched the interior of the trunk as best she could but found nothing. It was completely empty. Think, Lily, think, she told herself. Her bra! It was white. She rolled so she could unsnap it, and then worked until she got it off. She wrapped one strap around her wrist so the wind couldn’t rip it out of her hands. Then she thrust it out the taillight’s now empty hole and started waving.

She prayed to God someone would see it and call the police.

***

Nikoli called Luther and explained what was going on. He asked Luther to call 911. The campus police were not the ones to handle this. His thoughts kept running to the one place he didn’t want them to. The serial killer. He’d been getting closer and closer to the Boston Campus for months now.

Kade. He’d call his brother.

“What?” Kade barked into the phone when he answered.

“It’s Lily.” Nikoli’s voice cracked, but he didn’t care. “She’s gone, Kade. Someone took her.”

“Tell me.”

“I came outside to find her, and all I can find is her phone…”

“She might have accidentally dropped it,” Kade soothed.

“No, you don’t understand,” Nikoli said. “There’s blood leading from her phone to the street. Someone forcefully took her, Kade.”

“How long ago?”

“Maybe five minutes.”

“Stay where you are, I’m coming. Text me the address.”

Nikoli did as he was told, but he knew enough about these kinds of situations to know every second counted. He looked up when he heard running steps. Luther, Mike, Adam, and several other guys were barreling toward him.

“Stop!” he shouted. “We can’t track the area up in case there’s a clue.”

“What happened?” Adam growled, getting right up in his face. “You piece of shit…”

“Look, now is not the time for this,” Nikoli cut him off. “We can bitch slap each other later. Right now we need to find Lily.”

Adam nodded, but his eyes promised Nikoli a world of pain.

“How many people do we have sober enough to drive?” he asked.

“Not enough,” Mike said grimly, “but we can get more here.”

“We need to all spread out and start looking. I know it’s probably not going to do anything, but at least if we’re out there looking and she’s trying to get away, we might see something, anything that can help us find her.”

“I’m on it.” Mike took off toward the house, Adam hot on his heels. Less than a minute went by before people started to stream out of the fraternity, some climbing into cars, others on foot, to look for Lily.

Kade arrived about the same time the police did. Campus security showed up bursting with indignation the police had been called first. Nikoli repeated his story to countless people before he finally got fed up and stalked over to his brother.

“They have my statement, and they can question me all they want after we find Lily. I’m going to go look for her.”

“Nik, just slow down. You don’t even know where she is…”

They both hushed when news of a bra waving out of the broken taillight of an old sedan was reported on the highway. “With me,” Kade said, and they climbed into his FBI issued SUV. Nikoli gave him directions, and before long they were on the highway, breaking every speed limit they came across, sirens wailing and lights flashing.

It took them twenty minutes, but they caught up with the unmarked car following the sedan. Nikoli spotted Mike and Adam closing in as well. He’d forgotten Mike’s dad had installed a police scanner in his truck. They would have heard the call too.

The sedan sped up, weaving through traffic, having seen the police lights. Nikoli cursed when the car started to cut in and out of traffic. It was dangerous, too dangerous. He was going to crash. Kade came to the same realization and barked an order for ambulances to start heading their way.

Mike’s truck was even with the SUV, and Nikoli rolled down his window. “They’re gonna crash!”

“We know!” Mike yelled back.

Kade sped up, twisting the SUV in between cars in a way the poor thing had never been meant to. He sideswiped two vehicles to keep the sedan in sight. The old, gold colored Saturn made a sharp turn to the left, and the momentum was too much. It couldn’t stop the force that plowed it into the car in front of it, and then went rolling, landing on the other side of the median where a tractor trailer hit it head on.

They all stared in horror as the car came to a stop against the guardrail, mangled into a mess of metal and plastic.

Kade came to his senses first and drove over the median to get to the other side. Nikoli had the door open and was running before he’d even come to a stop. This reminded him of the day Lily had run to him in Miami, but this was so much worse. His wreck had been minor. This was…she could be dead. God, please don’t let her die.

He skidded to a halt, looking for the trunk. He saw a tiny piece of white material and said a prayer of thanks. His hands roamed until he found the seam of the trunk and pulled. Nothing. It wouldn’t budge. Adam, Mike, and Kade joined him, and together they forced the lid up.

“Nononononono,” Nikoli whispered, looking at Lily’s lifeless body lying as twisted and mangled as the car. He reached for her, and Mike and Adam grabbed him.