Whispers of You (Lost & Found #1)(83)

A dark chuckle cut across the line. One I’d never heard slip from Jude’s lips in all our years of friendship. “She is.”

Everything around me slowed as dread took root in my gut. But still, some part of me hoped I was wrong. “Can I talk to her?”

“She’s a little indisposed at the moment.”

“I’m okay,” Wren shouted.

Relief swept through me, quickly mixing with sickening fear.

“Shut up,” Jude snapped.

I motioned to my dad in the back seat, mouthing words I hoped he could read. Text Law. Jude has Wren. Track the call to my phone.

Dad’s eyes widened, but he began furiously typing on his phone.

I shoved down the panic threatening to swallow me whole. “Where are you, Jude?”

“I’m going to tell you because it’s time for us to have a proper reunion. But I’m gonna need a few things from you first.”

“Name them.” I would’ve given him anything, ripped the still-beating heart from my chest if it meant Wren would be okay.

“Lose the cops. I see one sign of a badge, and I blow Wren’s pretty little head off and save us all the trouble of a get-together.”

Fury swept through me, melting the ice in my veins and turning it to lava. “Done. I’m in Nash’s SUV, though.” He didn’t need to know that Nash was with me, not until it was too late for him.

Jude cursed. “Fine. Park at the start of the access road behind Wren’s cabin. I’ll give you more instructions once you get there. You’ve got ten minutes.”

“Don’t hurt her.” The plea was guttural, pulled from the depths of my soul.

He chuckled. “She’s already a little hurt. Only time will tell how much worse it gets.”

Bile swirled in my gut, and images of Wren flashed in my mind—a slideshow of the worst things I could imagine interspersed with the best memories I had of her. It was a special kind of torture having those two paired together.

My breathing grew ragged as I struggled to keep it under control. “Don’t.”

“Then you don’t want to test my patience. Where are you?”

I searched our surroundings. “Just hitting town now.”

Nash blew through the picturesque street, his lights flashing but without the sirens.

“Good. Call me when you get to the access road. Every minute you’re late, Wren will pay the price.”

Jude hung up before I could get another word out. I slammed my fist into the dashboard.

“Tell me you’re not actually doing what this asshole is asking,” Nash growled.

My pulse was the only thing I could manage to feel beyond the terror that had me in a vise-grip. “There isn’t another option.”

“Not going in there alone would be a start,” Nash shot back.

My head jerked in his direction. “And what would you do? If it was the woman you loved more than life, what would you do?”

Nash’s throat worked as he swallowed, but he didn’t say anything.

“We’re going to play this smart,” Dad said, his voice remarkably calm.

“Jude said any hint of cops and he’d kill her.” The words dug the terror in deeper. Because I believed him. The man I’d thought was a friend. A brother. And for half our lives, he’d harbored the kind of hatred that ended in death. Something that had festered, turning into an obsession.

All of this pain… Because I’d brought a monster into our lives.

Dad squeezed my shoulder. “You’re going to take my phone and put it on speaker. That way, we can hear everything that’s going on. All you have to do is give us enough information to make out the location. Then we’ll come for you.”

My throat tightened. My dad had always been good in a crisis. Maybe it was the decades of SAR experience. Perhaps it was just an innate calmness that settled in his bones. But all I could think in the moment was that I couldn’t imagine facing this without him—without my family at my back.

“It’s a good plan.”

Dad tried to force a smile. “See, your old man’s not so useless, after all.”

“No one has ever thought you were useless a day in your life,” I said.

He patted my shoulder. “Doesn’t hurt to hear that now and again. Lawson and Roan are meeting us at the access road.”

“Jude could see—”

“Just them. No one else. But you need backup when it’s time. And Roan knows these woods like no one else.”

Dad had a point. Roan could’ve made his way through the forests surrounding the lake blindfolded if he needed to.

I swallowed hard, hoping this was the right move. “Okay.”

Nash turned onto the road that would’ve taken us to the cabin. Home. To where Wren should’ve been. But instead of veering left toward the lake, he went right and up the hillside toward the access road.

Gravel spit as he pulled to a stop next to Lawson’s SUV and Roan’s truck. The vehicle wasn’t even off before I was out and checking my weapon.

Lawson strode toward me, tension lining his jaw. “You can’t go into this alone—”

I held up a hand to halt his words. “Don’t. I’m going in. Dad has a plan that should work, though.”