“We’ve got her!”
Brantley stared at the phone sitting on his desk. Z’s words were still echoing in the room and all eyes were on Brantley.
“As in you found her?” he clarified. “Or you picked her up?”
Z exhaled, his voice calmer when he spoke again. “As in we know roughly where she is.”
Roughly? Brantley didn’t like the sound of that. He wanted that woman found.
Reese perched on the edge of the desk, glanced at Brantley, then down to the phone. “And that would be where, Z?”
“After we received two tips tying her to the same location on South Padre Island, we sent a guy down to scope out the area. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to get eyes on her, and he held off on askin’ around because we didn’t want to spook her if she was there. So I set up a grid search. We were able to scan cameras in the area and we can confirm Juliet Prince was just south of there in Port Isabel, Texas, within the last seventy-two hours.”
Brantley huffed, dropping back in his chair. “Seventy-two hours, Z? Seriously? There’s just as much of a chance she’s back here in Coyote Ridge by this point.”
“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger,” he grumbled. “My suggestion is you hop on that private charter RT set up to get your happy asses on down there.”
He sat up again. “What time does it leave?”
“He was bein’ generous and got you two hours.”
Brantley reached to disconnect the call but stopped when Z said, “Take me off speaker, Brantley.”
He glanced at Reese, then picked up the phone, tapped the screen to return the audio to the phone. “Yeah, I’m here.”
“I know you’re gonna do whatever the hell you want to do, but I’d like to suggest you keep this information to yourself.”
“Meanin’?”
“Meanin’ don’t share it with your cousin. You and I both know it’s in everyone’s best interest, especially Travis’s, if he stays out of this.”
“You’re right,” he growled softly. “I will do whatever the hell I wanna do. Got a flight to catch, Z. We’ll keep you in the loop.”
Brantley tucked his phone in his pocket and glared at Reese, a silent warning for him to let it go. As much as Brantley wanted to keep this to himself, as much as he agreed with Z that it was in everyone’s best interest, he couldn’t do that. He had already made a promise to his cousin, and he had no intention of breaking it.
“Does this mean we’re takin’ a trip?” Baz inquired.
“We are.” He looked at each team member. “Any volunteers?”
Charlie was the first to speak up. “If you absolutely need me, I’m there. But if you think you’ll have enough without me, I’d prefer to sit this one out.”
Brantley knew Charlie was dealing with some issues with her mother, so he understood her need to remain here.
“Same,” JJ noted.
Brantley looked at Baz. “You game?”
“I go where you tell me to, boss.”
When he looked at Trey, his brother said, “Same.”
“The four of us then,” he decided, turning his attention to JJ. “Tell me what we’re lookin’ at.”
Instantly, a map appeared on the television screen.
“Port Isabel is twenty-three miles northeast of Brownsville, close to the border. You’re talkin’ a total area of roughly fourteen square miles, half of which is water. Plus, you’ve got access to South Padre Island via the Queen Isabella Causeway. From the looks of it, there’s nowhere to hide but a few options for hightailin’ it outta there.”
Exactly what Brantley was afraid of.
But he had to think positive on this. They’d gotten further than they ever had. No sense in dooming them to fail at this point.
“We’ll do what we can,” he told the team. “We’ll need vehicles and possibly a place to stay while we’re there. Check with RT, see if they’ve got somethin’ that doesn’t stand out in or around the area. We need to go in as silently as possible.”
“You think she’s there?”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
*
Reese didn’t bother asking Brantley where he was going when the man up and left the barn. He didn’t have to.
If they truly were close to finding Juliet Prince—and he prayed to fuck they were—then Brantley was heading out to tell Travis.
“You think he’ll let Travis come along for the ride?” Baz asked, coming to stand beside him.
Still staring at the door Brantley had just exited, Reese shrugged. “I don’t think he wants to make that decision.” Changing the subject, he met Baz’s gaze. “You sure you’re cool to go? How’re things goin’ with Molly?”
He saw the instant Baz’s expression fell, that mask falling in place.
Reese had been doing his best to stay out of Baz’s business for the past few weeks, but he couldn’t help but worry. His one-night stand was now his future baby mama, and Baz had been spending a tremendous amount of time dealing with the woman. And while Reese understood personal issues sometimes took precedence, this was one that seemed to be bogging Baz down.
“I asked about her next appointment,” Baz answered, his voice lacking any luster whatsoever. “Told her I’d like to go with her if I’m in town.”
“What did she say?”
“She didn’t answer me.”
“As in she ignored you?”
“More like she avoided the question. Changed the subject.”
Ah, hell. That was fucked up.
Reese didn’t say as much, but he found this woman’s responses suspicious. She’d bombarded Baz with the news that she was pregnant only a couple of days after they’d slept together, yet she was unwilling to provide absolute proof. Admittedly, Reese didn’t know anything about pregnancies, but he thought it took a little longer than two days for a woman to know for certain.
Not that he was questioning it. If Molly Ryan said she was pregnant, he had no reason to believe otherwise. What he found odd was the fact that she was withholding the big things from the man she claimed was the father. When Baz asked to see the pregnancy test, she refused. When he asked to go to the doctor when she got the test to confirm—something she said she was doing—she refused him. Now, when she was going into her ninth week and could get an ultrasound, she wasn’t willing to let Baz be part of it? Something was off.
And fine, maybe the woman was private. Maybe she wasn’t comfortable letting him be part of it in that regard. But she had no qualms texting him three dozen times a day in an attempt to see him. The woman had messaged and called him so many times, Brantley’d finally had to say something about it. She had become a disruption to their work, and Brantley asked Baz to deal with it.
For the record, it hadn’t worked. The woman was relentless.
Reese didn’t bother asking Baz how things were going between him and JJ. He was there. He could see that it was … well, the word he’d use would be weird. Those two seemed to have become best buds in recent weeks. They were working side by side, still living together, going to and from work together. It was as though they’d never had a romantic entanglement at all.