El Dorado County sheriff deputies swarmed the South Fork American River, a short distance outside of Coloma. This was their jurisdiction, their show. But that didn’t stop Jace from rocketing ninety miles an hour across two county lines with his lights flashing and his siren blaring.
He wasn’t a religious man, but he prayed the whole way there.
This was his fault. He’d talked Charlie into the restraining order and promised he’d protect her. A fat lot of good he’d been. Ainsley had picked her off right outside his goddamn gate in broad daylight. If he ever got his hands on the prick he was going to squeeze the life out of him.
The problem was they hadn’t found Ainsley, only Charlie’s CR-V. HondaLink had given them the coordinates and the vehicle was right where they said it would be, along with Charlie’s purse.
Jace paced where deputies had cordoned off the car. “You’re burning daylight,” he shouted at the lieutenant in charge of the search.
“We’re doing the best we can, Sheriff.”
“Not a lot of places they could’ve gone from here on foot.” Jace scanned the area. Just the river, a dirt road, and a hell of a lot of forest. “When are the dogs getting here?”
“Any minute.” The lieutenant brushed by him, barking orders at a couple of deputies.
“The son-of-a-bitch has her.” Jace squeezed the sides of his head with his palms. “Every second here is critical and we’ve gotta wait for the goddamn dogs?”
Jace felt a hand on his arm.
“Not helpful.” It was Cash. “Let them do their jobs.”
“Where’d you come from?” Last he talked to Cash he was headed back to Dry Creek.
“I came straight here when I heard they located her car. The boys are with Aubrey and Sawyer.”
“I’m losing it,” Jace said. “She’s out here somewhere, she’s gotta be, and he’s got her. The son-of-a-bitch has her.”
An El Dorado County sheriff’s van drove up and two K-9 trailing dogs jumped out of the side door with their handlers. Jace had used dogs before in lost hiker cases but Ainsley wasn’t lost, he was hiding. And Jace considered him dangerous. Best case scenario: He was holding Charlie captive in a hidey-hole somewhere in the woods. Which meant there was no room for screwups.
“My guys and I want to go with one of the teams,” Jace told the lieutenant. Charlie’s abduction took place in Jace’s county, his department had a right.
Cash didn’t say anything but Jace could feel his disapproval through his flak jacket. You’re too close to the victim. Too close? He was in love with Charlie. If he didn’t go in, if he wasn’t a part of the search, he’d go out of his mind.
“All right,” the lieutenant agreed and eyed Jace’s team’s tactical gear. Everyone was suited up and ready to go.
The handlers were letting the dogs sniff the interior of Charlie’s car and the contents of her purse. They had no scent article from Ainsley except maybe a hit from the CR-V. The going theory was that Ainsley had carjacked Charlie as she was shutting the gate and had forced her to drive here. The river was one of the most popular recreational spots in Northern California, so it didn’t surprise Jace that Ainsley would know about it. What did surprise him is that Ainsley had found a spot this remote. He either scoped out the isolated segment along the eighty-seven-mile-long river or he knew the area inside and out.
Jace and his team went with the dog named Jenga, a black Malinois. Jenga sniffed the air and the ground and trotted off in the opposite direction of the water’s edge. A rush of relief swamped Jace. The river in this part of the fork was rough and treacherous. Even a good swimmer wouldn’t stand a chance.
But the terrain was steep and thick with trees and underbrush. A person who knew what he was doing could go without detection for days here. Jace had no idea whether Ainsley had any kind of wilderness training. From his pictures on the internet he looked like a slick city lawyer. There’d been nothing in his bio about past military service or outdoor hobbies, just a lot of crap about Ainsley’s degrees and pedigree.
What worried Jace the most was Ainsley spooking from the swarm of cops who had descended and doing something desperate. The problem was they didn’t have a lot options in a scenario like this. Either way, Charlie was in imminent danger.
Jenga took a couple of winding turns and seemed to pick up a trail. But Jace wasn’t an expert on search dogs. He just knew they were the best tools in these kinds of situations.
Soon, it would be dark. The dogs could search in the night but without light it would make it more difficult for him and his team. Everything seemed to be working against them.
They followed Jenga as he swept through the forest. The other dog, Curry, wasn’t far behind. Fifteen, twenty minutes went by and Jace was starting to fear that Ainsley wasn’t here, that he’d taken Charlie somewhere else entirely.
Then Jenga stopped suddenly and began to circle a mound of leaves. Jace’s men fanned out, rifles raised.
The handler kicked away some of the leaves, revealing a red suede loafer. He signaled to Jace to come forward.
He crouched down to take a closer look. It was Charlie’s, he was sure of it. When she wasn’t wearing her ankle boots, she wore the red shoes. They had a gold chain across the top and a small wooden heel.
Jace’s heart sank and it took every ounce of his resolve to stay calm. She was out here somewhere. Hurt, helpless…Jace wouldn’t let himself think anything else.
He nodded to the deputy. Someone photographed the shoe and bagged it. Jenga had already shot ahead, on to something new. And they were off again, following the dog as he took them on a circuitous route across the forest floor.
Jace didn’t like it. It seemed far afield from where they’d found Charlie’s shoe.
“I’m going to circle around,” he told one of his deputies and doubled back to the way they’d come.
The air smelled like wet compost, pine, and fear. His fear. There was a noise and his head shot up. A squirrel scurried up a branch and Jace felt himself relax.
Up ahead, something caught his attention and he used a couple of big trees for cover as he hiked toward it. At first, he thought his eyes had been playing tricks on him. But as he got closer, a piece of torn fabric waved from a branch in the breeze. He radioed the team and without touching the cloth, made a more thorough examination. It was blue and looked to Jace like nylon. Like maybe it had come from a jacket. Charlie had a camel-colored wool coat.
He scanned the area, theorizing about what direction the person was headed when he or she got snagged on the tree limb. North or south? East or west? Jace dropped his eyes to the ground, looking for tracks, but the leaves made it hard to see possible footprints.
Then there it was. Three feet away he spied what looked like a fresh imprint of a tennis shoe. Maybe a men’s size ten or eleven.
He lifted his gaze. About half a football-field-length’s away there was an outcropping of large rocks and Jace’s heart hammered in his chest.
“What do you got?” Jenga and his handler were back.
Jace pointed to the navy fabric and watched Jenga circle the tree and make a zigzaggy trail toward the rock outcrop. He gestured to his deputies and in formation they moved out, encircling the area.
With his rifle raised, Jace yelled, “This is the Mill County Sheriff’s Department. We know you’re in there, Ainsley. Real slowly raise your arms and we’ll talk this out.” Presuming Ainsley was actually hiding in the rocks, there were about a million ways this could go wrong.
El Dorado County had a hostage negotiator on hand, but Jace wanted to confirm they had Ainsley first. Jenga continued to wind around the rocks, his ears pricked forward. His handler called him back and nodded to Jace. It seemed they’d found their quarry.
“Ainsley,” Jace called again.
No response. Jace was getting a bad feeling.
“Someone call for the negotiator,” he said. “The rest of you cover me. I’m going in.”
It wasn’t protocol. In fact, it was felony stupid. If Cash wasn’t back at the command post he would’ve done everything short of shooting Jace to try to stop him. But leaving Charlie to fend for herself until they got a negotiator in here wasn’t an option. Not where Jace was concerned.
“Sheriff, stand down,” one of the El Dorado deputies said.
He ignored her and crept around the periphery of the outcrop, hoping he could sneak up on Ainsley and take him into custody without incident. His heart thudded against his chest. He’d pulled off some crazy shit in his time but never when the stakes were this high.
Be okay, Charlie. Please be okay.
He caught a flash of blond through the crevasses in the rocks. Ainsley. Charlie had to be in there with him.
Don’t think about her now, just keep your eye on the target.
Jace slunk behind one of the boulders and listened hard, trying to pinpoint Ainsley’s location. All he heard was the pounding of his own pulse. There was another flash of color, this time blue.
Ainsley was on the move.
Jace snuck around the outside of the rock cluster, looking for a way to get in, undetected. It was like a cave inside, flanked by walls of granite. He was just about to slip between two rocks when he came face-to-face with Ainsley.
Jace had ditched his rifle with the team, favoring the lightness of his Glock. He raised the semiautomatic and leveled it at Ainsley’s chest. “Show your hands! Take them out of your pockets. Slowly!”
Ainsley jerked out a pistol.
“Drop it! Drop it now!” Jace shouted as he took cover behind one of the large rock formations and fingered the trigger on his own weapon.
He could hear movement behind him. The troops were converging.
“I told you to drop it, Ainsley.”
Ainsley put the barrel of the gun inside his mouth.
Ah, Jesus. Jace came out from behind the rock. “Don’t do it, Corbin. Drop the gun and we can talk. Tell me where Charlotte is.”
Ainsley’s hand shook and his trigger finger twitched. From where Jace was standing it looked like Ainsley held a Sig Sauer. It had enough firepower to get the job done if Ainsley wanted to off himself. Jace’s stomach churned. A suicidal suspect held all kinds of implications, none of them good for Charlie.
Jace came closer, taking one hand off the grip of his Glock to hold it out to Ainsley. “Don’t do this, man. Give me the gun and tell me where Charlotte is.” He was trying to keep his head while his throat closed up on him. “Where is she?”
It happened so fast Jace didn’t see it coming until the muzzle flashed. A pain seared through him and he felt himself falling backwards. In the foggy distance someone yelled, “Man down.”
Then everything went dark.