Retribution Read Online Free PDF Page B

stopped just inside the door and scanned the area. Jillian hadn’t answered her phone. “Ping it again,” he told Dominic.
    Dominic held up his own device. “I’ve got it right here. It’s somewhere in this location.”
    Colton dialed the number. It rang four times and went to voice mail. He dialed it again.
    Hunter swept through the door brandishing a cell phone held with a piece of cloth.
    Jillian’s. Colton reached for it, then snatched his hand back. “That’s evidence.”
    His belly turned to ice. He knew without a doubt, Meg’s kidnapper now held his wife too. Sweat broke out across his forehead. Disbelief hit him and his legs threatened to crumble. “No. No, no, no, no, no.”
    Hunter looked sick. Even Dominic appeared stunned by this turn of events. Then Dominic grabbed his arm and ushered him to a corner. “We’re only minutes behind Jillian. Someone here saw something.”
    â€œStart asking questions,” Hunter said.
    With shaking fingers, Colton brought up the latest family picture on his phone and started going person to person, asking if each one had seen the two people he loved most in the world. He texted the picture to Hunter and Dominic and they did the same. Ten minutes later, Colton got a yes.
    â€œWhere?” he demanded.
    The young woman who’d nodded at his question flinched.
    He raked a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, it’s just that they’re missing and I’m desperate to find them.”
    Compassion graced her face. “I saw your wife just outside. She looked like she was waiting on someone. Another woman walked up behind her and they talked. I thought it a little strange, though.”
    â€œWhy? Why strange?”
    â€œYour wife never turned around to speak, she just stared straight ahead.”
    She’d been ordered not to turn. Colton knew that, but didn’t bother to explain it. “Thank you. Anything else?”
    â€œThey got in a gray van. I was sitting at the small table outside waiting for my date before I got cold and came inside, so I saw them get in. The other woman had on a baseball hat and sunglasses but had her hair down around her shoulders.”
    â€œWhat color hair?”
    â€œBlack with a perm or else it was naturally curly.”
    â€œHow tall was she in comparison to my wife?”
    â€œShe was shorter by several inches.”
    â€œWhat else?”
    The woman gave a slight shrug and frowned. “I’m sorry, that’s about all I can think of. Like I said, I wouldn’t have even noticed them if I hadn’t thought it weird that your wife never turned to acknowledge the woman speaking to her.”
    â€œThank you. Thank you very much. Could I have your name and number?”
    â€œSure.”
    He swiped the picture away and pressed the home screen to find the app he needed to take the information.
    The woman gasped. “Wait, that’s her.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYour wallpaper picture. That’s her in the picture.”
    Colton stared at the picture that had been taken the first Christmas he, Meg, and Jillian had been a family. Carmen had joined them. She’d smiled, but even he could see the sadness there, the anger that lurked beneath the surface. It had been the only holiday she’d spent with them. “Her?”
    The woman nodded. “Her.”

17
    Meg paced the confines of her cell. She had come to the realization that there was nothing she could do until her kidnapper came back. Her stomach rumbled. She’d had nothing since the apple and had a feeling she wasn’t going to get anything else. She had no way to track time, no windows to know if it was day or night.
    Her mind raced, her fear threatened to boil out of control. She whispered prayers, had long conversations with God while she paced. She made deals. If he got her out of here, she’d never disobey her parents again. If God—
    The door