Footsteps sounded outside the room and Gavin grabbed the rope and pulled it behind his back, hoping it would fool the man into believing he was still tied up.

“There’s one thing you need to know, Gavin.”

Uh-oh. “What’s that?”

“I’ve already signed the papers. All he needs is Sarah’s signature.”

Caden paced the hospital floor while waiting for news about Sarah. “Why did she run?”

Asher raked a hand over his head. “I don’t know. Someone got to her. Can you access her phone?”

Caden pursed his lips and willed his heart to stop threatening to rupture in his chest. If anything happened to Sarah . . . “I’d need a warrant for her—no I don’t. Hold on, hold on. I know her Apple ID and password.”

Asher frowned. “How do you know that?”

“I watched her type it in her phone one time. As long as she hasn’t changed it, we should be good.”

“You watched her one time. And you remember it?”

“I remember a lot of things. I need a computer.” The door opened and Heather walked in with her laptop. “Perfect timing.”

She raised a brow. “How’s that?”

He told her and she handed him the computer. “Fine, but I have something I need to discuss with you.”

“Feel free to talk while I see if I can get into Sarah’s text messages.” He logged Heather off and said a quick prayer that Sarah hadn’t changed her login. Then started typing.

“So, here’s the deal,” Heather said. “I researched all of those little red dots on the map Dustin provided. Each place has a VA hospital and each one had at least one patient who has committed suicide in the last six months. While that may not seem like a lot overall, considering the number of vet suicides in the country, the thing that stood out with these is they all came from the same area of Afghanistan and from the same base as Sarah, Dustin, Helen, and Brianne.”

“All of them?” Caden looked up with a frown.

“Every last one of them.”

“Most of them died, but several actually survived their attempts. Not in great shape, but . . .” She shrugged.

“But they survived.”

“They did.”

“How?”

“Someone interrupted them or got them to a hospital ASAP to have their stomach pumped. One survived a car wreck but is a paraplegic, one is in a coma on a ventilator, a couple have gone back to their lives without any lasting visible trauma once the doctors were able to repair the damage.”

“No, Max said they wouldn’t be able to fight that until the drug was completely out of their system. So, how did they do that?”

“I have a theory about that, but I need to do some more investigating before I’ll know if I’m right or not.”