“I-I don’t know,” she responded, obviously flustered by the question. “I figured she must’ve decided to work at home for a few hours this afternoon. She doesn’t have any appointments on her schedule until four fifteen.”

Because she’d kept the afternoon mostly clear so they could meet with Shorty and his sister.

“Is something wrong?” Now Penny sounded alarmed.

“No, nothing’s wrong,” he replied. But when he called home and couldn’t get Evelyn there, either, his concern ticked up another notch.

“Any luck?” Shorty’s sister sauntered close while drying glasses.

Amarok hung up, slapped some money on the bar and dug his keys from his pocket. Knowing that was his signal, Makita jumped to his feet. “No. She’s not at the prison and she’s not at home.”

“Must be in the car on the way over,” Molly suggested.

He hoped to God that was it. She could’ve fallen asleep when she went home or something. With the pregnancy, she was always tired. Even so, taking a nap in the middle of the day would be unlike her. She was too driven not to make the most of every minute. “Maybe.”

“Don’t freak out,” she warned. “You put that Jasper fella away, remember?”

“I remember.” But when Jasper wasn’t standing trial for one of the many murders for which he had yet to be convicted, he was at Hanover House. As a matter of fact, Amarok was fairly certain he was there now. Maybe he’d engineered a way to get to Evelyn. Or someone else had, someone just as dangerous. “I’ll give you a call when I figure out what’s going on,” he said, and walked out, Makita at his heel, without waiting for a response.

The five-minute drive home seemed like it took forever. Makita paced on the seat, even though he was too big to be walking around the cab while they were moving. Amarok felt just as uneasy, so he didn’t stop him. But he breathed a sigh of relief when he found Evelyn’s SUV parked in their driveway.

As he pulled in behind it, he decided she must’ve gotten busy and forgotten their appointment. But why wouldn’t she answer the damn phone? Why the hell would she give him such a scare?

He planned to ask. Jamming the transmission into Park, he hopped out, and Makita immediately followed. That was when he found something that made his blood run cold. One of the shoes she’d had on when she left for work this morning lay on the concrete only a few feet from the driver’s side of her vehicle. And her purse, its contents sprayed in an arc, wasn’t far away.

2

Hilltop, AK—Tuesday, 3:50 p.m. AKDT

Time was everything. Each and every second was valuable, and yet second after second zipped away from him. Amarok had never in his life felt such urgency, such desperation. Nothing could be more shattering than realizing Evelyn was gone, because she wasn’t just “gone.” Her cat, Sigmund, was home, but she’d been taken, and, considering the kind of person who’d most likely taken her, he knew what that probably entailed. He had to get her back before she was harmed or, worse, killed. But how? This had come out of nowhere! There wasn’t anything to indicate who’d abducted her or why, not with Jasper behind bars.