“I have no clue. Our conversation lasted all of two minutes. I’m not kidding. He said he’d fill me in on the details once I got down to the hospital.” He wasn’t any less choked up, falling to pieces still. “I need you there. You have to meet me down there. I can’t do this without you.”

I slid my key into the lock. “I’m on the way.” No matter what had happened, they were still my family, and Abbi would need me as much as he did right now. She’d been too young to feel the devastation of her mom leaving before, but she’d feel the impact of this hit, and she would need me to help her through it, even if she didn’t know that yet.

Scott rushed down the hospital corridor at the sight of me. His clothes were wrinkled and rumpled, and he wore two different tennis shoes—one navy, the other black. His eyes were watery and bloodshot as he leaned in, giving me a tentative kiss on my cheek.

“I can’t believe I let this happen.” He struggled to control his emotions.

“You didn’t let this happen.” I opened my arms, and he fell into them, but his body was rigid, stiff with unspent worry and grief. I rubbed his back in circles, hoping it’d help him calm down. “Where is she?” I asked.

He pulled away. “She’s still not back from her CAT scan.” His eyes filled with tears. “How did I not see this?”

He’d be asking himself that question for a long time. We didn’t have time for his guilt now. “How badly is she hurt?” I asked.

“Pretty banged up. It looks like she put up a fight. Just like they taught her.” His voice caught. Dean had insisted Abbi take a self-defense class when she was thirteen. She’d loved it.

“And Kate?”

His entire body stiffened. “She’s fine. In a holding cell at the moment. They didn’t touch her.”

“I don’t understand any of this. How did they know where they were? Who was involved?”

Just then the double doors opened, and Dean burst through them. Scott and I rushed to him, trying not to talk on top of each other with our questions. He held his hand up and motioned to the chairs lining the hallway. “Why don’t you take a seat so we can talk?”

Scott shook his head, so I stayed standing next to him. “Just tell me what happened,” he said. “Everything.”

“Sure. Absolutely.” Dean nodded a few times in rapid succession. “We left the wiretap on your phone lines after we removed the surveillance equipment, just in case someone from Love International contacted Kate. We never expected her to be the one to contact them,” he said. “We were in complete shock the first time she reached out.”