“You’re right. Hell, I feel like I’m grasping at straws. Nothing makes sense.”

With a frown, Thorpe leaned across the table, pausing when the waitress came by to pour more coffee. “Let’s come back to how they found her later. The other big question is, why are they after her? Did her father have anything to do with the armed forces? Did he have any money in defense contracting? Have any sway with senators on the Armed Services Committee? Rub elbows with generals?”

“I’d have to go back and double-check her file, but none of that rings a bell.” Sean sighed. “I don’t want it, but I need some fucking sleep.”

As much as Thorpe would rather keep searching for her, he needed some shut-eye, too. He would be no good to anyone until he got it, and neither would Sean.

He looked at his watch. Late afternoon. “There’s a good chance that wherever Callie is now, she’s lying low and resting. If she’s singing, she’ll likely be doing it at night.”

“I agree. Since that will be her first choice of jobs, rather than serving food on her feet all the time, let’s go with the idea that she’s not working right now. After a nap, you and I will meet up again. Six sound good?”

Thorpe didn’t want to pause, but they both needed to be sharp. “Yeah.”

In silence, they walked to a cheap hotel nearby and secured a couple of rooms. The place was decent but older, took cash, and didn’t ask many questions since they’d paid for a week in advance. It was hardly the Ritz, and he couldn’t have cared less.

Once inside, Thorpe made a few more phone calls, one to Xander, who hooked him up with Javier. Carefully, he asked questions about Daniel Howe without mentioning Callie herself. The elder Santiago brother had been in the defense contracting business for over a decade, but he’d never heard anything about Callie’s father dipping his toe in that water, financing such a venture, or hobnobbing with influential senators or military officials. Another dead fucking end.

Next door, he could hear Sean talking as well. Fuck, this place was musty and old. Normally, he’d never stay here, and it broke his heart to think of Callie curled up someplace even dumpier than this.

Why had she run without talking to him at all? Had she truly believed that he didn’t care enough to keep her safe?

With a tired sigh, he wedged himself into the small shower and tried to wash his funk away. No such luck. His mood was still crashing. He felt every single second that ticked by and started to picture the rest of his life without Callie. God, even the thought made him insane. No way he could do without her in his life. He’d move mountains, part oceans, rip his own damn heart out of his chest to have her back.

But even if he did, he still wouldn’t be the right man for her.

Stepping out of the shower, he wrapped a threadbare white towel around his waist and plodded over to his bed. Just as he sat in exhaustion to call himself every kind of dumbshit for letting her slip through his fingers, his phone rang. The number looked like Logan’s.

“Hi. You got something for me?” he barked.

“You sound fucking miserable.”

“I am, Logan. I’m in a rattrap with a splitting headache. I need sleep, and all I can think about is Callie out there, believing that she’s totally alone. What if the military brass looking for her found her before we did? I don’t even want to think it, but I don’t know why they want her, where they would have taken her, or—”

“Take a breath, man,” Logan cut in. “Callie made it out of the airport in one piece. I just got off the phone with Elijah.”

“You’re sure?” Hope sprang inside him for a sweet moment.

“Yeah,” Logan assured. “He found someone in airport security who was willing to let him view the footage of the terminal just after her flight landed. She came off the plane in different clothing, complete with a fake belly and somehow smaller boobs. No idea how she managed that. She’d ditched the hat, donned a blond wig, put on a crap-ton of makeup and sunglasses. Elijah said it took him a few passes through the footage to spot her, but he did.”

“Callie managed to prepare for this trip, at least a little. Her resourcefulness shouldn’t surprise me.” But it sure relieved the fuck out of him. She’d gotten away from her potentially dangerous enemy—at least for now.

“I shouldn’t be surprised, either. The Callie I knew only excelled at wanting her way and throwing a hissy until she got it. But I only saw the same bratty act she peddled to everyone else. You know the real woman.”

Thorpe closed his eyes. He did, but it had taken a long while to learn her. After she’d gotten a bit comfortable with him and Dominion, she’d slowly let her guard down. She’d let him in a bit more when she’d laughed at his jokes, passed time with him on the sofa, or chatted with him when she couldn’t sleep. Then again when she’d had the flu, disagreed with him about her sometimes disrespectful behavior, or teased him about his “stodgy” music. And still more when he’d bound her for demos, held her, kissed her . . . barely stopped himself from claiming her when she wasn’t his. He had seen her heart and that’s when he’d fallen in love.

“I’m glad she got away,” he said thickly.

“Clean,” Logan confirmed. “After stopping off at the first bathroom inside the terminal, she walked out no longer carrying her backpack. She’d gotten a red duffel from somewhere. According to Elijah, she dragged it behind her and made her way toward the meet point in baggage claim. She intended to follow through with my plan. I can only guess that she took precautions on the plane just to be safe, then realized the man in uniform just outside the terminal was looking for her. She changed course and walked right past my buddy, then out the door. In the last frame of footage she’s viewable, she’s walking down the long line of taxis. No idea which one she eventually got in.”

So they couldn’t track the vehicle.

Every word felt like a death knell to Thorpe’s hopes of finding her again. “Goddamn it, Logan. She’s got to be terrified out of her mind. And I can’t even fucking find her to help her. She’s alone and worried, maybe even running out of money. Does she even know where she’s going to sleep tonight? She might even be making plans to get out of Vegas now. And I’m too clueless to help her. What kind of protector am I?”

“Cut yourself some slack. You’ve done everything you can to find her. I’m going to look for this military asswipe. Elijah is checking the airport security footage for a picture of him, so we can piece together who he is and why he wants Callie. If we get something, I’ll send it your way. Elijah is local if you need more assistance in your search.” Logan tried to sound both calm and reassuring. “Callie is smart and she knows how to stay alive. We’ll find her and bring her home.”

As Thorpe hung up, he hoped that was true. The alternative was too horrific to contemplate.

* * *

SEAN dragged his ass out of bed. He could have slept more. His body screamed for it, but Callie’s face haunted him. The feel of her in his arms, the sounds of her saucy laughter in his ear, the haunting beauty of her expressive eyes locked with his as he filled her body . . . Shit, how had he gone on a simple baby-sitting mission and ended up in love?

For over a decade, he’d been married to his job. He’d lost a fiancée once upon a time to his badge. He’d lost touch with all his old pals, his cousins, and anyone who had once occupied his “normal” life.

But in barely more than a handful of months, Callie had rewired his priorities. She mattered. She filled the half of him he hadn’t even known was empty. She’d resurrected him just by being her sweet, bratty, kind, unpredictable self. Damn it, he had to find her—before someone with intentions between nebulous and nefarious did.

All through his blistering-hot shower, he groaned under the spray and tried to think of places he might look for his lovely. After he and Thorpe had caught a nap yesterday afternoon, they’d resumed their search that evening, pounding the pavement and opening the door to nearly every casino, dive bar, and twenty-four-hour diner they could find within walking distance. At four a.m., they’d finally agreed to pause again. He’d told Thorpe he would work on a new plan, but the truth was, he was running out of ideas.

Where the hell could she be? Worry knotted his guts and pinged in his head like a pinball bouncing between bumpers, setting off one alarm bell after another.

Thirty minutes later, Thorpe scooted into a booth across from him in the hotel’s diner. Though dressed immaculately, the man didn’t look any better rested than he felt.

“Anything new from Logan or Elijah?” Sean asked hopefully.

Thorpe answered with a grim shake of his head. “Nothing new since yesterday. Maybe Callie is on the Strip.”

He’d been over this mentally a thousand times in the last twenty-four hours. “Highly unlikely. Anyone who’d employ her down there would insist on having proper identification. Since Callie left her fake driver’s license back in Dallas knowing we’d track that name, she’d have no use for it now. It’s possible she has another alias, but she wouldn’t keep it for long and she wouldn’t have asked Logan for help if she felt secure in the identity. Besides, the video surveillance on the Strip will be far sharper and more sophisticated than anything in the older section of town. The security presence in joints up there is palpable. Callie wouldn’t go there voluntarily. She’s too smart.”

“That makes sense.” Thorpe sighed tiredly, then absently thanked the waitress who took their orders and filled their coffee cups. “Seems like we’ve combed every inch of these streets. I don’t know where else to go.”