Page 93 of One Last Stand

“She’s not a freakin’ superhero! She’s a human being who—”Okay, breathe. He’d let himself off his leash a little there and now reined it back in. “She’s the woman I love.”

“And I get that. Better than you think. But you have to know that shedoesknow how to handle herself. She’s tough?—”

“Tough enough to betortured?” Again, words he’d never thought he’d say. He had, however, cut his voice low.

York’s eyes bore the truth.

“Oh my—” Shep held up his hands, then fisted them. It did no one any good for him to strangle the man. “Where is she? Has your tracker found her?”

York held up his phone and clicked on a link. A GPS screen opened, and he zoomed out. His jaw tightened.

“What?”

“It’s looks like they’re heading east. Which means they’re in a chopper.”

“What’s east?” Shep reached for the phone. York yielded it, and he turned the view to satellite mode. Stilled.

“Mountains,” York said. “All mountains.”

Shep shoved the phone back into York’s hands. Then he turned and walked down the stairs and across the courtyard, into the darkness.

Stood for a moment in the cold, just to get his head on right.

Then he pulled out his phone.

The line picked up on the second ring, and he hoped they weren’t out on a call.

“Shep. Everything okay?”

Just hearing Moose’s voice felt like a handshake, firm and solid.

“No. London’s been kidnapped.”

Silence. And he didn’t know where Moose might be, but he dearly hoped he’d heard the question in Shep’s statement.

“What do you need?”

“A chopper. My team. She’s in the mountains, and I need to get her.”

“Okay. Sit tight. I’ll be in touch.”

He hung up. He looked up at the dark sky, the stars. The cold needled through him as the wind began to blow.

But he didn’t fear the cold.

No, he relished it to keep him sharp, focused.

And still on mission.

* * *

The last thing, the very last thing, Moose wanted to do was to fly halfway across the world and leave Tillie and Hazel alone.

Then again, the second to last thing he wanted to do was abandon Shep. And London. Poor Shep had sounded stripped and not a little wrecked, and Moose had never let a teammate hang out to dry, so . . .

“You have to go,” Tillie said from where she sat at his island, drinking coffee. She wore a pair of yoga pants and a long sweatshirt, her dark hair pulled back, having just returned from dropping Hazel off at school.

Because they were all apparently trying to pretend that someone hadn’t just tried to burn them to death.