Page 39 of Ransom for His Secret Son

Brody didn’t answer. Because she wasn’t wrong. And that was the damn problem. He had three suspects, and there could be countless others. Hell, anyone who’d crossed paths with Tarrant could be behind this, but Brody couldn’t let the despair and frustration get to him.

“Remi and I will be back if we have more questions,” Brody snapped out, and yeah, there was a threat to it. Not a veiled one either.

Brody didn’t say another word as he and Remi walked out of Eloise’s house and got back in the cruiser. His jaw ached from how hard he was clenching it, his thoughts a tangled mess of frustration and fury.

As soon as he dropped into the driver’s seat, it all came boiling over.

With a groan, he slammed his fist against the steering wheel. The force of it sent a dull shock of pain up his arm, but he welcomed it. It was better than the ache, better than the gnawing terror clawing at him for his missing son.

“Damn it!” he bit out, his breath gusting as he tried to hold it all together.

A moment later, he felt a light touch on his hand.

Remi’s.

He looked over, his pulse still hammering as she turned his palm over in hers, inspecting the underside of his knuckles. “You’re going to have a bruise,” she said gently.

Brody swallowed, his throat tight. “Good.”

Remi’s fingers curled lightly around his, and then, before he could react, she leaned in and brushed a kiss across the fingers he’d just slammed against the wheel. The warmth of it barely registered before she went rigid.

Her eyes widened slightly, and she muttered, “I’m sorry.”

She pulled back fast, but the damage was already done.

Brody felt the heat, sharp and immediate, cutting through the fear and frustration like a live wire. His gut tightened, his breath went uneven for half a second, and damn it, he shoved it aside just as fast.

Now wasn’t the time.

It couldn’t be.

He reached for the ignition. “Let’s go.” He didn’t look at her. Didn’t dare.

He drove out of the neighborhood and back through the security gate, the hum of the engine the only sound between them for a long beat. Brody kept his hands tight on the wheel, his mind still reeling. From the text. From the damn photo of his son. From the fact that he still had no solid answers.

He needed something. Anything.

He flicked a glance at Remi, who was staring out the window, her fingers drumming lightly on her knee. “You believe Eloise?” he asked.

Remi let out a slow breath. “I don’t know.” She shook her head, shifting in her seat. “What I do know is that she’s desperate to find Tarrant. You saw her, Brody. She wouldn’t have been holding Langley at gunpoint if she didn’t want answers just as badly as we do.”

Brody considered that for a moment. “Or she could have been putting on a show for us.”

Remi lifted an eyebrow. “You think she staged it?”

“She’s smart enough to,” Brody muttered. “And she sure as hell didn’t seem too shaken up about it. If she’s the one who orchestrated all this, Langley could have been her inside man.”

“Yeah.” She sighed. “It could add up. Langley had access to the embryos. Maybe he took them for himself, but I doubt it. He doesn’t strike me as the mastermind type. Eloise, though? She’s got the resources to pull off something like this.”

Brody had to agree. “Or they could’ve been working together from the start.”

The silence came again, heavier this time. Because if they were right, if both Eloise and Langley had a hand in this, then finding his son just got a whole lot more complicated.

Brody was just about to merge onto the highway, leaving the city behind, when his phone rang. He glanced at the screen. It was Jolene.

He took the call and put it on Speaker. “Talk to me.”

“We found the car,” Jolene said right away. “The one we think belongs to the guy you and Remi chased in the graveyard.”