Page 137 of The Bitterroot Inn (Jamison Valley 5)
“We’ll find him.” I slid her chair as close to mine as it could go, the wheels touching, and slid my arm behind her neck.
She nodded but didn’t say a word. The shaking in her hands was getting worse, so with my free hand, I held them both in her lap.
“Okay,” Jess said, coming back into the conference room and taking the seat across from us. “The AMBER Alert is going out shortly. We’re making calls to every known transportation hub in Montana. We’ve got patrols stationed on all of the roads going into Wyoming and Idaho. Half of my deputies are going to start combing the old county roads. We’ll get him.”
“What can we do?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Hate to say this, but just sit tight.”
Sit tight. The last thing I wanted to do was fucking sit tight.
“Maze, Gigi is coming down. Want her to bring anything?”
She shook her head and dropped her glassy gaze to the table.
“Maze, look at me,” Jess murmured. Her eyes left her lap and locked on Jess. “We’ll get him.”
A tear slid down her cheek and the pain in my chest squeezed tight.
Fuck. I couldn’t see her like this. I couldn’t just sit here and do nothing but watch her suffer. Would she hate me for this? She should. I’d brought Nell into her life and now her son was gone.
The panic I’d felt earlier was starting to morph into blinding rage.
Nell—my own stepmother—had stolen Coby. She’d taken him from right underneath our noses.
What the fuck was wrong with her? What was she doing to him right now? If she hurt one hair on that boy’s head, I’d strangle her myself. The idea that she could be hurting him made my stomach roll.
Don’t picture the worst. Don’t picture the worst.
Gruesome images flooded my mind despite my will to keep them out. I’d spent too many nights in a Chicago emergency room not to know what the unthinkable looked like. What it looked like when an adult tried to break a child’s bones. Or what happened when a human body was thrown from a moving vehicle.
My stomach rolled again as the images played on a loop. The blood drained from my face as the bile rose, but I swallowed it down.
I had to stop thinking the worst. I had to stop thinking the worst and be the strong one, because Maisy needed me.
Stop. Just. Fucking. Stop. He’ll be okay.
Please. Please, let him be okay.
A lone cry from Maisy’s mouth interrupted my silent pleas. She slapped a hand over her mouth and squeezed her eyes tight, causing a few more tears to fall.
“Take a breath, baby. Just breathe.” My hand slid down her back and rubbed gently. “Just breathe.”
The hand on her mouth dropped. “He’s my son. He’s mine. My baby. I’m his mom and he needs me. I’m a good mom. A really good mom. And he needs me.”
“You are a good mom. The best.” I swallowed hard. “We’ll get him back.”
My throat was burning as it threatened to close tight. Maisy was breaking down and there wasn’t a fucking thing I could do to stop it. So I just sat tight, watching as the love of my life, the strongest woman I’d ever known, completely fell apart. Her shoulders collapsed as she cried into her hands, folding in on herself in that black swivel chair.
“Baby. Baby, please, breathe. Just breathe.”
It only made her cry harder.
Not knowing what else to do, I lifted her out of her chair, set her carefully on my lap and held her tight. She buried her face in my neck and kept on crying. Her entire body shook, every muscle, and no number of calming words or gentle whispers could make it stop.
My eyes shot to Jess, whose own face was creased with worry.
“Go. Find him,” I mouthed.
