“Yes! But that’s not the worst of it. The third baby, Rowan. The girl. You have to find the girl before they—”
Tires shrieked through the speaker. A deafening crunch of metal on metal tore through the audio, followed by the sickening sound of breaking glass and a heavy, brutal thud.
“Carl?!” I yelled.
There was only the hiss of static, the faint wail of a car horn stuck on a continuous loop, and the chilling realization that my perfect life was a meticulously constructed slaughterhouse.
I didn’t call the police. If the Whitmores had orchestrated a hit on a former detective, the local precinct was already compromised. I drove my SUV through the rain-slicked streets of downtown Nashville, parking two blocks from Carl’s dingy office above a pawn shop.
The lock on his door was already broken, the wood splintered around the frame. Someone had beaten me here.
