He looked left and right fast to make sure no one would come gunning for him. Tandi lay slumped against the door, her eyes wide, vacant, sightlessly dead. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. Oliver… still unconscious.
A scream boomeranged around the tinny cavern. A baby’s cry. The kid. Joshua was alive.
But Amelia?
“Amelia,” Hugh barked out, his voice more of a breathless croak, since the wind had been knocked out of him.
Hugh pushed away from the dash, careful to test his arms and legs. “Amelia, answer me, damn it. Are you and the kid okay?”
Panic replaced the pain, quickly, fiercely, and so intensely, he was rattled all over again by how fast the woman wrecked his professional distance.
He staggered toward the back, the baby’s cries increasing to all-out screams. Hugh grappled along the side for balance. His eyes locked on the slim long legs stretched out from behind the boxes where he’d sent her to curl up around Joshua.
His gut knotted.
He rounded the boxes. Amelia lay on her back, eyes closed, her arms still locked tight around Joshua. The toddler shrieked and squirmed in her hold, his tiny arms and legs flailing.
Hugh dropped to his knees beside her. “Amelia? Amelia, answer me, damn it.”
He cupped her face, patting lightly. The light was too dim for him to assess her fully, the moon giving way to the early-morning sun fighting to slice through the night.
“Amelia,” he said louder, snatching up her wrist to check her pulse. Steady. Strong. He almost sank back on his ass with relief.
She groaned. He straightened, staring at her face. Her nose scrunched.
“That’s right, Amelia,” he said. “Wake up. You’re okay. The kid’s okay.”
He patted the baby’s back awkwardly.
She crinkled her nose again, her eyes fluttering open. “Hugh? Do you smell smoke?”
Shit! He should have thought of that. He looked in front fast. The first rays of sunrise illuminated the smoke spiraling from the engine crumpled against the tree.
The scent grew thicker inside the van, mixing with the unmistakable stench of leaking gasoline. Hugh scooped the kid under one arm and yanked Amelia up with his other hand. He kicked the back doors of the van, exploding them open.
“Amelia, run!”
***
Liam was losing his shit fast.
He charged up the front steps of the stucco island school, now a temporary hospital and the last known location for Hugh Franco.
Where the hell was he?
Franco had raced off to check on the Bailey woman seven hours ago and still hadn’t returned. He wasn’t answering his phone or shortwave radio. Communication was sketchy with phones, but no comm through the radio?
Something was wrong. He could feel it deep in his churning gut. Franco has said he would be back in an hour—and that deadline had long passed.
They all had to log back in to work the next shift in three hours, which didn’t give Liam much time to search. He should be sleeping. Should be. But knew he wouldn’t even be able to close his eyes until he got rid of this sick feeling he’d had too many times during his prior days in the Army, times when he’d lost a fellow ranger.
Franco would probably come racing in at the last second and they would laugh their asses off at Liam for acting like a f**king mother hen. At least that’s what he told himself as he ran like a maniac up the steps into the hospital housed in the local school.
It wasn’t as if he could report the guy to the cops to investigate. The police had their hands full, as did every other individual here. Except Franco wasn’t answering his phone or pager, which of course could have been due to the jammed channels. Communication was still iffy and likely wouldn’t get better anytime soon.
For now, Liam had three hours to figure out what had happened to Franco before the next rescue shift.
He tugged open the heavy wooden door and stepped inside. The light was dim, mostly filtering through the window and from bulbs running on minimal power from generators. The air was thick with an antiseptic scent and pained groans. Hospital “staff” rushed down the halls, in and out of rooms, wearing scrubs and camo.