closed his phone. “We have several names and photos of missing teens. This is just in the last week or so. Want to look at them?”
She swallowed, nodded, feared the worst. “Yes.”
But after looking at the photos that came through on his phone and reading the names of the five missing teens—three girls and two boys—in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, Emma fell back against her pillow and closed her eyes for a few seconds before opening them to stare over at Ryder.
“I don’t recognize any of them. And the names don’t ring a bell. What if one of them is the one I’m trying to find, Ryder?”
“People are already on these cases,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean someone didn’t hire you.”
She went cold inside. “What if the parents haven’t listed the teen as missing yet? What if they thought I’d find their child right away?”
“No parent would do that,” he reminded her. “They call the locals right away.”
“And if that didn’t work?”
“They’d call you,” he admitted. “Maybe they called you and the locals don’t know that.”
“That would mean the parents have to be frantic by now.”
He put down his phone. “You look tired, and you won’t be able to focus if you don’t heal. So rest, Emma. Just lie back and go to sleep.”
“I can’t sleep.”
“Try.”
“Has anyone questioned Bounce and Ounce?”
“We’ve tried. Unavailable. The Triple B has gone on the quiet. No one will dare talk out of fear of getting a bat to their head. But we’re watching the place even more now.”
A nurse came in and gave her a pill. “Just a mild pain pill.” After examining Emma, she asked, “How’s your head pain on a scale of one to ten?”
Emma held the pill cup and replied, “Maybe a three.”
“That’s a good sign but take the acetaminophen anyway.”
Emma didn’t want to take anything that would muddle her memory even more, but the nurse urged her to so she could sleep.
“You people never let up.”
“Our job,” the smiling nurse said. “But you’re improving so much I think you’ll be able to leave soon.”
After the nurse left, Emma looked at Ryder. “Leave? And where do I go from here? I’ve been so intent on getting out I haven’t considered if I had a hotel room anywhere.”
When he didn’t respond, she said, “But then, you’ve already checked the area hotels, right?”
“Right. So far, your name hasn’t come up, but we’ll keep looking. Maybe you checked in under an alias?”
She actually snorted a laugh. “And you expect me to remember that alias?”
“No. We’ll keep at it.”
“I have to find a place to stay,” she said, the thought jarring her head all over again. “I can’t go home not knowing.”
Ryder slanted his gaze toward her, his head tilted. “Well, wherever that is, I won’t be far away. I want to solve this, too. And I want to bring in Bounce and Ounce and slam the jail door on them once and for all.”
“I’ve given you extra work,” she said, glad to know he was on her side.
“Keeps me out of trouble.”
Emma drifted off to sleep with the memory of his determined look and definite tone in her mind.
Ryder was that kind of guy.
He did things the old-fashioned way.
The cowboy way.
Ryder woke with a grunt.
He’d heard something. A slamming noise followed by a crash.
And where was Emma?
Bolting out of the recliner, he called out, “Emma?”
“In here.”
The bathroom door was closed.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes,” came the muffled reply. “But that man on the floor isn’t.”
Ryder whirled when he heard a moan. Rushing to the other side of the bed, he found a tall, athletic man with short platinum hair holding a hand to his head. Ryder drew his gun and yanked the man up.
“Don’t move or I will shoot you,” he said, showing the man his badge before he shoved him against the wall. “Put your hands up.”
The man moaned and did as he asked. “She tried to kill me.”
Emma walked out of the bathroom, her hair disheveled, her eyes flashing. “Well, you tried to stick a needle in my arm. I don’t like needles.”
Ryder frisked the man and found a knife and a hidden pistol strapped to his ankle. Spotting the syringe on the floor by the bed, he read the man his rights and cuffed him.
Whirling the man around, Ryder looked at Emma. “Are you really okay?”
“Yes,” she said, sinking down onto the bed. “I woke up and this visitor came at me with a needle full of clear liquid. I kicked out and hit him toward his...uh...midsection then threw the water jug in his face.”
“And she jammed me with that bed tray thing,” the man said on a whine and a glare.
“She’s good about taking care of things,” Ryder said with a grin at the overturned tray. But his heart flipped and flopped in a delayed panic. He shouldn’t have dozed and he should have stayed outside in front of the door. But he’d wanted to be near her. Just one more reason to stay away from her. Giving Emma a warning stare, he slammed the man back against the wall. “Talk.”
“I got nothin’ to say.”
“You’ll talk, sooner or later,” Ryder said on a soft promise. “I’m thinking soon you’ll be singing like a little bird.”
No ID and an unyielding, cold, dead stare.
“I want a lawyer.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll get one. But for now, you’re mine.”
In a matter of minutes, the hospital once again swarmed with officers. After Pierce and his men took the assailant away, Ryder finally turned to where the doctor was checking Emma.
“Doc, she seems okay to me. I mean, she took down a man who could have
