Free Justice for Laine (Badge of Honor: Texas Heroes Book 4) by Susan Stoker Page B

was wrong, but he was worried.
    Deciding he’d waited long enough, Wes decided it was time to call in the cavalry.
    Wes didn’t have a close contact with anyone in the SAPD, so he called their general line. His position as a Texas Ranger went a long way toward getting him immediate attention and accelerating the investigation. Typically, people had to be missing for at least twenty-four hours before a report could be taken and the wheels of an investigation started, but thankfully in this case, things were moving quickly.
    When Dax had heard about Wes’s concerns, he’d called his friend, Cruz, in the FBI, as well as another friend, Lieutenant Quint Axton, who Wes didn’t know, in the SAPD. It was all very confusing and Wes wasn’t even sure how Dax was connected to everyone, but when Hayden Yates, from the Sheriff’s Department, had called and said that Fire Station 7 had their paramedics on standby, just in case, and to let her know if she could do anything, he gave up trying to figure it out, relieved that at least things were happening quickly.
    He’d seen his brothers and sisters in blue . . . and red . . . in action in the past, rallying around their own when they were in trouble, but he’d never had to rely on them for his own personal use before. But Wes knew he needed every single eye, every single brain, to figure out where Laine was. He was well aware that the first twenty-four hours of any missing persons case was critical. If Laine had been kidnapped, it was likely the person would either kill her outright, or would keep her to . . . do whatever . . . to her for at least a few hours. It was that “whatever” that Wes didn’t want to think about.
    He and Laine had been dating, and even though he saw the bad things that could happen to people, and even the awful things that humans could do to each other, through the course of his job, he still hadn’t really thought anything would happen to either of them . They’d been enjoying getting to know each other, in and out of the bedroom. She was quickly becoming one of his best friends, which felt right. Wes never thought he’d lose her, not so soon after he’d found her, or that there might be a chance she’d disappear from his life in such a mysterious way.
    He had a new respect and empathy for the families of missing persons he’d spoken to in the past. He’d felt bad for them, but hadn’t really understood what they were going through . . . until now.
    As Wes stood in his house, clutching his phone, willing Laine to call him and tell him with that nervous laugh she had that it was all a misunderstanding, it hit him.
    He loved her.
    He was devastated just thinking about never seeing her again. If she really was gone, he suddenly realized he would’ve lost one of the best things that had ever happened to him. He might’ve been telling himself they were just dating, but it was suddenly very obvious that wasn’t the case.
    He hadn’t told her, they hadn’t spoken of love to each other, but it was there nonetheless. Wes figured he’d loved her from the first time he saw her standing in his barn. From her nipple hard-ons, as she called them, to the blush on her face when she realized she’d been staring at him, he loved everything about her. She was his soul mate—and he didn’t even want to think about how he might not get the chance to tell her.
    As the night wore on, and his adrenaline spiked each time the phone rang, then plummeted when he realized it wasn’t Laine on the other end, Wes’s determination hardened. She was out there . . . somewhere. He’d spent his entire life investigating crimes and murders and missing persons. He was going to have to use every ounce of what he’d learned over the years in law enforcement to track her down. Somehow he knew Laine was waiting for him, counting on him to do his job and find her.
    It was almost as if he could hear her words in his ear . . . whispering over and over, “Find me, Wes. I’m