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“This guy kidnapped us and tried to kill us. He’s not getting away.”
    And while Harlan’s tone left no room for doubt about that, they both knew the shooter was doing just that—getting away.
    “When the motel clerk called 911, he gave a description of the vehicle,” Tinsley said. “Law enforcement will be on the lookout for it.”
    “That’s not enough,” Harlan insisted. “I need to find this guy.”
    Tinsley looked around as if figuring out what to do, but then he tipped his head to the backseat of the cruiser. “Get in and buckle up so my partner can ride with us. Can’t do this without backup, and you’re not exactly in any position to assist.”
    Harlan made an even more frustrated sound of agreement and got her moving into the backseat. There was a metal mesh divider between the front and back. Clearly for prisoner transport, but she didn’t care about that. Caitlyn only wanted to go after the shooter.
    Thankfully, that didn’t take long.
    Tinsley’s partner tossed Harlan a key that he took from the glove compartment, and he jumped in. “It’s a universal key,” he explained as they sped away from the motel.
    Harlan didn’t waste any time unlocking the cuffs, and Caitlyn’s hand dropped like a stone. The muscles in her hand and arm were knotted. Her head was still pounding, too, but those were minor things. At the moment no one was shooting at them, and maybe they could get a lot of answers as to why this had happened, if they could just catch up with that blue truck.
    A truck she didn’t see.
    Tinsley drove up the ramp and onto the interstate, and while there were a few other trucks on the road, the blue one was nowhere in sight.
    Mercy.
    They had to find him.
    “Who’s this shooter?” Tinsley asked.
    Harlan didn’t have time to answer because Tinsley’s phone rang. A few moments later he hung up and shook his head. “You’re sure that was the right license plate for the blue truck?”
    “Positive.” Harlan didn’t look at the man when he answered. He was literally on the edge of the seat, checking out the traffic while he shoved his arm through the sleeve of his shirt.
    “Then it’s bogus,” Tinsley informed them.
    She didn’t know who groaned louder—Harlan or her. Now there was no way to know who owned the vehicle unless they found it, and with each passing mile, her hopes were getting lower and lower in that department.
    “He’s not working alone,” Harlan said, glancing first at her and then briefly meeting Tinsley’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “Someone hit us with a Taser, drugged us and put us in that motel room.”
    “You saw more than one person?” Tinsley asked.
    “No, but if the shooter had been the one to put us there, he wouldn’t have had to look for the room.”
    Caitlyn thought back to those terrifying moments before the shooting. The man hadn’t gone directly to the room, and he’d spent some time inside looking around. He probably wouldn’t have had to do that if he’d known all along they were there.
    That tightened the knot in her stomach.
    God, how many were in on this?
    “One man probably couldn’t have carried me,” Harlan muttered, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.
    Yeah. Harlan was a big guy, and that meant there had probably been at least two who’d carried them from his house and to the motel. Caitlyn didn’t want to think of what else those men had done, but she was positive she hadn’t been raped. That was something, at least. A big something.
    “This has to be connected to Rocky Creek,” she said to Harlan. All those threats couldn’t be coincidence.
    But then she had to shake her head.
    Time’s up, Caitlyn. Tomorrow you die . That had been the last threat she’d received, and it hadn’t happened. The guy with the Taser hadn’t killed her, though he would have had ample opportunity to do just that. Plus, it would have been a heck of a lot easier than drugging them and dragging them to that motel.
    Almost as