Her Mortal Mate

Chapter Five: Bread Crumbs

Jadea

"Oh f**k yeah!" Blade's ecstatic exclamation mirrored my own feelings.

"This one must be a secondary phone. Maybe his work phone?" Garret said thoughtfully, trying to puzzle out the broken phone that was closer to the canal. "Perhaps one of them saw the phone and Adam handed them the decoy?"

Maybe? I was sure the recordings would give us a better indication of what happened.

Garret and Blade came up on either side of me, their soft, furry bodies huddled in close to my naked one, providing me with warmth and support in the cool evening air. I looked through the recordings and noticed there had been several taken, the first one starting around three in the afternoon. Close to the time he would have left to go to the concert.

"There are several recordings," I mused aloud. "And each are rather long." I wasn't exactly sure what to do. Did we sit here and listen? Did I send them to Sargent Moore? Should I tell Briar and Derrick to help him, while Garret, Blade and I continued on? I didn't like the idea of separating the pack but we were hot on their trail. I really didn't want to backtrack or stop.

If this was any normal hunt, what would I do?

I would follow the trail until it ran cold. Unless there was an obvious risk to the pack, we wouldn't stop. We would gather the evidence along the way. If we had time, we would process it right then and there. Otherwise, we would process it afterwards. Saving the victim and killing the bad guy had always been the priority. This was no different. We were already separated. I had more wolves on the way. I could afford to keep Briar and Derrick with Sargent Moore. They would most likely be more help there anyway.

Standing up, I called Sargent Moore. "Jadea—

"I'm sending you several recordings from Adam's phone," I interrupted.

"Did you find him?" he asked warily.

"No. Just his phone."

"Where was it?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Yes, it does."

I didn't want to argue, there was no time for it. Sighing shortly, I stated, "South. Around Fresno near a canal. I don't know the exact location. We are in the middle of a field somewhere."

"That's odd," he mused to himself.

"No s**t," Garret grumbled in my mind.

"They are using a quad to transport Adam. That way they can follow the canal."

"Why would they do that? Why wouldn’t they just use the interstate?”

"Your guess is as good as mine.” I snapped impatiently, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Briar and Derrick are trying to find footage that might help us identify the vehicle the perps were driving when they went to Mrs. Lindsay's house. My guess it’s the same vehicle they captured Adam with."

"If they had a vehicle, why wouldn't they just use it to travel?"

"I don't know why. I'm not them! Maybe they decided the rental was too risky because if we could identify it, we could put a BOLO out for a license plate, make, model, etc. It would make it easier to find them. Traveling by quad, they can stay off the beaten paths while they travel in their wolf form. They can stay out of sight.”

He wasn’t perturbed by my outburst. "Where do you think they are headed?"

"They are following the canals. My guess is south, towards SoCal. LA. San Diego. Anaheim. Right now it's a little too early to say," I snapped shortly, annoyed by all the questions. "Look, we have their scent right now. I'm going to continue to follow it. I'll keep you in the loop as much as I can. I'm sending ..." I looked down at Adam's phone and counted the recordings, "Five recordings. They are all rather long and they start around three in the afternoon. So, when you are looking at those video recordings, you have an approximate timeframe. "Once Briar and Derrick are done, I'll send them your way to help sift through the recordings and videos. I want all of you to divide and conquer. I want to know what is on those recordings. I want to know if Adam got any good intel and I want to know about it ASAP."

"Okay, consider it done," Sargent Moore stated. "I've got the missing person's report out and I've sent it throughout the state of Cali and into Nevada and Arizona. I have one of my other deputies looking up places within the area, and surrounding counties, that sell quads. I will have her call each one of them when they open to retrieve their list of buyers. I have two others who are actively collecting any video footage they can retrieve right now. Mrs. Lindsay, Aidan and Anika are all asleep in cots in the common area where I can see them."

"Why don't you also have your deputy look up rentals that were returned today as well. See if any names or information corresponds with the quad," I said almost as an afterthought. I was a little rusty at this. I should have thought of this before.

"On it!"

"The recordings have been sent." I stated.

"I will call you—

"Briar and Derrick will let me know when you find something," I cut him off. "I'll call if I find anything more." I hung up on him and then dialed my father's number. I was getting antsy. I just wanted to get back on the trail and get closer to finding Adam.

"Jadea?"

"We have their trail and a few leads we are looking into now. How far out are the others?"

"They'll reach Modesto just before sunrise."

"Let me know when they are in Cali. I'm going to have them bypass Modesto and continue towards SoCal. Also, will you send a car to pick up three packages for me?"

"Who?" he asked.

"Mrs. Lindsay, Aidan and Anika."

"Adam's children?" he sounded surprised.

"Yes. Whoever went after Adam, also went after his children. I'll fill you in later. They are all in danger. I need them safe, daddy. Please?" I could hear my voice breaking. I could feel my heart constricting. The panic leaking into my tone. I was nearly begging him towards the end.

"Consider it done, squirt. I'll come pick them up myself."

"Thank you," I said so quietly, so brokenly into the phone. I was having a hard time keeping it together.

"Chin up, squirt. You've got a ways to go before you can break. Breathe through this." He took several deep breaths with me on the phone, helping me refocus. "This is the hunt of your life, Jadea. Keep your head clear. Keep your feelings out of it. I know it's hard, but you need to see this as any other hunt. You have to look at it from that unbiased perspective. Otherwise, mistakes will be made."

A slight overlook had already occurred. At least I'd recognized it and corrected it.

"Love you daddy."

"Give 'em hell, Jadea."

After I hung up the phone, I tucked both Adam's and Briar's phones into the backpack. Then, I once again shifted.

"Briar, Derrick, once you are done gathering the surveillance footage, I need you to go back to the precinct. We recovered Adam's phone and there are five recordings. Each one is rather long. Briar, I want you to focus your efforts on the recordings. Derrick, I want you to sift through the surveillance footage. Hopefully someone will be able to uncover something important or useful."

"Got it, boss," Derrick affirmed.

"I'm having Lucien's wolves redirected to SoCal until further notice. Lucien, himself, will be leaving soon to make the drive to collect Mrs. Lindsay and the children. I'm assuming it will take him around twenty hours to reach you. He knows where you are at, so just keep an eye out."

"Will do! Be safe please." Briar's voice was filled with worry.

"Always." As I disconnected from them, Garret, Blade and I continued on our way.

"This seems too easy," Blade announced warily. "They aren't trying to cover their tracks."

"It's hard to do with a human," Garret proclaimed. "It's easier to cover the trail in a car, but as Jadea stated, they are probably trying to stay away from paper trails. They are trying to lessen our resources. Down in SoCal, in the big cities, it will be easy to lose us with the billions of people and their intermingling scents."

"I'm not looking forward to that." Blade grumbled.

"We go as far as we can," I stated, refocusing our attention. "We follow their scent as far as we can go. And then we wait for Rick and Andy. With their expert tracking skills, they should be able to follow his scent. Even if only the bare minimum is left behind."

"When will they get here?"

"To SoCal? Mid-to-late morning, depending. They will have to be more cautious since they won't have the cover of darkness to navigate in."

"And if we have to go through the city?" Garret asked.

"I'll shift, and go buy some collars and leashes. We can improvise."

"Oh, Caden will love that," Garret smirked, knowing the beta would despise being collared.

"I think he would almost prefer to swap positions with you and wear a dress than wear a collar and be walked on a leash."

The image that created nearly had me laughing, because it sounded like something he would do. Caden was a Dom in the b**m-werewolf world. And Garret and Blade were absolutely right. It might be a major moot point for the beta. "One hundred says he'll let me," I bit. I couldn't help it.

"One hundred says he won't. That he'd rather walk naked and get arrested."

"One hundred says he wears the dress," Blade added.

It was nice, having the banter as we continued to follow the trail south. It was something else to focus on. Something to help ease the pain and fear taking over my heart, mind and body.

We would get to him in time, I kept telling myself. We weren't that far behind them. In a hunt, this was usually a good sign. From what I understood about the conversation with the caller, Adam wouldn't be killed right away. They would wait for my response. They would hold out until I'd made my choice known.

We had a little bit of time before they would maim him.

I was confident we would be able to find him before they started doing that s**t to him.

I'm coming, vanilla. Just stay strong...