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I looked, and sure enough, saw the seating.

“Let’s go,” I suggested.

We walked at a leisurely pace, checking out the window displays on our way.

“Oh that one’s cute…” She trailed off, her eyes toward the ground. “People are so gross. Why would you just throw your cup down?”

My heart started to pound.

Because on the ground was a familiar cup that’d literally just been in Jessamy’s hands.

On that cup, making me realize that it was hers, was a duo of hearts. One that had a J in the middle of it, and one that had a B.

I bent down and picked the cup up with a frown.

My gaze went down the alley, and I noticed a few things at once.

One, there was a paper bag that was half kicked behind a dumpster that had pastries and some soap spilling out of it.

The second was that there were fresh rubber marks from tires that looked like they’d taken off at a fast clip.

Third, and the most obvious, was the cell phone, cracked and broken, that was lit up with a photo of me holding a pig on the screen.

Six hours.

She’d been missing for six hours.

I was at the station, and every deputy that I had available was out looking for her.

As were the entirety of the Dixie Wardens MC.

The only reason I was there was because I’d gotten a call from Shelby and she’d asked me to come back to the station.

We’d been looking for hours, and we were four hours away from darkness.

And another snowstorm.

The alert had come in just a few minutes ago alerting us that things were about to get bad.

The sinking feeling inside my belly was starting to feel permanent.

I stalked into the station, jerking my chin up at Kelly, my niece, who liked to pretend I wasn’t related to her.

She didn’t give me the same attitude she normally would, likely sensing that I had zero tolerance for her bullshit today.

Needless to say, if she wasn’t my niece, I’d have fired her a long time ago.

The only reason that she was working here as the receptionist was because my brother had asked me to give her a job.

I’d given her one, but the one that had the least contact with me, or anything requiring an actual brain, required.

I pushed my way inside and came face to face with the ‘war room’ that my brother had helped set up.

Him and a few others were on the SAR—search and rescue team. I was qualified for it, too, and could help in a pinch, but my job as the sheriff came before my job as search and rescue.

“Get over here,” Elesio ordered.

I did, coming to a stop next to my brother and daughter.