Nanny for the SEALs by Cassie Cole

49

Rogan

The film set was chaos.

Asher was back in the film trailer while Brady and I ran around the set. Most of the dust had settled, but enough of it remained in the air that everyone was coughing. People walked around like zombies, covered in dust and clenching their eyes shut. Somewhere behind me, the director was yelling at anyone who would listen.

Heather, I thought as I searched the area she was last seen in. Heather, please be here, where are you Heather…

Guilt and dread spread within my chest with every passing moment. She wasn’t here. She wasn’t back at her trailer. Nobody else on set had seen her. And Cooper wasn’t answering his radio.

Brady was right. We never should have put her in this position.

“Heather!” I shouted, cupping my hands to my mouth. “HEATHER!”

A groan came from my left, then I heard it in my earpiece. A flash of hope filled me as I ran over there, circling behind a pallet of bottled water.

Cooper was on the ground, a hand pressed to his ear. One of his legs kept stretching out and then folding at the knee, like he didn’t know what he was doing.

“I found Cooper,” I said in the radio as I fell to the man. “Cooper. Are you okay? What happened?”

I helped him into a sitting position. There was blood on the back of his head. “We need medical attention!” I shouted.

A police officer and the set nurse came running over with a backpack full of medical supplies. They tended to Cooper while he blinked and got his bearings.

“I was leading her away from the dust,” Cooper gritted out, “when something hit me. Someone hit me. That’s all I remember.” His eyes focused on me. “Rogan, I’m sorry…”

“It’s our fault, not yours.” I gave him a reassuring pat, then returned to the film room. Jimmy Cardannon was inside, shouting into his own radio.

“Pedro is safe? Good. No, this wasn’t a fucking accident,” he was telling someone. “Demo crews don’t just mistakenly get the wind direction wrong. Those industrial fans were positioned intentionally. This was planned.”

“I’m checking the footage,” Asher told me, “but the dust obscured everything.”

The door slammed open and Brady aimed a finger at Cardannon. “You son of a bitch. You did this!”

“My client was in danger too,” Cardannon shot back at him.

“Your client is safe. Ours is gone. What did you do with her!”

I put a hand in front of Brady. “I don’t think he had anything to do with this.”

Brady shoved me away roughly. “This is your fault too. I told you we shouldn’t put Heather in this position. I told you, Rogan, and you didn’t listen to me!”

I didn’t have anything to say, because he was right. Every word was like a dagger into my gut.

“Both of you calm down,” Asher said. “I’m looking at footage, and I could use some extra eyes. I’m playing back everything on these six screens.”

Brady gave me a final glare before turning toward the camera footage. Everyone in the room watched carefully while the film team’s radios squawked from other chatter.

“The food truck,” Cardannon suddenly said. He pointed. “It was right there. Now it’s gone.”

“Fuck you,” Brady growled. “We don’t need your distractions.”

“He’s right.” Asher whirled around to look at me. “It’s the food truck.”

“They were closing up as the dust cloud arrived,” I said. “I assumed they were trying to keep the dust out of the interior, but…”

“Look!” Cardannon said. “That’s the food truck server. I remember his beard.”

There was a man in a white apron walking around the set, looking confused.

I hurried out the door and ran across the set. When I found him, I said, “Where did your truck go?”

He gave me a funny smile. “Dude, I’m trying to figure that out too. It was right here, I swear. I didn’t even take any edibles today because I knew I’d be around all these cops.” He looked around nervously.

Brady appeared next to me. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

The food truck guy pointed. “I was delivering tacos to the big director dude. Normally, you have to pick them up at the truck window, but I know he’s, like, a big deal. So I brought them to him. Then the big smoke cloud or whatever hit us, and then… poof. My truck’s gone.”

Brady checked his pocket for the SUV keys. “I’m going after them.”

“You don’t know what direction they went!” I said.

“I’ll pick a direction at random. Call me when you know more.” He took off at a dead sprint.

I groaned. Brady was an impulsive guy, and often acted without having any clear objective. Right now he wasn’t doing any good by driving off randomly. But I knew he wouldn’t listen to me if I told him to stay.

Depending on what happened to Heather, he might never listen to me again.

Heather. I shook my head and jogged over to the nearest police officer. “We have reason to believe a woman was kidnapped using the food truck that was here. Can you put out an all-points bulletin for the surrounding area?”

“What makes you think she was kidnapped?” the cop asked skeptically. “Everything’s crazy ‘cause of the dust. She’s probably in her trailer.”

“She’s not in her trailer,” I growled. “We need to know the location, so if you can put out an APB that would be extremely helpful.”

“Dude, no need,” the food truck guy said behind me. “The truck location is on the website.”

I whirled. “The website?”

“Yeah, dude. Technology is sweet. My cousin set it up for me. The website is set to auto-refresh the truck location every minute. Or maybe it’s every thirty seconds. That way customers can always find me, which saves me a lot of time. Before that I had to post on Instagram and Facebook every time I stopped somewhere new, but now—”

I shoved my phone in his face. “Type in your website.”

He did so, then handed it back to me. Sure enough, there was a website with real-time GPS tracking.

“The truck is headed east,” I said. “They’re taking Heather east.”