They got the parking lot cameras, and Paulo had enough pull in his department to get a warrant or at least show probable cause to get the footage from traffic cameras on the street as well. Which meant they had a partial plate. Pennsylvania, first three digits CH1. Liam had been taken in a navy blue panel van with tinted windows. There were no windows in the back.

The van had left the hotel and traveled east, only to be picked up again fifteen minutes later going through a toll booth onto the main highway. The local cops had alerted the state police, and Paulo assured Gunnar that Liam would be found, but Gunnar couldn't stand around and wait. "I have to go to him. Have to try."

"Do what you have to do," the young officer said.

Ben fell into step beside him as Gunnar was walking to his minivan.

Gunnar asked, "What are you doing?"

"I'm coming with you. I'm not any good with a gun, but sometimes you just need an extra set of hands."

"You'll get in the way. Stay here."

"If you don't let me in your car, I'm going to follow you anyway. Liam is my friend too. Besides, you're going to need someone to stop and let the state police know where you are if you decide to go all vigilante and shit. Because you look like the type."

“I have probable cause,” Gunnar said.

“Right.”

“Fine, get in the car.” Gunnar didn't have time to argue. They got into his minivan just before midnight and started driving.

Gunnar needed more intel on Damon- who he was, his behavior and personality- to offer some insight as to where he might decide to go.

Gunnar looked over at Liam's friend. Ben had recognized Damon and knew Liam well enough to try and warn him.

Was this the man who had been hitting on Liam?

Gunnar ruthlessly pushed aside the flair of jealousy that came from that thought. If Ben could help, then it didn't matter about he and Liam's history.

"How well did you know Damon?" Gunnar asked

"Not very. I told Liam, and I'm telling you, the guy was a creep. I didn't think he was the kidnap and drag you off in a panel van kind of creep, but he always seemed off. I never met anybody more fastidious. I knew he and Liam weren’t going to work out, but Liam was infatuated. And I admit, the guy was hot. In that clean-cut, you can bounce a penny off of his ass cheeks kind of way." Ben gave Gunnar a long look. "You're not bad yourself if you like the hot older guy with a touch of the dangerous type."

"I’m here for Liam."

"I wasn’t hitting on you. Just making an observation."

They turned onto the interstate. Gunnar mused, "Damon’ll want to keep driving all night, I bet. I wish I knew where he was going."

"Damon won't drive all night," Ben said. "He's too uptight for that.”

“How do you mean? He’s more likely to get caught if he doesn’t keep moving.” Though Gunnar doubted the man knew he was being pursued. It usually took 48 hours for a police department to even start investigating a missing person.

Ben said, “We were all going to go camping, but Damon wouldn't sleep in a tent. He wouldn't even stay out at the bar past midnight, and he wouldn't go inside at all if they allowed smoking. Once, some drunk chick spilled her drink on him, and he flipped his shit. That was the last time he came out with us. Knowing Damon, he probably already had an overnight spot reserved before he even snatched Liam. He's the type that would do that."

A hotel would be too public, but a small motel would work. Hopefully, Damon hadn’t rented an Air B&B, though if he had, they’d at least be able to track his credit card. If they could get it. Locally owned motels took cash though and didn’t ask too many questions. After checking in, Damon, depending on the layout of the motel, could probably just pull his van up to the outside deck window and then roll the cart with Liam, likely still unconscious, inside.

Gunnar asked, "Can you call up a list of many motels around here?"

"Sure."

"If he's going to do this, he’ll want to stay on the first floor, and he wouldn't want a place that only had one or two entrances. Or where there were good lines of sight. Look for someplace spread out, and preferably remote."

"I'll do my best," Ben said. "But it's usually not the search terms you give when you're looking for a place to stay."

Gunnar kept driving. After about ten minutes, his phone rang. Paulo. Gunnar accepted the call. "What did you find out? Have you found him?"

"The abductor didn't make it to the third tollbooth, so he must have pulled off of the highway somewhere between mile marker 449 and mile marker 1012."

"Thanks."

Gunnar passed the information on to Ben and hoped it would narrow the area of the search. Hopefully, Damon hadn't just decided to get off of the interstate and take back roads to God knows where.

Damon’s entire rescue plan was sewn together with fishing line and hope. Finding a kidnap victim was hard enough when you had an orange alert and hundreds of cops looking, but even with the help of the Seattle PD and state troopers, Gunnar feared they might be too late.

"I've got eight hits," Ben said. He swiped his thumb across the screen. "Seven really. The Sunny Smiles is across from a local water park. Too many kids. Damon would flip."

"Thank you," Gunnar said. At first, he had been reluctant to have the beta along, but now he was grateful.

"I just wish I'd run after Damon instead of going to find Liam. I just thought he was going to go back to harassing Liam, not this."

“No one would have expected Damon to abduct Liam. Liam didn't even think his ex would go this far."

Fifteen minutes later, they pulled up to the first motel. It was out of the way, just inside of the border of the medium-sized town whose main thoroughfare appeared to be a strip mall. The motel itself was spread out, and a smattering of RVs and station wagons were parked in the motel’s outside lot.

"What's the plan?" Ben asked.

Gunnar pulled his minivan into a parking space. "We'll go to the desk and show the picture. I wish we had a better picture than the one off of the hotel parking lot surveillance video." The image copied from the video was grainy, and Damon was in three-quarter profile.

"Hold on," Ben said. "Liam took down his Facebook, but I think I was the one who took the picture in the bar, so the tag would have disappeared, but the picture should still be there." Ben began flipping through menus on his phone. After some searching, Ben asked, "What's your number so I can send you a text?"

Gunnar gave it. Ben sent the text, and Gunnar stared at the monster who had once held Liam's heart.

Damon didn't look like a kidnapper. He didn't look like a criminal, but they rarely did. Damon stared into the camera lens, his back straight with almost military precision. His clothing was pressed, and he didn't have a hair out of place. He was handsome, square jaw, perfectly trimmed blonde hair, wide shoulders, narrow hips, the kind of guy who turned heads but didn’t really linger in the memory. The most striking thing about him was his attitude; the others were laughing and raising their glasses with obvious enthusiasm when the flash hit. Damon, in that brief moment, had been perfectly poised.

Ben was right, this was a guy who would plan out everything, and then follow that plan to the letter.

"Want me to look around and see if I see anything suspicious?" Ben asked, unbuckling his seatbelt.

"No."

This was probably a bust. The van wasn't even parked in the lot, but if Damon planned everything as thoroughly as Ben said, then he might've driven the car from the main lot and parked it elsewhere.

"Actually, can you walk around and see if you see the van?" Gunnar described it again, along with the partial plate number.

Liam wasn't at the first hotel or the second. By the time they had gotten to the sixth on the list, Gunnar was beginning to give up hope. Maybe Damon had continued traveling, or maybe he had driven off onto one of these roads where they didn't have cameras checking license plates at the tolls. Now, given his head start and the fact that Gunnar and Ben had been making these hotel stops, he would be so far ahead of them that Liam might never be found. He might even have gotten out of Washington state at this point.

Maybe.

It wasn't like Gunnar to second-guess himself, but this was too important.

Gunnar’s phone rang, and he accepted the call. "Justice. Did you find him?"

"Nothing yet. But…." Paulo hesitated. "There's something you should know. When the CSI team was going over the room, they found a pregnancy test. In the trashcan. It was positive."

Gunnar couldn't breathe. When Ben had suggested Liam might be pregnant, the thought had shocked him, but he hadn't really believed it. Now though, with a positive test, Gunnar knew it was true. Liam was pregnant. With their child.

Gunnar wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. He hadn't thought about having another child, but he welcomed sharing the future and a new life with Liam.

What would Olivia think? She had been an only child for her entire life. Her birth had been so difficult for Adam, and in the last trimester, he'd gotten dangerously high blood pressure. which meant they'd had to induce early.

Gunnar and Adam had been very careful after that, and while Gunnar had always wanted a large family of his own, the life of his husband was more important. After Adam had died, raising Olivia by himself had felt overwhelming, even with his mother's help.

Liam was having a baby.

His baby.

But only if he could find Liam in time.

Ben asked, "Are you okay?"

"We have to find him."

There was no hard evidence connecting Damon to the killer Gunnar was hunting, but Gunnar didn't need that evidence to know his lover’s- the father of their soon to be born child's- life was in mortal danger.

"What’s the next motel on the list?" Gunnar asked.

"It's a bit off the beaten track. I'm surprised they stay in business."

"If we see the van in the lot, I need you to call back to Seattle PD, the number’s in my phone under Paulo, and tell them I'm going to need backup as soon as possible."

"Backup? You're going in by yourself?"

"Liam may not have time for me to wait. All we know is this man hunted Liam down and has now kidnapped him. Liam is at his mercy, and I can't stand aside. I have to – –."

"Just be careful."

"I'll be as careful as I can."

They pulled into the parking lot. At the far end, and shadow, sat a navy panel van with tinted windows.

Ben said, "I think that's it."

"Take a look at the plate. I'm going inside."

Gunnar snatched his phone out of the dock and, making sure he had his badge and gun, walked towards the motel lobby.

The motel was two stories high. Only a smattering of other cars were parked in the lot, which made sense because the hotel was twenty minutes away by car from the closest town. The parking lot and building façade showed evidence of wear and tear. The paint on the concrete façade was peeling, and the asphalt under Gunnar’s feet was uneven.

A neon sign over the main entrance promised free wi-Fi and a color TV in each room. Gunnar walked to the front desk. Behind it, a middle-aged woman sat with her stockinged feet up on the chair across from her as she looked at something on her phone. She looked up as Gunnar entered, and put her phone down on the desk. "Evening. Need a room for the night? We have late checkout at noon."

"I'm actually here about a guest." Gunnar pitched his voice low, looking around him to make sure they were alone before he pulled out his badge, and held it out. The woman wore a badge that read Sandy.

"You’re Liberty Police. What are you doing out here?"

"Have you seen this man, Sandy?" Gunnar held out his phone to the picture of Damon that Ben had sent him.

"Yes! The newlyweds! They’re in our honeymoon suite. I mean, that’s what I call it. Has the quietest bed and it’s the farthest from the parking lot so you get some privacy. Did something happen? Mr. Thompson was so cute, carrying his husband over the threshold. Looks like Liam had too much to drink at the reception, and I bet they’re sleeping it off now. Or doing whatever. I made sure not to put any guests on either side of their room. Newlyweds can get quite loud."

Damon had literally carried Gunnar's unconscious, drugged and pregnant boyfriend through the main entrance and up to the honeymoon suite, and this woman was calling it cute. Gunnar's hand clenched around his badge. "They aren’t newlyweds," Gunnar said. “The man in question is named Damon Fisk, and his ‘husband’ was abducted.”

Sandy lost all color in her face. "Goodness!"

"I need to know what room he's in, and you're going to want to evacuate any occupied rooms near him."

"Yes. Yes. He's in 112." Sandy rapidly gave him directions. "I-- I have to call my manager, but – – do you think he's going to be violent?"

"It's a possibility. Is there any way we can get into that room without rousing his suspicions?"

"I can get you a key, and I guess you could go in, but it might get him agitated. Wait! How about we offer them some complimentary champagne, since he said they were newlyweds."

"That sounds perfect. Give me the champagne, and I'll take it up."

"Are you sure you should be going by yourself?"

Gunnar wasn't sure. Without backup, he could be putting Liam's life in further danger. In addition, this was technically out of Gunnar's jurisdiction. But Gunnar couldn't wait. Not now that he was so close to Liam, especially now knowing that Liam was carrying their child.

"The abductor is a suspect in multiple homicides. Give me the extra key, in case he won't let me in with the champagne."

Gunnar’s phone rang again just as he was about to leave the motel lobby. He picked it up.

"State police will be at your location in thirteen minutes."

"Have them send an ambulance, if they can. Just in case.

It was hard to keep his voice level, but Gunnar had to treat this like business if he expected to hold himself together enough to save Liam's life. "No sirens or lights."

"Is the victim injured?"

"I don't know. But Dr. Chandler was drugged, and he is pregnant. One of the hotel employees confirmed this."

"They want you to sit tight until state police arrive."

"You're breaking up. I can't hear you." Gunnar said and hung up the phone.

Sandy gave him a long look.

Gunnar said, "One twelve, right?"

“Yes, it’s in the second building on your right.”

Room 112 had the curtain shut, and it was quiet. Too quiet. Gunnar approached the door with champagne chilled in a bucket of ice, a plateful of strawberries, and cheeses. He slipped his key into the lock so he could turn it easily, and then knocked loudly on the door. "Room service!" he called out, pitching his voice a little higher just in case Damon had heard him on the news.

"I didn't order room service!"

"Help! Someone help me!" Liam's shout was cut off abruptly. Gunnar dropped the champagne, turned his key in the door, shoved it open, and ran inside.