They hadn’t waited for the seventy-two-hour mark. They’d taken an earlier flight.

But it was the men flanking them that froze the blood in my veins. Two broad-shouldered orderlies in dark blue scrubs stood like statues, one of them holding a folded canvas restraint jacket.

Between them was a slender man with a leather briefcase and a clinical smile that stopped well short of his eyes.

Dr. Aris Thorne.

The trap had sprung.

“Avery.” My father took a step forward, hands out, his voice dripping with manufactured relief. “Thank God you found him. We were worried sick when we saw the house was empty.”