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“Do you think there’s something wrong with your credit card?”
Bren purses his lips and shakes his head. “The card’s all right.” He takes my hand. “Come on, come with me!”
He runs rather than walks, ruthlessly dragging me behind him. My ankle is throbbing, but I don’t say anything. “Quick, hurry up!”
Bren accelerates before I’m even buckled up. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”
Bren takes the corner a tad too sharply and the RV lurches. I scream and grab the handlebar. Grey slides over to the other side on his blanket and starts barking.
“Quiet!” Bren growls at him roughly.
“Bren, what is it?” I snap my seat belt quickly.
Grey is still barking as if sensing the sudden tension.
Bren looks grimly at the road ahead. “I don’t know. But I’m sure we’ll find out soon.” He suddenly gives the steering wheel a hard smack. “Grey! Quiet, I said!”
I look at Grey pityingly. “He doesn’t mean it,” I mouth, but I can’t stop my heart from beating faster. A dull foreboding winds its way into my consciousness.
“Check on your cell phone.”
“Wha…”
“Please, just do it!” Bren’s voice is tight but controlled.
I’m too upset to ask why, so I dig into the glove box for my phone and turn it on.
“I have about a hundred messages from Ethan. Should I read them?”
“I meant check the news.”
“Oh.” Ignoring Ethan’s messages, I google The Daily World Washington and scan the lurid headlines and colorful images from around the world. Most of the articles are about politics, flashpoints in the Middle East, and American football. “Oh, the Tennessee Titans beat the Buffalo Bills,” I read.
Bren looks at me disapprovingly but can’t suppress a smile. “Check another site.” He glances in the rearview mirror and takes a deep breath.
“CNN?”
“That’s fine. Or something local from the area.”
I’m looking for an online service from British Columbia and find The Chief, Squamish’s news service.
Bren peers into the rearview mirror again.
I scroll down the news bar, seeing some of the same articles as The Daily World, but suddenly my breath catches.
Chapter
Ten
“Stop!” I can only shout.
Bren slams on the brakes and the RV bounces over the gravel roadside before coming to a stop. “What is it?”
Grey barks, but I only notice it in passing. Without a word, I hold the phone out to Bren so he can see the pictures of the two of us. The photo of me is, once again, Avery’s snapshot of me standing under the apple tree, happy, laughing, and innocent like Linda, the cashier at the gas station. Bren looks sinister in the picture, like a criminal. They must have retrieved it from Jay’s cell phone. It’s the photo I took in the Seattle park at dusk. His eyes glow like lumps of coal in a fire, his mouth a thin solid line.
Frightened, I clutch my stomach, shake my head over and over again, then start reading even though I don’t want to know what it says.
“HERO OF THE WEEK” ABDUCTS 17-YEAR-OLD SCHOOLGIRL
