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May was shaking all over, but this was not the time to relax. As quickly as she could, she grabbed Maurice's other arm and began wrestling his hands behind him.
"What the hell are you doing?" he shouted, struggling madly so that one of his arms pulled free, and she had to make anothergrab for it. At the same time, she realized, he was laughing wildly.
"You're under arrest!" she said. "You're coming in with us to the police department to answer some questions."
"You're crazy! I am innocent. You’re looking at an innocent man," he slurred.
"Trying to escape from a police officer is not a sign of innocence."
"This isn't over," he threatened her, pulling his arm away again so that she had to flail once again to grab it. His clothes reeked of wood smoke and the distinctive tang of weed. She wasn't sure he even knew where he was or what was happening.
At that moment, May heard a welcome sound—Owen's footsteps, thudding along the path.
"May! Where are you? Are you here? Are you okay?" her deputy called, his voice taut with concern.
"I'm here," she called back, and Owen pounded over. In a moment, he'd grabbed the man's other arm and they had him effectively contained.
"Where were you heading?" she asked Maurice.
She wondered where he had been fleeing to. Could it have been to his alternative hideaway that the other man had mentioned? Was he on the way there?
"Nowhere, man! Nowhere!" Maurice laughed madly, the shrill sound cutting the now-quiet night. He tossed his red hair back. "Just driving, man. Just driving away. Heading for the hills."
In the dark, May wondered if it would be possible to try and search further along this trail. It might be a big waste of time and result in a false lead, but what if the women were somewhere ahead and he’d been fleeing to where they were kept? Wanting to make sure of the exact spot, she took out her phone and made a note in her maps of the location. She could plot it against theplace where Chloe was caught on camera, and also do her best to get the correct facts from Maurice.
"We need to take you into the police department," May said.
Maurice let out another cackling laugh as between them, May and Owen manhandled him around and began marching him back toward the RV campsite.
"I'm an innocent man. You guys are oppressing me," he said. Then he started singing a few bars of what May guessed was some kind of a resistance song. She hoped that by the time he'd reached the police department he would have sobered up some, but she was very worried that he wouldn't have.
“You’re never going to take my people away from me,” he jeered.
“What did you say?” May replied, her instincts prickling at the words. Was he admitting to holding someone?
“We’re none of us hostages, you know. You’ll never take me or my tribe,” he said, leaving her feeling unable to work out whether he was just confused and rebellious, or whether he’d referred to actual captives.
At a time when evidence was critical, this suspect was clearly not in a mental state to handle questioning at all. They would need luck, as well as skill, to get a coherent version from him at this critical time when lives hung in the balance.
And the mention of that word hostage was worrying her deeply.
"I think we need to send a search party out here. Now," she said to Owen. “They need to search Maurice’s RV. And then they need to take a look down this track and see where he was headed.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
May trusted nothing about Maurice Fardy. She was deeply suspicious that he'd tried to run when they'd arrived. The whole setup there was waving a flotilla of red flags for her. And she wanted to know where he'd been heading at such speed.
Already there was a search party heading out. Sheriff Jack was on the way, with two officers from nearby police departments. If there was a chance that Maurice was keeping these women nearby, they needed to check. This wasn't something that could wait.
It wasn't likely that they were going to get this information, or in fact, anything out of their suspect easily. Glancing at him in the rearview mirror as she drove to the Fairshore police department, she saw he was swaying slightly in Owen's grasp.
"Where're you taking me?" he slurred.
This was the third time he'd asked the question in the space of ten minutes.
"You're going in for questioning," May replied, yet again.
"You guys, you government agents, you're all the same. You're agents of doom. You're killers in disguise. You bring the night, but you don't bring justice."
