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The ferry was leaving early. Only by a minute, but the railing was closed, and the boat was slowly but surely pulling away from the dock. In another half hour, Chastity could reach Portland and end up lost in the busy city. What if the person who’d taken her found her phone? In forty percent of nonfamilial child abductions, the child was killed, and three-quarters of those deaths occurred within three hours. Extend the time to twenty-four hours, and the rate went up to ninety percent.
Okay, Blackwood had an office in Portland. While we waited for the next ferry, we could make some calls, and beg, borrow, or steal any spare staff to assist. The directors always supported emergency operations like this one, and—
Why wasn’t Hawk stopping?
What was he—
“Noooooooo!”
A scream tore from my throat as he aimed the bike at the pile of building materials stacked up on the jetty, using a plank as a ramp to launch us into the air. I buried my head against his back as we sailed over the barrier, and quite possibly cracked a tooth when we landed on the deck of the ferry. Were we still alive? The pain in my head suggested it was a likely scenario.
“Do you have any cash on you?” he asked. “We need three bucks for the ferry fare.”
Date a special ops asshole, the romance novels said. It’ll be fun, they said.
They lied.
“Babe? You okay?”
“No, I’m not freaking okay! You just tried to kill both of us.”
“I’ve been riding bikes since I could reach the foot pegs. That was an easy jump.”
“You and me, we have very different ideas of ‘easy.’”
My hands were shaking as I fished around in my backpack for money, and I noted the ferry operator was as white as an anaemic snowman too. He didn’t say a word about our unorthodox method of boarding, probably because Hawk was in commando mode and looked kind of terrifying.
Breathe, Agatha. Focus on Chas. I had to focus on Chas.
We didn’t have much time, so I linked my cell phone to my laptop and synced her phone data into the app. Now I could track her from my cell. At least, I could if I dared to release my death grip on Hawk.
To my relief, he waited for the ferry to actually dock before he roared onto dry land, and my admiration for Emmy ratcheted up a notch. How did she do these things every day without popping anxiety pills like a junkie? I should have brought the damn Xanax.
Before we disembarked, we’d worked out a system—if I needed Hawk to turn left, I tapped his left thigh, and if I needed him to turn right, I tapped his right thigh. Don’t drop the phone. When I’d asked how I should signal him to slow down, he’d just laughed.
But that was the signal I needed.
Because ten minutes into our breakneck journey, the green blob of Chas’s phone stopped.
Just…stopped.
What did that mean? I tried to zoom in, but with limited success because I only had one free hand. Using voice control was out of the question. The engine was too loud. She seemed to be at some sort of…farm? Oh no. He’d ditched the phone, hadn’t he? Chas was on her own with a monster, and we had no way of tracking him.
We needed to identify his vehicle. Maybe there’d be a traffic camera somewhere along the way? Hell, I really needed to keep my eyes open instead of screwing them shut whenever the bike tilted sideways. The only cameras I’d noted at the hotel were in the lobby and directly outside the front entrance, but perhaps we’d get lucky and catch a glimpse of a car? The local police would have to be informed, and the FBI too. We’d need manpower to canvass for witnesses. Forensics would also get involved, although with the speed necessary in a kidnapping investigation, lab work would be of limited use unless… No, I didn’t want to think about it.
At a stoplight, I quickly explained the situation to Hawk.
“We’re only ten minutes from the location,” he said. “Let’s head there and look for witnesses. A farm?”
“Or maybe a ranch?” I’d managed to zoom in now. “It’s called Ambling Acres, and it looks as if there are pastures and outbuildings.”
And, it turned out, a small museum with exhibits on the history of farming, a petting zoo, pony rides, trampolines, an education centre, and a café.
I stumbled away from the bike, legs trembling, beyond relieved that I was still breathing. Hawk rode like a maniac. We’d played chicken with oncoming semis and survived with inches to spare, and the smell of burning rubber was fresh in my nostrils. Where was the phone? The small parking lot was half-empty, and according to my app, the device was farther onto the property.
“This is weird,” Hawk said.
Yeah, it was. I could see an abductor tossing the phone into a trash receptacle and speeding off, but paying the entrance fee to a kids’ leisure park?
