by Christa Wick
Maddy
Returning to the hotel room that serves as our command post, I place a triple tall espresso and a bagel sandwich next to Emerson. Taking a seat on the edge of the bed, I open a paper bag and pull out a second sandwich.
With his mouth full of food, he snatches a sheet of paper from the printer tray and hands it to me. I read and chew at the same time.
"Wait…is this one of Sprankle's offshore accounts?"
He swallows then points at the balance at the bottom. My eyes bulge at the sum.
"That's like the mother of all offshore accounts."
I'm gone twenty minutes, maximum, to pick up lunch and much-needed caffeine while the investigation jumps weeks ahead in my absence.
I should get lunch more often.
"Have to prove it's his," Emerson clarifies. "But he ordered his shark attorney to arrange twenty million in bearer bonds, and this is the account Schaefer accessed immediately after."
He peels off two more sheets from the printer's stack. "Pulled Suspicious Activity Reports on the account. Big dollar amounts coming in from Russia and Eastern Europe, transfers going to Latin America."
Women and drugs—Sprankle deals in both.
The first genuine smile in more than a week tugs at my lips. It is a feeble smile, but I'll take what I can get.
"That you?" Emerson asks, angling his phone to check its display.
I delicately paw at my pocket, a slick of mayonnaise on my fingers. Seeing that the call is from Delia, my smile disappears.
For years, we have followed a protocol that, when I'm away from my field office, I call her.
Unless it's an emergency.
I hit ACCEPT.
"What's wrong?"
For the first two seconds, there are no words, just the struggling gasps of my big sister, my rock in life, hyperventilating.
"Caiden," she gasps again. "He's missing."
I jump to my feet, grab a blank sheet of paper from the printer and swipe Emerson's pen from the desk.
"Have you called the police?"
"The police were here when it happened."
The words come out in heaving sobs.
"We were at the ranch. Sage was having her baby and—"
"Sage was having her baby?" I repeat.
Emerson switches from mild curiosity to standing next to me.
"Putting you on speaker—"
"Please, no," she whispers in a broken voice. "I want to talk to you, just you."
"Okay."
I shoulder Emerson away. He snatches up his phone and swipes at the screen.
"Ten messages," he mutters.
"Has a search party been organized?" I demand to know.
"Yes. Sutton and Sheriff Gamble went straight out while Siobhan marshaled the ranch and stable hands and more boats on the lake…please…they don't want me to go out."
I picture my sweet, older sister. Riding an ATV on marked trails with her husband and son doesn't make her a country girl. Until this year, she has spent her entire life in the Boston area.
"I know it's hard to stay where you are, but you have all the right people around you."
She sobs harder, my attempt to reassure her falling on deaf ears. I glance at my watch and estimate how much daylight they have left in the land surrounding the ranch.
Barely more than an hour.
"Delia, a good search is about maximizing efficiencies. I love you, but you're basically a lead boot if you head into the woods."
Emerson, on the phone with someone at the ranch, pauses to write on the sheet of paper I pulled out.
Missing 40+ minutes. Took boat onto lake.
A wave of dizziness washes over me. I push it down and focus on calming the thread of terror vibrating through my sister's voice.
"But you wouldn't be a lead boot," she whispers. "I need you."
"Okay. Of course. But you have to promise me you will listen to those in charge. Do not go out looking for him."
There is silence on the other end.
"Promise me, Delia."
"Yes," she relents. "But hurry."
The line goes dead. I turn to Emerson. My mouth drops open then stalls.
I could be killing my career with what I'm about to say, more so by what I'm about to do.
Emerson isn't the kind of man who lets family get in the way of work. It wasn't until after Sutton was already found following a combat jump gone wrong that I even knew my boss had a twin brother and, second, that said twin had been injured and missing in action for days.
If Emerson had been at all worried, if he was in frequent contact with his family in those awful days of the government withholding information, he hadn't shown the slightest hint of his feelings.
"Get your bag ready," he orders, punching in numbers on his phone's screen. "I'll have someone in here to cover our shift within thirty minutes. We'll get our flights booked in the meantime. Our badges will get us past security and…before we can even board, your sister will call back saying the boy's been found and is unharmed."
I nod, wanting to agree with him, wanting Emerson to be right. But I know, in my gut, that we won't be that lucky.
Caiden won't be that lucky.
23
Sutton
Nygård and I spot the boat at the same time. It is empty and motionless in the water, the skeg at the bottom of the outboard motor grounded in muck. I signal for the Doc to cut our engine.
Calling Caiden's name, I jump into the shallows and drag the boat's front third onto the stony ground. I tie the dock line around the trunk of a young willow. Nygård joins me on shore, helping me secure the abandoned boat.
I call Siobhan on the radio while he scans the visible portions of the lake with the binoculars. I pray he doesn't spot a lifejacket floating on the current.
"Found the boat about a mile and a half north of the docks," I tell my cousin. "Divert all the boats upstream."
When Siobhan comes back, I can hear Delia's questions, her voice ragged.
"No sign of Caiden. Siobhan, get everyone on an open channel."
She tells me to switch to channel seven and gives me the frequency. I glance at Nygård when he lowers the field glasses. He shakes his head.
Talking to Siobhan, I slowly walk the edge of the shoreline looking for where Caiden might have exited the boat.
"What are we working with?" Siobhan asks.
"Boat was untethered. I'm looking for where he got off."
One of the many prayers I offer up is that he left the boat under his own power instead of falling out. If he was unconscious when he hit the water, the current could have carried him near an inlet. An eddy could have redirected him into the inlet and a sunken log or fallen tree could have snagged him.
Hearing another outboard motor, I look down the lake and wave my arms at Gamble. He must have stopped at Mama's dock because there are two ranch hands with him. Reaching my position, he idles the engine.
"Nothing," I say. "No telling how far the current pushed the boat back toward Mama's or which side of the lake he crawled up on."
Looking at the sky, I feel its weight pressing down on me. We have maybe an hour of light left, less under the cover of trees. There are creatures in the woods that the boy wouldn't survive a meeting with in daylight, let alone in darkness. Adler shot at two of them this afternoon.
I speak into the hand radio. "Coordinate thirty-yard intervals starting at Belle's Inlet, each side of the lake. Two-man teams. Maintain visual contact."
Gamble nods his approval of the instructions.
"Got it," Siobhan says. "Anything else?"
"Get Teddy in the air," I answer. "I don't care how much money the old man wants to fly in this wind, get his chopper in the air now."
Signing off, I tether the abandoned boat to mine then motion Nygård to climb in.
"Take it back to the docks for the search teams to use."
"What do you want me to do after that?"
"Stick close to the house. When we fin
d the boy, I don't want the only doctor in a thirty-mile radius bogged down halfway up the mountain."
He gives me a short, earnest nod then starts the motor. Standing in the shallows, I push the boat further from shore.
Gamble throws a look at the trees behind me.
"You going in?"
I nod, take out my phone and try texting Siobhan.
I want the search teams armed. Relay the order away from Delia.
For a few seconds, I'm not sure whether the message will reach her over the phone. Then a thumbs up emoji appears on my screen.
"You carrying?" Gamble asks.
"Nope."
Surprising me, he reaches into his boot and pulls out an ankle gun.
"Seven rounds," he says, handing me the M&P Bodyguard 380. "Hope you don't need it."
For Caiden's sake, so do I.
Light disappears from the sky. I walk alone through woodland I have explored since childhood. Every now and then I catch a glimpse of another searcher's light. More frequently, I hear someone call Caiden's name. Teddy has buzzed by twice in his helicopter, the big light he shines casting an eerie twilight for a few seconds before he flies out of range. The dogs are running with their handlers. The hounds have been given a snout full of Caiden's backpack. But the wind is our enemy. It lifts the scent up off the ground, evading the dogs completely or whipping them in the wrong direction.
Tripping over a log in the dark, I stay down.
I need water. The crews around me came with canteens, protein bars, toilet paper, bug spray and more.
Wiping my hands on my jeans, I think of Caiden, try to crawl into his mindset. In the short time I've known the boy, I have witnessed a level of intense focus that is rare in this world. He can spend hours in a single position. He can ignore everyone around him. Maybe that is what he is doing now, hunkered down a few feet from shore and not answering those calling his name because he doesn't recognize the voices.
On the other hand, he could be twelve miles ahead of us, still walking despite the blisters and bug bites he's bound to have by now.
Not twelve miles, I think. The dark and the trees will slow him down same as they are slowing down the searchers.
I wipe my hands again and press the talk button on the hand radio.
"Sutton to Base."
Mama's voice answers. There's a shake to it.
"Siobhan pick up the drone?"
"Yes," Mama answers. "But…the winds…"
I figured as much. "How many pieces is it in?"
"Three. It didn't get that far off the ground."
"Camera still working?"
She tells me it is, then follows with more bad news.
"Teddy's at his limit."
"Tell him to refuel and wait for me. Get the drone's camera and tablet to him, tell Quinn I need Barrett's rappel kit."
"The wind…" Mama starts.
She sniffles, then draws a deep breath.
"Sutton…I…"
When she says my name, I hear the pain of a mother who has already lost one child, a mother who also lived through long days of uncertainty waiting to find out if she had lost me, too.
"I'm sorry, Mama."
"I know. I had a moment of weakness." Her breath rattles inside her throat as she exhales. "Kenneth Mays gave his life for everyone on this ranch. You won't let his son or wife down."
Gaining my feet, I turn to face downhill. I press the talk button one last time before I turn the spotlight back on and sprint through the tangle of roots and rocks on my way back to the lake.
"Love you, Mama. Sutton out."
24
Maddy
An agent from our home office drops Emerson's car at the airport. By the time we touch down in Billings and point the vehicle toward Willow Gap, nearly seven hours have passed since Delia's call.
I reach her on the phone. Her voice sounds like it did when she notified me of Ken's death.
The news isn't that bad, not yet at least.
There has been no sighting of Caiden. Search teams are still out. A helicopter is in use. There will be more air surveillance when the wind dies down.
The call ends when one of the searchers returns with a sprained ankle and she leaves to help the man.
It's a special kind of hell, I think. Delia can best help the search by helping the searchers. But, to do so, with her distant background as a paramedic, she has to bear witness to all the injuries that Caiden might also be suffering from at this moment.
"Any sightings?" Emerson questions after I put my phone away.
I offer a SITREP that includes the lone helicopter pilot.
"Who the hell is flying in this?" Emerson asks as the same high winds plaguing the search bully his sedan from one lane to the next.
"Teddy Raspell?" My tone turns the name into a question because I'm not sure exactly what Delia was saying between her intermittent sobs.
"Civilian," Emerson explains. "If the wind is below fifty knots and Teddy stays five hundred feet above ground, it's hard to legally tell him he can't go out under visual flight rules at night."
Another gust of wind jerks the steering wheel in Emerson's hands.
"No way in hell are these winds below fifty knots," he rumbles.
Feeling helpless, I offer no opinion, just clasp my hands against my lap, close my eyes, and pray.
A message from Siobhan directs us to the stables instead of the main house. Dust hangs heavy in the air, reflecting the light of the car's headlamps back at us.
"Is this from the wind?"
"Not all of it," Emerson answers. "One of the pens is big enough to land Teddy's chopper. He may have just set down or taken off."
I don't know which option I prefer. If the pilot has just returned, maybe he has good news. But, if that were true, my cell phone would be buzzing by now.
"There."
I follow the line of Emerson's outstretched finger. He turns the car in the same direction. A second later, the headlights illuminating the dust also light up Delia.
Standing frozen by a horse pen with its wooden slats, she looks lost. Her face points up at the sky while her hands hang down around her hips, the fingers uncurled and limp. She must hear the drone of the sedan's engine, see the headlights on her, but she doesn't look our way.
Just keeps staring up.
The stable manager steps into view, squinting and waving at us. Emerson puts the car in park. I am out of my seat and shutting the door before he pulls his keys from the ignition. He exits the vehicle as I throw my arms around Delia.
She stiffens, looks at me as if she doesn't recognize who I am.
"I was trying to get her back up to the house," Royce tells Emerson.
"I'm supposed to be better in a crisis," she whispers. "Lord knows, I've had plenty of practice."
Her chest expands. The deep breath pulls in lingering dust from the air. She immediately starts choking on it.
"Maybe you want to use my office."
I nod at Royce. I still don't know why Delia is at the stables, don't know why Siobhan's short message directed us here.
"Come on, Del." Wrapping one arm around my sister's waist, I coax her toward the interior of the stables and the brightly lit office. "Did a helicopter just leave?"
She bobs her head as another round of coughing overtakes her. I ease her onto a couch that is pushed against one wall.
"Stay here. I'll get you something to drink."
Emerson has followed me into the stables. Standing outside Royce's office, he falls into step next to me as I head for the break room.
"Sutton and Teddy went up about fifteen minutes ago."
A rare flash of emotion crosses the face of my boss. My thoughts jump to the worst possible conclusion.
"Remains?" I whisper.
"No, God…not that. There's still no idea where Caiden is. In these winds, at Teddy's fuel capacity…they maybe have two hours of searching."
I grab his arm, nerves making me dig my fingers into the meaty bice
p.
"What aren't you telling me?"
"Nothing."
I squeeze harder, not caring that this is my boss. I like Emerson, but I will punch him in the face if he withholds information from me about my nephew—or his brother.
Lucky for both of us, he relents.
"Sutton took rappelling gear with him."
My lungs seize, the contraction momentarily pushing out air and all of the concern I have for my sister and nephew. The FBI has special teams for things like breaching and hostage rescues. But, even as a special agent, I am only modestly familiar with rappelling. The outdoor obstacle course at Quantico is nothing like the training the agency's Critical Incident Response Group undertakes.
"Isn't it too dangerous?" I ask despite already knowing the answer.
I mean, it's not just dangerous—it's deadly. High winds, quarter moon, the ground either steep and rocky or hiding under a dense canopy of trees.
"He's had experience…lots of training. And his feet won't touch the ground unless they spot Caiden."
I want to grab the nearby garbage can and hurl into it the bagel I ate earlier and whatever else my stomach still contains. But Delia starts another coughing fit. Numb, I turn and open a cupboard door. I take down a glass, open the refrigerator and find three one-gallon jugs of Betty Rae's mint elixir.
A barking laugh erupts from me.
I bend over, still laughing. This is hysteria. I recognize the symptoms, but can't control them.
Emerson rescues the glass before it fully slips from my fingers. He pours the mint water until the glass is half full. He keeps his back turned to me. My body rocks. My forehead veers close to the lip of the counter. I want to tap it—just once.
Maybe twice.
Maybe until it starts to bleed.
How the fuck did I ever become an agent? I am falling apart. As soon as Emerson shuts the refrigerator and turns toward me, I will be unraveling in front of my boss.
He pivots, I straighten like a whip and force my mouth into something other than the misshapen rictus of despair it had frozen into.