“Mo, Dani, can we borrow a plane or something?” Gemma asked as she walked a couple of tables away and hugged a tearful Kenna and Will Ashton. Damn, Cy had forgotten about Carter. The pale faces and tears in their eyes reminded him that Will and Kenna were going through the same thing he was.
“We’ll find them. I swear it. I’ll die before I stop looking for them,” Cy told his friends.
“Before we stop looking,” Will said, standing up. “I’m coming with you.”
“Then we’ll need the bigger helicopter,” Ryan said to Mo, also standing up. “Carter asked me to look into two men who owned a horse he was flying with today. I haven’t gotten a chance to do it yet, but I’ll do it on the way there and make sure the boots on the ground know there was some concern about these men. We’ll need to find them too.”
“Is one of them Mick Connors?” DeAndre asked. Ryan looked down at his phone where he’d taken notes and nodded.
“Yes. How did you know that?” Ryan asked.
“Because he was on the plane with them. He joined them at the last minute.”
“You can take our large helicopter. It’s at the airport. It’ll hold sixteen and will be able to make it there on one tank of gas. Nash, can you fly it?” Mo asked his second-in-command of security.
“Of course. I’ll head there now and get it ready.” Nash stood up and kissed his wife, Sophie.
“Bring my cousin home,” Sophie whispered as she ran her hand down his cheek. Nash nodded and strode out the door.
“I’ll bring Robyn,” Bridget said from her wheelchair. “She’s the best tracker we have. That is, if it’s okay with Sydney.”
“Of course it is,” Sydney said, holding tightly to Deacon’s hand on one side and her cousin Piper’s hand with the other.
“Sweetheart,” Ahmed said patiently to his wife. “You have a broken ankle. You can’t work Robyn through the woods in your condition.”
Bridget smiled up at her husband. “I said I’d bring her, not that I’d track with her. You are going to do that honor.”
“No. That dog scares me. She thinks she’s smarter than I am and it amuses her to see us humans working for her. And when she gets excited, she rubs her head though my legs and racks me every time she wiggles through. She does it on purpose. When I double over, holding my balls she smiles. Smiles, Bridget!” Ahmed’s hands went to his balls as if feeling phantom pain from the little rust-colored Vizsla.
“Ahmed,” Gemma said in a voice she usually reserved for when their kids had gotten in trouble. “You will get the damn dog. You will let her rack your balls. You will tell her she’s a good girl. You will scratch her butt to make her happy. And you will find my daughter! Do you understand me?” she asked, her voice rising with every word.
Ahmed’s head hung. “Yes, ma’am. Sydney, get me Satan’s Spawn.”
“If this Mick guy is the bad guy Carter was worried about, maybe the guys with badges and special privileges should go. Ahmed, Nash, Matt, DeAndre, and I can handle this,” Ryan said. “Remember, we won’t be in Keeneston so all y’all should stay here.”
Cy snorted. “That’s cute, nephew. Come on, honey, let’s go. My guns are in the SUV.”
* * *
Twenty-five minutes later Cy pulled up to the secure area leading to Mo’s helicopter hangar. It was next to the plane he also owned, but there would be no place to land a plane, considering the wreckage.
Cy parked the car, and Gemma was already out the door and opening the trunk. She opened the case hidden under the carpet and pulled out a handgun. “What are you doing?”
“That’s my daughter out there, and I’ll kill anyone who is trying to hurt her.” Gemma and Cy turned at the sound of cars pulling up behind them. “What are they all doing here?”
Cy shook his head. “I don’t know.”
The doors to Miles’s SUV opened and he, Cade, Marshall, and Annie stepped out with bags thrown over their shoulders. “You didn’t think we’d let you go alone, did you?”
“Guys, seriously. I’ve got this,” Ryan said, getting out of his FBI cruiser with DeAndre and Matt, the sheriff of Keeneston. “Matt, DeAndre and I have permission to be there. You all don’t.”
Marshall snickered and shook his head. “You’ll find that by the time we get down there, we will. Now, come on. Nash is starting the helicopter.” Marshall paused as he looked past Ryan, DeAndre, and Matt. “Is that leash sparkling?”
Cy turned and saw Ahmed walking toward them with Robyn walking happily next to him. Her short tail was wagging with excitement as her pink glitter collar and leash sparkled in the sunlight. Ahmed had his badass face on—the one that caused soldiers to piss themselves in fear. But it lost much of its effect due to the sparkling pink leash.
Cy shook his head and Ahmed’s jaw tightened. “Um, are you Ahmed?” a woman asked.
“Yes,” Ahmed ground out. Cy was worried the woman would start crying out of fear.
“Here are the two items you asked for,” she told him, holding out two Ziploc bags. “The blue one is a fleece Reagan had sitting on her chair. She wears it all the time in the air conditioning. The red one is a T-shirt I found in the car. I assumed it’s Carter’s.”
“Thank you very much, Jane. These will be vital to the search.” The woman looked relieved as Ahmed called out to Will and Kenna to verify that was in fact Carter’s shirt. Once they told him it was, the large group boarded the helicopter.
Cy hating the feeling that the clock was ticking down. He worried if he didn’t find Reagan and Carter soon enough, it would be too late and the thought of that was too much to bear.
“You taught Reagan well. Remember that,” Miles said, squeezing Cy’s shoulder as the helicopter took off. Yes, he taught her well, but was it enough?
* * *
Reagan dropped into the creek as soon as the water was deeper. Her ankle throbbed, and if she had to guess, it was still twenty miles to the town she’d seen in the air. She wasn’t quite sure she’d make it. She sat on the rock bottom of the stream as the water rushed around her and thought about their plan. Was it really better to head to the town than to try to get back to the airstrip?
Carter took a seat next to her and let out a deep breath. “Do you think this is a mistake?”
“I was thinking that. I think it’s risky. At the same time, maybe it’s the safer bet. Mick will assume we’re going back toward the airfield and will hopefully stay there, looking for us. It wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t hurt my ankle. It’s slowing me down. And twenty miles . . .” Reagan took a calming breath. “I’ll make it. We’ll make it. This gives us time and distance away from him.”
“I wonder if our parents know the plane went down?” Carter asked softly. Reagan felt her heart constrict at the thought of her parents thinking she was dead or injured.
“Probably.”
“They’re going to lose it. I wish there was a way to let them know we are okay.”
Reagan’s head snapped up, and she smiled. “We can.”
“What do you mean?”
“What’s the first thing my dad will do when he hears?”
“He’ll race down here.”
Reagan nodded. “And will he come alone?”
“Not likely. But I still don’t see how we can let them know we’re okay.”
“They won’t come alone. They’ll come with help. We just need to leave them clues.”
Carter shook his head. “But any clues we leave, Mick will be able to track.”
“There’s one he won’t be able to.”
“What’s that?”
Reagan grinned as she scooted over toward the shore. “What do police do when someone goes missing in the woods?”
“They search for them with dogs. Dogs!”
Reagan reached out and rubbed her hand along the grass. She made sure she didn’t leave an impression, but she rubbed hard enough to leave a scent. “We’ll leave our scent.”
Carter stood and leaned as far over the bank as
possible and rubbed his hand against the small trunk of a sapling. “We’ll do this every so often. They’ll follow our scent to the stream, and surely your father will understand what losing the scent means. He’ll walk with them downstream and pick up our scent again.” Carter leaned down and kissed her. “You’re brilliant.”
Reagan felt hope fuel her aching body. They may not be able to make it to safety today, but they could hide from Mick long enough to make it to the town or for help to arrive. “I’m going to go down on my stomach. My ankle needs a rest.”
Carter looked up at the sky. “It’s after noon already. I wonder how far we’ve gone.”
“I would guess five miles or so. And we need to make it another five miles before nightfall if we want to make it to the town tomorrow.”
“Then let’s go. If you get too tired, let me know. I’ll carry you.” Carter stopped her from lying in the water. “I haven’t had time to tell you, but I’m so proud of you. I can’t believe you landed that plane. I love you, my soon-to-be wifey.”
Carter kissed her again, only this time it was slow, gentle, and full of emotion. Reagan looked down at her left hand and the ring sparkling like the clear water of the creek. “It seems like a lifetime ago you asked me to marry you.”
“As long as we have a lifetime ahead of us, then that’s all that matters. Come on. Let’s celebrate our engagement by outrunning a madman.”
Reagan laughed as she lay on her stomach. With the water closer to two feet deep now, she was able to mostly float down. Rocks would hit her chest and stomach, but she used her hands to help her crawl when she needed to. Every so often she or Carter would reach out of the stream and leave their scent on a tree in hopes someone would enlist a search-and-rescue dog.
Reagan wished they could spend the time talking, but they were both worried about Mick finding them. So they kept quiet, kept their ears open, and kept making their way downstream as quickly as possible.
18
Somewhere near the Kentucky and Tennessee state line . . .
* * *
“Are we there yet?”
“How much longer?”
“Stop touching me. You have your own seat.”
Aniyah leaned forward and turned up Holt Everett’s first country music album. Holt’s parents, Trey and Taylor, had invited everyone in Keeneston over to their house for a listening party, and while country music wasn’t her particular go-to music, sexy Holt Everett’s deep voice did something to her that was downright sinful. Maybe if she did some of the things she was thinking about to DeAndre when she arrived at the airstrip in Tennessee with a carload of Rose sisters, he wouldn’t be so mad at her.
Aniyah rolled her eyes behind her pink sunglasses. Sure, DeAndre had told her to stay home, but who was he fooling? He knew she wasn’t going to listen to that. Not after Riley, Piper, and Dr. Ava, the daughter of Dr. Emma and former deputy Noodle, had headed for Tennessee before the helicopter had even taken off from the airport.
“Lily Rae, I will steal that candy bar from you if you don’t share.”
“Pffft.” Aniyah looked into the rearview mirror at Miss Lily sticking her tongue out at Miss Daisy. “You should have come prepared.”
“That seems unhygienic to do that on a kitchen table,” Miss Violet said absently as she looked through a woman’s magazine.
“Do what on a kitchen table?” Miss Daisy asked, distracted from the candy bar. “Oh! The key is putting down a placemat or a tablecloth. Then you can just wash it afterward.”
“Good idea, Daisy,” Miss Lily agreed. “Too bad John’s knees aren’t what they used to be, or I’d give that a try when we get home.”
“I have these oils you could use,” Aniyah said, turning down the radio now that the trio of elderly sisters were no longer complaining. “Is that the Serving Up Sex in the Kitchen issue?”
“Anton will love this,” Violet pointed out about her husband, a former chef, as they sailed past the Tennessee state line. Riley wouldn’t be more than fifteen minutes ahead of them. It would have been less, but the Rose sisters had made Aniyah pack the trunk full of things they might need and enough food to feed the army of police and search-and-rescue they expected to find there.
Aniyah had a lot to learn, and apparently she was going to learn more than how to prepare to feed and manage a crisis from the three elderly sisters.
* * *
Cy looked at the one police cruiser, a national park service SUV, and a fire truck below them on the airstrip as the helicopter came in for a landing. His wife gasped and Cy turned to look out her window. There was the wreckage of his daughter’s plane, tilted with one wing near the ground and the other wing at a forty-five degree angle into the sky. The back of the plane was open, a wing was damaged, a wheel was broken, and the front was completely smashed. All he could see was where the plane became an extension of the trees.
Nash lowered the helicopter. Cy had opened the door the second it was on the ground. A young man with light brown hair in his late twenties or early thirties stood waiting for him in jeans and a black polo with a sheriff’s star embroidered in gold on his chest.
“You must be Cy Davies. I’m Luke Tanner, Moonshine Hollow Deputy Sheriff. I’ve been talking to a Bridget Mueez all morning.” Deputy Tanner paused, his deep gray eyes taking in the clown-car like exit of what seemed like half the town of Keeneston from the helicopter. “I was told you are not only the father, but you and your friends have a certain level of skills that can assist us in the search.”
“That’s right. Bridget’s husband is here with a search-and-rescue dog.” Cy introduced Robyn as she shoved her nose into Deputy Tanner’s crotch before wiggling through his legs, leaving her tail-wagging butt sticking out to be scratched. Ahmed came as close to blushing as he ever had when Deputy Tanner raised an eye in clear challenge to the idea the wiggling dog in the pink glitter collar and leash was a tracker.
“My son-in-law, Matt Walz, is the sheriff of Keeneston. My nephew, Ryan Parker, is head of the Lexington FBI office. And this is Kentucky State Trooper DeAndre Drews,” Cy continued as if having a dog halfway through your legs wiggling her butt at you was an everyday occurrence.
“Nice to meet y’all,” Deputy Tanner said, shaking everyone’s hands as Gemma came to stand with them along with Miles, Cade, Annie, Marshall, Will, Kenna, and Nash.
Luke Tanner introduced himself to the newcomers and placed his hands on his hips as Robyn wiggled her butt between his legs. “Here’s what we know. The pilot called in a mayday when she ran out of fuel—”
“That’s not possible,” Cy said instantly.
“Mistakes happen,” Deputy Tanner said as gently as he could.
Cy shook his head. “Not to my daughter. Her flight crew is impeccable. She would never make such a basic mistake.”
Luke didn’t look convinced but didn’t argue. “Given her altitude and speed, she wasn’t able to glide to a larger airport. This was the only one she could make it to. It looks like she landed the best she could. The copilot and flight engineer are on their way to a Chattanooga hospital. They hit their heads during landing. They were already awake when I arrived, but a quick cognitive test showed indications of suffering from concussions so I sent them to get checked out further. The flight mechanic is in my cruiser. I’m holding him until the NTSB and other feds get here. This isn’t my jurisdiction. Moonshine is actually thirty miles away. I’m just the closest to this area. For what it’s worth, the mechanic said the plane was correctly fueled as well and said the man on board was a murderer. That’s why I called in the FBI.”
Cy gave him an I told you so look before Deputy Tanner continued. “Suzanne Bristol and Diego Castillo were pronounced DOA.” Luke paused, looking thoughtful as Kenna and Will made a strangled sound of grief. “I wouldn’t mind your opinion of the crime scene. It seemed off to me. The mechanic told me everyone was buckled in. The pilot had given them advanced warning of the crash landing.”
Cy turned to Gemma, Will, and Ke
nna and held up his hand. “Stay here; you don’t need to see this.” Gemma nodded as Kenna wrapped her arm around Cy’s wife and nodded her agreement through tear-filled eyes.
A procession led by Deputy Tanner filed to the plane. Cy sucked in a breath and trampled down the fear he knew Reagan must have felt as she attempted to land.
“Where’s the horse?” Ahmed asked as they climbed the back steps of the plane.
“Took off. The mechanic said a passenger, Carter Ashton, and the deceased handler prepared the horse for landing. The mechanic was back here and couldn’t see up front. He said he strapped in back here when he couldn’t fix the problem.” The deputy pointed to a chair. “He said the plane hit hard and the horse freaked out. When he and the owner of the airfield opened the cargo door, the horse had escaped her stall and scrambled over the row of stalls and was about to kill herself. He said the horse was crazed. The mechanic caught her and then heard Carter scream. He said he heard some sort of fight, but the horse was so panicked he took off his shirt and wrapped it around her head. With the help of the airstrip owner, he managed to get the horse down the back steps. As soon as he took off the shirt, the horse jerked her head free and took off. He said there was blood, and she was so hyped up he couldn’t tell what injuries she had.”
“Her trail shouldn’t be hard to find,” Marshall said as Cade nodded. “We can track her down.”
“Then what happened?” Cy asked as they moved toward the front of the plane.
“The mechanic says right after the horse ran off, he and the owner came back to help, but Reagan and Carter yelled at them to run. Thinking there could be a leak, the two men exited the plane when Reagan and Carter came running out of the plane screaming that the man identified as Mick Connors had a gun. Reagan and Carter went behind the wing touching the ground while the mechanic went to the opposite side. The owner of the airstrip ran for the main office, and the mechanic saw him get shot. The mechanic crawled up the landing gear and hid. He said he heard this Mick guy calling out to Reagan and Carter, and then silence. He doesn’t know where they are. He didn’t climb down until I got here. But this is what I want you to see.”
Forever Hunted Page 12