Chapter 279 One Step Ahead
ADRIANA
My brain kicked in before the rest of me caught up.
We could hear the movement inside before I reached the door, heavy footsteps, someone crossing the floor fast, the sound of things being knocked over in a hurry. I hit the door with my shoulder and threw it open and two men were right there at the threshold, already moving to come out, and I stopped them with my body and my voice and the knife still in my hand.
“Where do you think you’re going?” I looked at both of them. “Where is my daughter?”
Neither of them said anything. I stepped past the men and moved through the cabin looking for Lana.
His words were still running in my head. Kill the baby. They couldn’t have done it that fast. They couldn’t have. I held onto that thought and kept moving.
There was a cot in the corner of the room, a folding table, some equipment against the far wall, a battery lamp still running. The guards spread through the space with me, covering every corner, checking behind the cot, behind the door, everywhere a baby could have been placed or hidden.
Nothing. No sound. No movement.
I turned and looked at Elijah across the empty room.
He crossed to the window without being asked. I watched his back and I couldn’t make myself walk to that window. I needed him to do it and then tell me what he found, because if I looked and found what I was terrified of finding I didn’t know what I would do or if I would be able to keep functioning.
“Is she there?” My voice came out steadier than I felt. “Elijah. Is she there?”
He turned back. The expression on his face made my heart stop for a full second and then I understood that the expression was not grief. It was something harder and colder than grief. It was the expression of someone who had found nothing where they expected to find something.
“She’s not there,” he said. “The tree line is clear.”
He crossed to the two men the guards had against the wall and grabbed the nearer one by the collar and I watched something move through my husband that had nothing to do with strategy.
“Where is she?” His words were low and menacing. “Where the hell is my daughter?”
“We don’t know.” The man’s voice came out strained. “He took her. The one who hired us. He came a few hours ago and said you’d caught Harry and you were coming. He paid us what he owed and he told us to run.” He swallowed. “He had his car. He left with the baby. We don’t know where he went.”
“Who is he?” I stepped forward. “What did he tell you about himself?”
“Nothing. He just said he was someone who’d been hurt and betrayed. That he wanted to take back what was his.”
I looked at Elijah. He looked at me.
“Where did he take her?” I said to the man. “Give me a direction. Anything.”
“I don’t know. He didn’t say. He just took her and drove away.”
Everything that was implied moved through me, and then I went outside before I let any of it show on my face.
I stood in the early morning air and breathed and thought.
He had known we were coming. He had known before we arrived. It could be a coincidence, but it could also mean someone had told him. He had used Harry to bring us here, four hours from home, and while we were driving in one direction he had moved Lana in another.
The cameras.
“The cameras,” I said, when Elijah came out behind me. “At the house. He was there last night. We know he was in that building. If he left before we detained him, he’s on the footage. We know his face.”
“We could search the surrounding forest—”
“Search it for what? We don’t know which direction he went. We don’t know the car. We’re four hours from home in border territory with no information and no signal.” I kept my voice level even though what was underneath it was not level at all. “He wanted us here. He planned for us to come here. I’m not going to keep following a plan that was built for me.” I looked at him directly. “We go back. We use the cameras. And then we draw him out on our terms, not his. He wants my reaction. I’ll give him one he didn’t expect.”
Elijah was quiet for a moment. “Guards. Load them up. Nobody talks to each other. We leave now.”
I went back to the prisoners.
“Get in the car,” I said. “If either of you speaks to the other before I give permission, I will personally ensure that whatever remains of this situation goes significantly worse for you than it already is. Do you understand me?”
They all nodded.
We got into the vehicles and the forest began to move past us in reverse and I sat with my hands in my lap and looked out the window and thought about Lana out there somewhere.
Elijah reached across after a while and put his hand over mine. I didn’t pull away. I didn’t say anything either.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I didn’t have the answer to that so I didn’t give one. I just looked out the window and let the road take us home.