“Canada Lake is a small, tight-knit community. We should be getting the word out, not sitting around here,” I muttered under my breath, walking away.
I went to the screened-in porch and looked across the lake to where Maisie’s grandparents lived. They needed to know what had happened. I went back inside and through the kitchen to the front door.
“Where are you going?” Onyx asked.
“The Jones’ camp.”
Instead of trying to talk me out of it, he grabbed the key fob sitting on the kitchen counter. “Let’s roll.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to tell them,” I said when he pulled into their driveway.
“You aren’t. I am.”
“Copy that.” If I could speak, I would tell him how much I appreciated him taking charge, but I couldn’t. My voice was clogged with emotion.
“You’re back! How was your trip?” Mary asked when she opened the door with a big smile on her face. She looked behind me. “Where’s Maisie?”
“She isn’t with me.”
Al put his hand on my beloved wife’s grandmother’s shoulder, and our eyes met. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“Let’s go inside and have a seat,” said Onyx, leading us all over to the sofa.
“You’re scaring me,” said Mary. I reached over and covered her hand with mine.
My mind raced as Onyx explained what had gone down in the last couple of hours. If he weren’t dead, the first person I’d suspect of taking her was Maxim. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that it might be the same person who had killed the other three victims. The idea that I’d lose the woman who meant more to me than anyone else before we could even begin our life together sent a frigid chill through my veins.
“We have a team of investigators already here, and more are on their way. Local law enforcement has been called in, as has the FBI. We will do everything we can to find your granddaughter as quickly as possible.”
“Who…I mean…why…” Mary broke down, unable to continue.
“We don’t know,” Onyx answered. “But we’re going to find her, Mary.”
“The others…” Al began, but couldn’t finish.
I’d hoped the Jones hadn’t heard about the other kidnappings. Obviously, they had.
“We don’t know Maisie’s abduction is connected,” said Onyx. “We’re not ruling it out. We’re exploring every possibility.”
“I should call Francis,” said Al, putting his head in his hands. Francis Arnst was the Jones family’s attorney like he’d been our family’s since I was a kid. He was an old-school kind of guy—the type where a family didn’t make many moves without his advice. It didn’t surprise me that Al immediately thought to call him. Francis also represented the three families who had hired our firm to find their daughters’ killer.
“Where are Fred and Caroline?” I asked, knowing we’d have to have this conversation a second time with Maisie’s mother and father.
“On a cruise somewhere,” said Al, looking at his wife.
“Mary, do you know how to reach them?”
“We can try Fred’s cell,” she said, motioning to her phone on the kitchen counter. Onyx walked over and picked it up.
At the same time, my phone vibrated with an incoming text from Doc Butler. Diesel and I are headed that way to set up surveillance and communication.
Copy that, I responded.
“We’ll be implementing ways to monitor all incoming calls in the event that whoever took Maisie makes contact,” I told them.
“Broad daylight,” Al mumbled.
Onyx set the cell phone down and shook his head, indicating he hadn’t reached Maisie’s parents. “Mary, do you have a list of year-round residents?” he asked. “Our team will canvas from camp to camp, but knowing which should be occupied will help.”
She stood and walked to her desk that looked out over the lake.
I thought about what Merrigan had said earlier about the possibility that Maisie was taken to one of the camps on this very lake. We hadn’t gotten far enough in our initial meeting for me to know where the bodies of the other three abducted and subsequently murdered women had been found. I was beginning to regret missing the opportunity to have that, along with other questions I had, answered.
I went to the door when I saw another SUV pull in. Doc and I nodded to each other when he passed by and went inside.
The first thing Diesel and I did was embrace.
“How are you holding up?” he asked.
“I couldn’t tell you.”
“Understandable.”
“Is it?”
“Definitely. Maisie is someone very important to you, and you’re a protector.”
Important to me? It was so much more than that, but no one knew the extent. Even my best friend in the world.
“It’s what you do, Ranger. This is the ultimate test of your abilities. Can you keep your emotions in check in order to save the life of a woman you’re in a relationship with?”
Not just a relationship. Maisie was my wife. “How much do you think Doc and Merrigan will actually let me do?”
He shook his head. “It isn’t up to them. While they’re both under the K19 umbrella, this is a Shadow Ops assignment, not Security Solutions.”
“Diesel, what about…” I couldn’t bring myself to say the asshole’s name.
“Maxim is dead, Range. NYPD confirmed it. We’re still waiting for the autopsy results, but they believe the ID is solid.”
I nodded, knowing he was right while, at the same time, cursing myself again for refusing to participate in the meeting Merrigan had wanted to have.
I racked my brain, trying to remember what was said before Onyx and I had raced to the cabin next door and discovered Maisie was missing. I’d skimmed a few lines of the report when Merrigan informed us that we’d been retained by the victims’ families.
The last words I’d heard before my worst fears were confirmed were that she believed a serial killer was targeting women from wealthy families.
Merrigan was waiting when Diesel, Doc, and I returned to the camp after leaving Mary and Al’s place. Onyx had left shortly before we did, saying he’d be with Blanca if we needed him.
“Jimmy is upstairs, resting, but he asked that you wake him when you returned,” she said when we came inside.
“Where’s everyone else?”
“A command post has been set up at the forestry station on the other side of the lake.”
The place had a least ten cabins along with a main lodge, so it was a good place to set something like that up. I pulled out the brief to reread it.
“Money McTiernan is also sending a unit from the agency,” I heard Doc say.
“Copy that,” I muttered without looking up from the brief.
While the previous kidnappings had taken place within the Adirondack Park boundaries, it wasn’t a small area. It encompassed close to six million acres—greater than Yellowstone, the Everglades, Glacier National Park, and Grand Canyon National Park combined, and sixty percent of the park was forested.
The first victim was abducted near Lake Placid. Her body was found over one hundred miles from there. The second was kidnapped near Peck Lake. Her body was discovered in the forest, a five-minute walk from her family’s camp. The third was recovered ten miles from where she was taken.