Martin shoved his hands in his pockets and made his way to the captain, Eddie following behind. To his surprise, Lindsey hurried down the stairs, catching her balance on the captain’s shoulder.
“Have you seen Ama?” she asked. “I can’t find her anywhere.”
“She was on the stage when we first got here. I haven’t seen her since,” Martin said, straining urgency from his voice. Something in Ama’s plan could have gone wrong, very wrong, or this disappearing act could all be part of it. Dammit, Ama.
“Let’s look for her inside,” he suggested. He pulled on the first door within reach and found it locked. “Do you know if any of the doors are open?”
“Just the service entrance, as far as I know,” Lindsey said. “It’s on the far side of the building.”
“Thanks.”
Martin wheeled away from her and hustled across the terrace. He knew walking this fast might draw unwanted attention, but the sense of alarm flooding his bloodstream was overriding his sense of caution. Eddie’s uneven footsteps sounded behind him, and he heard the captain catching up, too.
“We need to get inside,” Martin said. “Eddie, did you check your phone?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Call her,” Martin ordered as they reached the service entrance. They waited outside as Eddie pressed his phone to his ear. The seconds passed maddeningly slow, and finally Eddie shook his head.
“Dammit. Call her again. Keep calling her.” Martin swung the door open and headed inside. Most of the interior doors were locked, save the doors to the bathrooms. He pushed each door open and called inside, but the bathrooms were empty. He jogged the length of the corridor, peering out every window and around each corner. There was no sign of Ama.
He returned to the center window and stared across the parking lot, his eyes following a group of laughing women, desperate for one of them to be Ama. But she wasn’t among them, and immediately he felt the weight of another body on his conscious. He cast his gaze down, sick with himself, and there in the bush bordering the front of the courthouse he spied a little white purse, the kind women carry in their hands, like what his ex-wife would take to parties and then make him hold once she’d had a second drink.
He unlocked the window and lifted it up, then leaned across the sill to retrieve the little purse. Inside were Ama’s wallet and a phone, and on the ground was a black ankle brace.
“Shit,” he hissed under his breath.
“What did you find?” Captain asked.
“It’s Ama’s purse.” He turned to face the other man. “We have a major problem.”
EDDIE Chapter 73 | 6:15 PM, December 9, 2006 | Tarson, Georgia
MARTIN STOPPED TALKING, AND CAPTAIN began roaring. Eddie stood still, his phone still ringing Ama’s.
“Turn that thing off!” Captain shouted, and Eddie snapped back to the present. “Do you have any idea how many random people are here today, how light the security? What were you thinking? We could’ve had plainclothes officers valeting cars or serving drinks. We could have had a picture of his face to every unit in the entire state. What were you thinking?” he repeated.
“I was thinking your department didn’t have those kinds of resources or knowledge of how to do that, and good luck finding a picture of his face,” Martin replied. “I tried.”
“We don’t find Ama tonight, it’s your badge,” the captain said, pointing a finger in his face.
“If we don’t find her, you won’t even have to ask for it. It’ll be on your desk Monday morning.”
“Goddammit, Eddie. You were in on this? How could you, with Hazel potentially at stake here?”
“She’s been at stake for a year, sir,” Eddie answered. “A year in this man’s hands, a man you thought was dead. You thought she ran away, and you thought I’d killed my own daughter.” Eddie’s eyes welled up.
“Martin thought it was you. Martin convinced us it was you, so don’t put this on me.” Captain raked his fingers through his hair. “Christ Almighty. Where do we even start?”
“Tarson Woods,” Eddie said. “That’s where he had her. That’s where he faked his death. That’s where he took them both. That’s not a coincidence. That’s where he feels safest, where it’s quietest in his head. That’s his home.”
“That is also thirty square miles of terrain,” the captain countered.
“Then we better hurry. Make an announcement, see if everyone at the party will help us search. Call every police department you can think of,” Martin said.
“Wait!” Eddie looked at his phone. “I just got a text message, like you said I would.” He showed the screen to Martin. It was a long series of numbers and letters and what looked to be a phone number.
“That’s Ama waving the flag,” Martin said. “I don’t know how much time that means we have, but I do know we don’t have time to call anyone except for whoever that number belongs to.”
Martin took Eddie’s phone, dialed the number, and put the phone on speaker.
“Hot Spot,” a man’s voice answered.
“Do you know Ama Chaplin?” Martin asked.
“She said you’d be calling sometime today. The number she sent to you is a tracking number. There’s an app to read it. I’ll send the link to this phone; then you can see where she is. Any troubles, you call me back.” The line went dead.
“Jesus,” Martin whispered. “That woman is in the wrong line of work.”
AMA Chapter 74 | 6:25 PM, December 9, 2006 | Tarson, Georgia
AMA WATCHED MICHAEL DROP HER necklace to the ground in the little stone hutch, hoping that the broken chain had sent the text message to Eddie’s phone. She hoped they could figure out to call the second set of numbers and that Martin wouldn’t be a complete asshole to Durante. She looked at Michael’s scarred hands and, above all else, hoped she would survive the worst decision she’d ever made in her life.
Michael knelt and trailed his fingers over the ground, rubbing a streak of topsoil between his fingers before standing.
“Why do you drop jewelry here? You left my watch here, too. It has some significance to you,” she asked, partly to slow him down and partly out of genuine curiosity.
“When they opened the factory, my dad and a few of his friends gathered here and they each buried a piece of silver. Apparently someone said their grandmother swore it would bring them money.”
“It didn’t, though. So why continue it?”
“They sacrificed themselves for magic.” Michael’s face turns down, and the corner of his mouth curls in a boyish expression. “My father used to call it that—what they produced at the factory. Magic and money were produced, just not for them. You will produce magic, and it will probably yield money for someone, just not for you.”
Ama masked a shudder as Michael steered her deeper into Tarson Woods. The dark of night and her staggered gait forced every step to be deliberate and slow. She had no idea if she’d been out here for five minutes or five hours, and despite the blinding pain of each movement, Ama felt weightless and adrift, sailing on a steady stream of panic borne adrenaline. Nausea washed hard over her, and she crumpled, trying not to dry heave. Michael hauled her up by her elbow.