“Joe, over here,” Anton barked.
The older man wore a grim expression, and Craig, standing a few feet away with a grid map, mirrored Anton. Joe stepped over to join them.
Craig jabbed a finger south of where they stood. “We have reports of a loud ATV barreling past the shopping center and turning toward the causeway. It’s possible he took them off island.”
Joe didn’t want to believe it. Jekyll Island’s 5,700 acres would be much easier to search than to have to expand out into Georgia and Florida. “Anyone see them go by? Maybe tourists at Dairy Queen?”
“No other eyewitness that I’ve heard about, but I have troopers going door to door and asking.”
Which might or might not do any good. Tourists would be out and about, not lingering around hotel rooms and condos. And there were day trippers who were often gone by now. He fought against the discouragement threatening to swamp him.
They’d find them both, alive and well. They had to.
“It’s already getting dark,” Anton said. “We’re wasting time here. Let’s get out there looking. With all the volunteers we have, we could cover all the roads and search for any ATV we see. We’re burning daylight, people!”
Joe nodded. “My truck can handle unpaved roads. I’ll start up north and make my way down.”
“I’ll go with you,” Anton said. “I don’t have a vehicle, but I’ve got sharp eyes.”
“I’m parked over here.” Joe led the way to his pickup.
Anton had little to say as he craned his neck to look out into the twilight. Joe turned onto the first dirt track, and the truck bounced along the rutted pathway. Here in the shelter of the trees, it was even hard to see through the murky gloom. His headlamps only went so far, and they saw no sign of an ATV or the girls.
Over the next three hours Joe turned the truck into any area that looked passable by ATV, but it was a futile search as nightfall obscured anything more than a few feet from the truck. There wasn’t even moonlight to reveal a track or any movement. The only light he had during the night was a half hour of fireworks going off by Driftwood Beach after dinner.
At one point Genevieve tracked him down, and he handed over the rest of the glass globes even though he thought her timing was poor. Her focus was always the hotel.
The clock on the dash read 11:14 p.m. Joe gripped the wheel with both hands and stifled a groan. His daughter was out there in the black night with a murderer, and Torie could be dead. He couldn’t wrap his head around something so horrible.
Think, man, think.
He knew this island as well as his own skin. Where could someone take them and feel confident they would stay hidden? There were a few remote places inaccessible to tourists, but others were looking there too.
He braked at the main road and pounded the steering wheel with his fists. “We have to find them! Why is this happening?” The last question was flung at God, not Anton.
Joe’d had to watch his wife die in front of his eyes. He couldn’t handle another loss like that.
Anton lowered his window, and the scent of marsh, night air, and mud rushed in. “I thought about what you asked me—about enemies. I wrote down a list of three men who might hate me for their banks failing.” He passed a paper to Joe.
Joe flipped on the light and read it under the dim illumination. None of the names meant anything to him. “Have you contacted any of them?”
“Not yet, but I plan to hire a private investigator to see what they’re up to.”
“You haven’t seen any of them on the island, right?”
“No, I haven’t, but you asked so I wanted to do what I could to help figure this out.”
Joe handed back the useless piece of paper. He supposed Anton felt the need to do something, even if it didn’t illuminate what was going on.
His text notification sounded, and he grabbed his phone while praying it was good news. The message from Craig was short. Nothing here. Any luck on your end?
No, he texted back. What now?
We’re wasting our time looking in the dark. I’m calling the search for now. We’ll start again at daybreak. In the meantime I have a roadblock on the causeway.
Joe’s eyes burned, and a lump formed in his throat. Calling the search? How could they call the search when his daughter and Torie were still missing?
“Was that the state trooper?”
“Yes. They’re abandoning the search until daylight. He’s monitoring traffic on the exit, but if they’re already off island, that won’t do any good.”
“You think he already got away?”
Did he? Joe examined what he knew, then shook his head. “No. This guy is playing a game of some kind, and none of us know the rules. He’s not going to go far enough to miss out on the fun of seeing our reactions.”
Anton’s face was pale in the sickly overhead light. “You think it’s someone we know?”
“I don’t see any other explanation. Someone is yanking our chains and laughing behind our backs.”
“Maybe that means he hasn’t hurt them.”
“I hope that’s true.” Joe bit back the reminder that Torie was already injured. The guy didn’t have to hurt her—he only had to withhold medical care.
But that was something no father wanted to hear. And Joe didn’t either when he already cared about her so much.
* * *
The stench of marsh water came to Torie’s senses first, followed by a child’s soft sobs.
She opened her eyes and blinked in the darkness. The support beneath her was hard and damp. Her head felt like someone had used it for a soccer ball, and her arms and legs throbbed and burned. She ran her bound fingertips over her thighs and felt something matted on the fabric of her pants. Blood? She was lucky she hadn’t broken anything, but her fall had been broken by some branches on the way down.
She struggled to remember what had happened. And who was crying? She blinked and tried to see through the murky depths of the blackness surrounding her.
“W-Who’s there?” Her voice was a whispered quaver.
“Torie, you’re not dead!”
In moments a small hand touched Torie’s cheek. Hailey. It was Hailey. Torie struggled to sit up, and nausea clenched her stomach as the pain in her head became excruciating. She forced bile down. The pain eased back enough for her to try to organize her thoughts and sensations.
“I’m here, honey.” She pressed Hailey’s hand. “Can you help me try to sit up? My head is pounding.”
Hanging on to Hailey’s hand, she managed to get to a seated position. “Where are we?”
“Somewhere in the marsh. The man brought us here on a four-wheeler, but you didn’t wake up.”
Torie’s stomach rebelled again, and she took several deep breaths. “What man? Did you recognize him?”
“He had a bandana over his nose and mouth, and he wore sunglasses. He’s got brown hair.”
Very nonspecific. Torie could think of several men she knew matching that description. She fingered a goose egg on her temple and felt dried blood. All the aches in her arms and legs were likely from tumbling to the ground accompanied by boards and nails.
“Are we in a cabin?” She felt the floor of the space, but it almost seemed to be canvas, which made no sense.