Edge of Midnight (McClouds & Friends #4)(49)

Sean pre-empted him, before he could start his usual rant.

“So? I’ve gotten off my dumb ass. Happy now?”

Kev’s eyes were haunted, shadowy. “Not yet. Move it faster.”

“Move what faster?” Sean snapped.

Kev’s eyebrow twitched up. “Your dumb ass.”

He lifted his arms. They were bound at the wrist with plasticuffs, so tightly that the plastic had cut deep into his flesh. Blood trickled in long rivulets down his muscular forearms, dripping off his elbows.

Sean woke with a start, knocking over his coffee. He stared around the office. It was lit only with the glow of the X-Ray Specs map grid. Cold coffee dripped onto his lap. He spun the chair back out of range. “Goddamnit, Kev,” he complained. “That was a dirty trick.”

He was shoving beacon paperwork out of the puddle when he saw the flash on the screen. Her icons were moving.

Then they stopped, and Sean stopped mopping coffee, muttering obscenities, feeling sorry for himself. He stopped breathing.

There was no reason for that car to stop. It was fifteen hundred meters from the driveway down to Endicott House. There were no traffic lights on that stretch of road. No crossroads. No driveways. Just an access to a long-abandoned logging track at the bottom of the valley.

The adrenaline in his system jolted up a few notches.

One of the icons detached itself, and began to move away from the others. He grabbed the phone, punched in Davy’s number.

“Sean? What the f*ck?” His brother’s voice was grumpy, but clear. Davy always woke up sharp. A drowsy female voice murmured.

So Davy was sleeping with his wife again. Thank God for small favors. “Get your ass out of bed,” he said brusquely. “I don’t have a Specs monitor mounted in my truck, so you have to spot me.”

“Why? What’s going on? What’s the—”

“The beacons I planted last night. On Liv.” Impatience roughened his voice. “The group stopped on a blind curve on Chaeffer Creek Road. One of them just detached and wandered off into the river canyon.”

Davy considered this. “Could there be a logical explanation for this, other than the conclusion you have obviously leaped to?”

“What? That she stopped in her limo a klom from her daddy’s driveway at four in the morning, and wandered into the woods to take a piss? Get real! Is the computer booting?”

“Yeah, yeah. Calm down. Program’s loading.”

“You ready for the codes? Oh, f*ck me. The icon’s moving faster. She’s in a car, on that old logging road. Maybe the guy has an offroad vehicle. Can you take the code? I’ve got to get off this f*cking phone! I’ve got to move! My cell won’t work until I’m on the other side of the Bluffs.”

“Give it to me,” Davy said tersely.

He recited the code of the icon. “I’ve got a handheld in my kit, but she’ll be out of range by the time I get to Chaeffer Canyon.”

“It’s rough country,” Davy said. “He could go up over Long Prairie, or turn left and head to Orem Lake. OK, I got her. Moving south, at fifteen miles an hour.” He paused. “That, uh, sucks.”

“Right.” He flung the phone down and sprinted out the door for the Jeep. Tires spat gravel as the vehicle bounded over the driveway. “I’m hanging up. Make the calls.”

“What calls?”

“Christ, Davy, do I have to tell you everything? Call her folks, call the cops, call the state troopers, call the goddamn National Guard!”

“Calm down,” Davy soothed. “Do you have to show your hand already? Get to where the rest of the beacons are, see what you find. Make sure you’ve got a genuine situation before you blow this thing completely out of the water. I don’t want to visit you in jail.”

“Who cares if I go to jail?” Sean bellowed. “This is Liv’s life!”

“I care,” Davy said grimly. “God help me, but I do. Hang in there. She’s headed south, if she’s in that car. Call me when you get there.”

This was a hell of a time for his combat cool to desert him. Sean usually snapped into a state of utter calm when bullets started to fly. Not worrying whether he lived or died freed up a guy’s concentration to an amazing extent. But this was way different. Christ, this was Liv.

The only thing that would calm him down would be ripping the steaming guts out of this piece of of dogshit with his own hands.

The road sped beneath his wheels. He screeched to a stop at the canyon road, leaped out. Sprinted along the shoulder.

The sight hit him like a fist in the belly. A black sedan, its crumpled nose crunched against a tree at the bottom of the canyon.

He dove over the edge, slipped and slid down the gravel, struggled through the bushes. He was making guttural, animal noises, seeing Kev’s charred body, flames dancing in twisted black metal, the—

No. He could not wig out yet. Not til he knew the worst.

He reached the car, peered inside.

Empty. Oh, God. No bodies, no blood. Just the contents of Liv’s purse, scattered over the backseat. He started to cry, like a little kid.

He dashed tears away as he punched in Davy’s number, crawling back up the hill with desperate, slip-sliding haste.

“Yeah?” Davy asked. “So?”

He scrambled over the top, leaped into his truck. “Make the calls. Someone pitched the car into the canyon. Liv’s gone. Where’s the icon?”