I Will Find You(90)

“What do you mean?”

“I’m getting you removed from this case, Max. You don’t belong on it.”

“You’d do that to me?”

“I love you,” Sarah said. “I also love our oaths and our legal system. You’re not seeing straight.”

Her phone buzzed. She answered it. “Jablonski.”

“Burroughs just broke into a home in Connecticut. He held a woman hostage at gunpoint.”

*



What else could I do?

I couldn’t shoot Irene Longley. I couldn’t tie her up. That all looks good on television, but the practicality of it made no sense. I guess if we had more time, we could have taken her phone and locked her in a closet, but she was trying to get us out of the house fast because her boys would be home and so they’d find her and again did I want to leave this poor woman with any more mental scars, not to mention what finding their mother locked in a closet would do to two young boys?

So we begged her not to call the police. We explained as best we could that we were trying to rescue my son. She nodded, but as I’ve now mentioned several times, she was only doing this to placate me. She wasn’t listening. And so we drove fast and hoped for the best.

What else could we do?

The police would find us. It was only a question of time. We debated changing license plates with a car in a lot again or trying to get Hester Crimstein to send us another vehicle or even just taking an Uber. We concluded that any of that would just slow us down.

In the end, the drive from Irene’s house to the Payne estate would be a little over two hours. The police had no idea where we were going. It was best, Rachel and I decided, to go for it.

We were now at the end game. There was no reason to run anymore.

Rachel has given me the wheel now. I am driving over the speed limit but not fast enough for us to get stopped. It is odd to be driving a car after five years. It isn’t like I forgot or anything. The old line about never forgetting how to ride a bike applies to cars too, I guess. But the experience, after spending the last five years in a cage, is strangely invigorating. I am focused solely on finding my son, on rescuing him, on learning the truth about what happened on that horrible night. That was the only reason I wanted to escape. I didn’t care about freedom for myself. But now that I’m out, now that I am tasting what life used to be like, I can’t help but want to be free. I am not saying it was something I took for granted. It just didn’t matter with Matthew gone.

“I don’t understand this,” Rachel says to me. “Why would Matthew be with Hayden Payne?”

I have some theories, but I don’t want to voice them yet.

“Should I call him?” she asks.

“Hayden?”

“Yes.”

“And say what?”

She considers this. “I don’t know.”

“We have to drive up there.”

“And then what, David? They have a gate. They have security.”

“I’ll hide in the back again.”

“Seriously?”

“We can’t tip him off, Rachel.”

“I get that, but I also can’t just show up out of the blue. We don’t even know if Hayden is home.”

In a sense, it doesn’t matter. There is only one direction for us now. The Payne estate in Newport on Easton Bay. If Hayden Payne isn’t there, we park somewhere nearby and hide and wait.

He has my son.

“Maybe we should call the police,” Rachel says.

“And tell them what?”

“That Matthew is alive and we believe Hayden Payne has him.”

“And what do you think the police will do with that information? Issue a warrant on one of the country’s wealthiest families off…off what? That photograph?”

She doesn’t reply.

“And if that boy becomes a threat to the Payne dynasty, do you think they’ll produce him—or do you think they’ll get rid of the evidence?”

I drive, spending too much time looking in my rearview mirror, convinced that any moment I’ll see the flashing lights of a squad car. We are making good time.

“Look at my phone,” I tell Rachel.

“What?”

“I took a screenshot of an old email. Look at it.”

She does. When she puts the phone back down, she asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No time now. We need to focus on this first.”

Rachel and I come up with a plan of sorts as we hit RI-102 South. She picks up her mobile and calls Hayden.

I can hear the phone ringing. My heart is in my throat.

“Rachel?”

His voice. Hayden Payne’s. I hear it and I know. He has my son. He took him from me. I think I even get why now, but none of that matters.

Rachel clears her throat. “Hey, Hayden.”

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“Did you get the photographs I sent you?”

“I did, thank you. That’s why I’m calling. Can I come see you?”

“When?”

“Like, in ten minutes.”

“I’m at the Payne estate.”

“Yeah, I’m just driving into Newport. Can I come by?”