Page 32 of The Deadly Shallows

Gabby wrapped her hand around the doorframe to the open security booth where Noah sat. “Her car is definitely still there. I didn’t touch them, but her keys and a coffee cup are tossed about under her car.”

Turning to Felix Cruz, the security guard, he said, “Call 911. Explain we have a missing person and that CGIS is on-site. We need a full manhunt. Police Commissioner Brick can call Special Agent Noah Rowley’s cell if there are any questions.”

Felix nodded and did so.

Noah speed-dialed Em, each ring feeling like a lifetime.

EIGHTEEN

In rapid fashion, Noah’s team—minus Caleb and Finn—arrived at the hospital, where security had aided in setting up a command center in the west conference wing. He needed to be able to coordinate the search, and he wasn’t wasting time discharging himself or heading to the station. With no hospital events occurring, they had the wing to themselves.

“Em got ahold of Finn and Caleb,” Gabby said. “And I just spoke to Finn. They’re on the way.”

“Thank you,” Noah said, trying to stall the fear biting at him. He’d never experienced fear on a rescue before. But it’d never been the woman he loved missing. “I’ve set up a grid. We have DOT scanning all the traffic cams in the area, and Wilmington PD and the local FBI field office have put out a BOLO on the white van.”

“What about the plate number?” she asked as Rissi and Mason raced around the corner.

“Bogus.”

“We’ll get her back,” Rissi said with the same tone of confidence he’d used, but fear had its claws in deep. What if . . . ?

He couldn’t go there. They’d get her back. They had to.

“Take her out to the boat,” the man with the gravelly baritone voice said, the man who’d been hurting her for what seemed like an eternity, until, unable to endure the pain any longer, she’d finally given up the word—“Gator!”

The one named Saul—the only name they’d used thus far—had cussed, and a hush fell over the room, and the pain inflicted finally eased. Clearly gator meant something to them. They’d pressed to see if she knew what it meant—did they know the meaning or didn’t they?—but she couldn’t give them something she didn’t know.

Wherever they were smelled old, like her grandma’s cellar. And the odor of brackish water and fish swept in on the cold wind that whistled through whatever walls or windows surrounded her.

She took a shaky inhale, her cuts stinging.

A man with calloused fingers unfastened the bonds around her wrists, and the instant her raw flesh met the air, she fought back a cry. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. They may kill her, but she knew where she was going and did not fear death. But Noah . . .

She closed her eyes despite the blindfold and pictured his ruggedly handsome face, the sound of his voice with the slightest hint of a Southern drawl, the strength in his touch, the tenderness in his actions.

“Let’s go,” the man she recognized as Saul said, as he reached under her armpits from behind and hauled her to her feet.

Her legs weak, she prayed, Lord, I know you are with me. Flood me with your presence.

“Go with him,” the man with the gravelly voice said to someone else in the room.

“All right.”

“I’ve got this, Dw . . .” Saul froze, his grip tightening on her flesh.

So the gravelly-voiced man’s name started with Dw. She’d hang on to that information if she survived this, which she’d fight for with all her might. She’d learned on rescues that the people who survived were the people who never gave up, no matter how surmounting the odds.

“I said”—the gravelly voice deepened to a frightening register that sent cold fingers clawing down her chest—“he’s going with you.”

Saul dragged her toward the draft, her feet tripping over some debris on the floor. After cussing her out, Saul hauled her tightly against him. He smelled of harsh liquor and . . . grape?

A door creaked open, and Saul pulled her through it. Cold assaulted her.

“I’ll grab the boat. You get her in,” the second man said.

Stepping forward, she tumbled, her jaw colliding with the harsh edge of something hard smarting her swollen cheek. The surface beneath her bobbed, and the sound of oars against rippling water pushed them off from shore.

“Why did he have to send you?” Saul said to the man.