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Chapter 15
Corbin gripped the steering wheel so hard he could feel the metal bite into the palms of his hands. There was ice in his belly. Ice that would never melt. He wanted to throw up, rid his body of the weight of the meal he’d just enjoyed, as if that would help clear his head and allow him to think more rationally.
But he knew deep down inside that what was causing the nausea was not the call itself, but the memory of another call, after which he had thrown up. He couldn’t afford to lose it now. Melanie needed him, and Rhys needed him. He had to keep it together, be a man for them both.
Next to him, Melanie hit Send again, yet another frantic text to Rhys that wasn’t coming up as read, just as her dozen calls to him had gone unanswered. She was beginning to hyperventilate, so he took her hand, gently removing the phone from her cold fingers and putting it into the glove box. “Enough,” he said softly.
“I need to keep trying!” Her voice was shrill with panic.
“His phone is off. All you are doing is making yourself feel worse. Zoo security is looking for him, and Zanifa as well. They have sealed the exits. Also, it is a very small zoo. He cannot have gone far.”
“What if he fell into a cage?” she fretted. “What if something… something big… ate him?”
“Nothing has eaten him,” he reassured her. “Your boy is very smart. Very capable. He knows too much about animals to put himself in danger.”
That wasn’t entirely true, he knew. There was one animal that posed infinitely more danger to a child of that age than the kind that walked on four legs. One that was cunning and wily and knew just what to do or say to lure away a young boy.
His mind rushed back to that first morning when he’d stopped to talk to the sweet little kid standing at the end of the driveway. Rhys had been open and smiling and trusting. Way too vulnerable. He wondered guiltily if he was to blame for making Rhys lower his guard. To think that all Frenchmen were as trustworthy as he was.
But that knowledge was too scary, much too worrying. It wasn’t a thought he wished to verbalize, especially not to her. So he said comfortingly, “We’ll be there soon. It’s not that far.”
He was also pushing his car well beyond the speed limit on the highway. He was fortunate enough that he’d spotted no police on that stretch of the road, because he’d certainly have heard sirens behind him if that was the case. And if hidden speed cameras got his license plate in their sights, well, he’d just have to deal with the penalties when the time came.
But she didn’t even seem to be hearing him. Instead, she began twisting a small pendant on a chain around her neck, mumbling to herself. “I shouldn’t have come. I was so selfish, coming here. This was all about me, and now Rhys is paying for it. This was a mistake….”
He was appalled. “How can you say that? Why is this a mistake?”
“If I hadn’t come here,” she insisted, “Rhys would have been home safe. Filling up his summer collecting rocks….”
“Rhys has had the time of his life here in France,” Corbin countered. “He is having an adventure he will never forget.”
Still, she fretted. “I’m a terrible mom. I left my son with a nanny so I could go gadding about—”
“I don’t know what this ‘gadding about’ means,” he said gently, “but you have done no wrong. You have tried to give your son a better life. This is why you are here. To blame yourself, this is wrong.”
She looked as if she had a fresh thought. “Do you think this has to do with the Gaians and the Minions? Like with the statue?”
She was searching for something to pin her hopes on, but to him it was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard. “Dieu, no! Running away with a statue, that is a joke. A college prank. It is of no consequence. But to approach a child—”
As they entered the outskirts of Antibes, he gunned the engine, completely giving up on any thought of monitoring his speed.
Melanie grabbed his hand hard. He could feel her nails digging into his wrists. “Queenie!”
With that one word, he understood. He needed no clarification. “She would know! She’s got his webcam feed.”
Melanie began dialing again, but this time, it was not Rhys’s number. Queenie herself answered; it was her own direct line. Before Melanie could say anything, Queenie said, “I’m ahead of you, Melanie. I already have my IT guys on it. He turned off his camera feed, almost from the moment he stepped into the zoo—”
“Oh, my God!”
“But the device is fitted with GPS. We’ve contacted the sister company of our security firm. They have a base in France. They’ve already dispatched two officers to the zoo; they’ve said that Rhys is definitely still on the compound.”
Next to him, he could feel that Melanie’s relief was as palpable as his own. But he had to ask a question that he knew would terrify her. “Can you tell from your feedback whether he is moving? Or is he stationary?” The implication was clear. If he was on the move, that was a good sign. But if he was not….
They both heard a muffled conversation, probably as Queenie consulted her security man on the other end, and then there was a long, heavy pause. She said slowly, very softly. “Rhys’s tag is stationary. Only Zanifa’s is moving.”
Corbin felt as though he was about to lose his mind. Go completely mad from fear and worry. This was bad—very bad.
Queenie promised to keep in touch, and then hung up. He was overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness when Melanie dissolved into tears beside him. Corbin took her hand and placed it on his thigh, where he could clasp it firmly. He said, with as much conviction as he could insert into his voice, “It will be fine. I promise you. We will do everything—”
