AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Two
Rafferty
––––––––
HONOR IS NO LONGERon the island.
We tracked her footsteps to the beach, where they vanished, and since none of our boats are missing, we can only conclude that someone has taken her.
That someone must be her stepfather.
Asher is standing in the middle of the room like stone, his fists clenched at his sides. His eyes aren’t even focused on anything. He’s lost inside his own head, probably picturing himself tearing the man who has taken Honor limb from limb. I know he’s blaming himself for not disguising his search on Honor’s real name properly, and so allowing her stepfather to find her, but it’s not going to help her, or any of us, if he loses his shit.
He needs to focus that rage on something useful rather than turning it in on himself.
“Asher, get online,” I tell him. “Do your thing. Find out everything you can about this man and where he might have taken Honor.”
Brody speaks. “He’ll have to dock the boat somewhere, most likely on the mainland. If we’ve caught the boat on camera as they leave, we’ll get an idea what direction he’s headed, at least.”
I nod in agreement. “Good thinking.”
I know we all just want to take off, to chase this asshole down and tear Honor out of his arms, but we’d be chasing our tails without doing the groundwork first.
Brody sits with his knuckles pressed to his lips. He’s torturing himself, too.
I guess each of us is. It’s just that some of us have more reason to than others.
“This wasn’t your fault,” I tell him. “You couldn’t know she was going to get lost or that this stepfather of hers was going to track her down.”
Brody’s lips pinch tight. “I shouldn’t have done it. I was jealous. What kind of fucking pussy gets jealous of a girl?” He shakes his head. “I scared her. I frightened her on purpose. I wanted to try to make her leave. This is my fault.” He punches himself in the temple and knots his fingers in his hair. “Fuck. I’m a piece of shit. You should kick me off the island. It’s what I deserve.”
I stand in front of him and lean down to clasp his shoulder. “Brody, fucking stop it. If you want to make things right, then stop beating yourself up and do something practical to help find her.”
He lifts his head to look at me, and I witness pain swirling in his eyes.
“Like what? She’s gone. Just vanished into thin air.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it. No one just vanishes. Whoever has taken her will have left a trail. The only way they could have gotten to the island is by boat, a seaplane, or a chopper. We’d have heard a seaplane or helicopter, so that only leaves a boat. They might have somehow hacked into our security system and killed the cameras on that coast, but that doesn’t mean we won’t have caught them on another camera.”
Asher is sitting at the computer now, but he glances over his shoulder at us. “Rafferty is right.”
Of course I am. “We know who this man is,” I continue. “We know his name, his job. I bet we can even find out his home address and what kind of porn he likes to beat off to, if we put our minds to it.”
Brody’s tongue swipes across his lower lip. “Yeah, but will we find all that out before he does something to Honor?”
Wilder growls—actually growls like an animal. “If he lays a single fucking finger on her, I’ll cut his balls off and shove them down his throat.”
We’re all left with that mental image, and none of us disagrees with him.
“While Asher is finding out what he can online,” I say, “the rest of us need to get on the security footage from the last few hours and see what we can spot. Two cameras were out, but there are plenty of others we can check. Anything might be of help.”
I can tell it’s not what they want to be doing, but Brody and Wilder set themselves up to go back over the footage. I join them.
It’s slow, monotonous work, and every minute that goes by puts more distance between Honor and us. We’re not men who are good with sitting silently, when what we really want is to be moving and using our fists, but it’s necessary.
Twenty minutes pass, and Wilder thumps his fist on the console.
