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His phone buzzed in his pocket and Nico had it out and to his ear in one quick move.
“Hello, boss.” It was Tyrell.
“Tell me you got her,” Nico growled.
“We got her,” Tyrell said, not hiding the triumph in his voice.
“Where?” Nico demanded.
“On the Murchison Highway. Looks like she’s heading to Cradle Mountain or down to Strahan. But the second option is an awfully long way to go. If she’s headed to Strahan, she won’t get there till well after dark,” Tyrell said.
Nico was already gearing up, pulling his helmet over his head, and pushing the start key on his bike. “Keep talking,” Nico instructed. “I’m just switching over to my helmet mic. I’m going after her on my motorcycle. I want a cruiser in the vicinity. Ready to respond to my call.”
“Right, boss. I’ll also alert Strahan police, let them know a vehicle of interest might be heading in their direction.”
“Thanks.” Nico sat astride the motorcycle and kicked it off the stand, putting it into gear and taking off in a spurt of gravel down the driveway. He’d have to ride like a bat out of hell to catch up with Lacey. The turn off to Cradle Mountain was over an hour and a half ride away by car—but more like forty-five minutes with the way he planned to ride—and he had no idea what time she’d actually left his house. He was praying for later rather than sooner. It’d been an hour already since Dorothy had reported Smudge running around the streets. Was that around the same time Lacey had left his house? Or had she been gone for hours, and it was only then that Smudge escaped? He wished he knew.
Tyrell’s voice sounded tinny inside his ear through the helmet earpiece. “It was Sally-Ann who found her. She came up with the idea. There’re a couple of web cameras situated around the mountainous areas. Mostly used to predict the weather, and show if roads are passable. But you can also see traffic on certain roads. That’s how we spotted her.”
“She deserves five stars,” Nico said. “How will we know if the van takes the turn to go to Cradle Mountain or continues onto Strahan?” he asked, opening the throttle now he was on the outskirts of the town and kicking his motorcycle into high gear.
“We’re pulling up all web cams and CCTV in the vicinity. I’ll let you know as soon as we do,” Tyrell reported.
“Thanks. Talk to you soon.” Nico hit the button on the side of his helmet to end the call and settled into riding like he’d never ridden before.
Tyrell called back half an hour later, just as Nico was beginning to worry. He was coming up to the turnoff to Cradle Mountain soon and needed a direction. Tyrell reported there were fewer cameras to choose from in that area, but the Kombi had finally been spotted on the road up to the mountain. The time stamp on the web cam when the Kombi had trundled past had been half an hour ago.
“Oh, and, boss,” Tyrell said just as Nico was about to end the call.
“Yep.”
“We found Dr. DuPont’s car. It was parked in a little rest area around two blocks from your house. Partially concealed behind a copse of bushes.”
“I knew it.” Nico rang off without saying goodbye, increasing his speed, and ignoring the freezing wind creeping in down his neck and up his wrists through the small gap in his leathers. Gabe was involved.
The road was practically deserted as Nico roared up the inclines and around the sweeping curves. Low rolling hills, filled with agricultural land and pastures, gave way to steeper gradient and dense temperate rainforest as he crossed into the national park.
Where the hell was the van? Dave had given the vehicle a clean bill of health after he’d fixed the fuel pump, but Nico was hoping something, anything, might break down on that old Kombi. He knew he was wishing for miracles, but right now, he’d take anything. The sun was almost touching the horizon behind him, and long, cold shadows reached across the road, almost like grasping fingers hoping to drag him off his motorcycle.
He came to the top of a tall ridgeline, noting the mountains proper appearing in the distance over the rise. As he hit the summit and then zoomed down the other side, he caught something out of the corner of his eye. There was a dirt road with a sign pointing to a lookout point above, but he was already winding his way down the other side of the rocky bluff, the open road in front, with not a vehicle in sight. Nico slowed and then came to a stop on the side of the road. Something tugged at the edges of his mind. A flash of something on the trees as he’d passed that small turn off. A color that didn’t blend in with the dark-green trees of the forest, or the chocolate-brown of the damp earth.
A flash of tan and white.
Dotti.
Nico did a skidding U-turn and took off back up the road. Slowing as he came to the turnoff, he bumped and jerked through the potholes, all the time peering intently through his visor for that telltale color that’d give the Kombi van away. The lookout was a few hundred feet in from the road, following the ridgeline up and to the right. He broached the final rise, and the trail opened up into a clearing, with a spectacular view back over the land he’d just ridden through. Back toward the ocean and the setting sun. The edge of the lookout ended in an abrupt drop-off, several signs warning of the danger of the cliff. Two wooden benches were placed strategically to take in the vista below. It was spectacular, and Nico wondered why he’d never been here before; he’d passed by many times without stopping.
Nico put the motorcycle onto its stand and stepped off it, ripping his helmet from his head at the same time. It took him a few precious seconds to process the scene in front of him.
He’d been right; there was Dotti, her boxy body and tan-and-white paint job gleaming in the last of the sun’s rays in the middle of the clearing. A parking area was off to the left, a small, white sedan parked up in the far left-hand corner. The sedan looked empty. The whole area was ringed in dense forest, effectively hiding the spot from the road.
But something was wrong.
His attention was pulled back to the van. It was rolling toward the edge. Gathering speed. Heading toward the gap between the two bench seats. What was happening? Was Lacey inside? Was she intentionally driving it over the edge of a cliff? His mind struggled to comprehend what was going on even as he ran toward the vehicle.
Then someone stepped out of the passenger side door, stumbled a few steps and then turned to watch the van as it picked up speed.
“Gabe?”
