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It was a fast food delivery app that was linked to her computer. And if she activated it, and started the process of ordering food, then the app would find the phone and would start tracking it to get a delivery point.
Now feeling hopeful, Cami activated the app.
There it was!
She could see the pin drop on the screen. She couldn't tell from the map exactly where it was. But she could see it was moving slowly.
Cami took a shot of the pin drop’s location. And then she quickly messaged it to Connor, hoping that he would read it and would be able to work out where Victor was if he’d lost him. Maybe that was the reason why he’d told her to stay here at all.
The pin drop was moving, but slowly, in a vaguely easterly direction. Looking at its slow and erratic progress, Cami was imagining a man moving carefully through the woods, picking his way, choosing his route, and staying very aware of anyone following.
He probably knew these woods like the back of his hand and thought that he would be able to hide out there. He might have hiding places or escape routes in mind. Most definitely, he would not expect someone to be able to track him via his phone at such short notice.
Cami took another screenshot and sent it again. She could see Connor had read the first one. Hopefully, that meant he was en route. She was starting to get hopeful. Victor’s progress was at a snail’s pace. He was really feeling his way through these woods. It all depended on where Connor was, she guessed. Hopefully he was close enough to be able to navigate to that pin drop fast, even given the thickness of the trees and the muddy terrain.
And then, she lost the pin.
It disappeared from the screen and Cami stared in consternation, her heart now accelerating. Had he realized that his phone could be used to locate him and turned it off?
She watched the screen wide-eyed, willing it to come into view again.
And a few moments later, to her utter relief, it appeared once more, a little further east.
The problem was that signal in these woods was patchy. She imagined in the rough, remote, challenging terrain that it would continue to be this erratic.
Now, it blinked off the screen again, and just as she was starting to panic, the icon flickered on the screen again. It had moved far to the east. Much further than she’d guessed. He must have been running. Maybe speeding up had confused the signal. He was back now, but for how long? And he was moving faster. Cami was guessing that he’d now found a track or a path and that he was going to use it as his escape route. And although she didn’t know where Connor was, she knew that he couldn’t have caught up yet.
Now, more than ever, she needed to try to help Connor. If this man had found a path or a trail through the woods that Connor was still casting around for, then he would be getting a serious lead on them. They ran the risk of losing him again… unless she could think of something else.
Cami suddenly had an idea, enlarging the map and taking a look at his direction and examining the terrain intently.
If she could work out where Victor was heading to, it might be possible to direct Connor to a convergence point.
But if she got it wrong, then she would be leading Connor on a wild goose chase through the woods that might mean they lost this man completely.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Victor Tyrone was creepy, super sneaky, and he knew the area. Those were the thoughts uppermost in Cami’s mind as she enlarged the map and took a look at it. The map itself was no more than a series of lines with a pin drop that was moving across them. But technology could help her here.
Working as fast as she could, in the cramped basement office that smelled faintly – and unpleasantly, Cami thought – of the suspect himself, she used her own phone to call up a topographic map of the area, as well as an earth view, one that better showed the forest and the contours, and gave her more of an impression of what was there.
Once that was done, she switched between screens, staring from one to the other, minimizing the map now so that she could look at the surrounding terrain. She plotted his course so far, seeing where he'd run from.
And then, working as fast as she could, Cami looked ahead, assessing what lay in front of him and where he was running to.
The woods got thicker and deeper in the direction he was running, and looking at the topographic lines, she saw that the area became a deep valley. The drop was precipitous. What was he thinking, going into such challenging terrain, she wondered. There was a river running through the steep valley there! An actual river? No way was he going to be jumping into a river in Massachusetts at the end of winter. He’d die of cold within a minute.
And then another thought occurred: what if there was a way through? What if he knew where to find it, and he was heading for it?
She enlarged the map again, peering more closely, looking for what she was now expecting to find.
And, hissing in a victorious breath, she saw it.
There was one roadway that led over this ravine, one place where they must have constructed a bridge. Whether it was made of concrete or wood, she didn’t know, but she could now see that his speedy route was taking him directly toward the bridge. That out-of-the-way crossing was where he planned to get over the ravine. On the other side, the woods thinned and there was a network of roads and buildings. Maybe that was where Victor was hoping to lose his pursuer.
Cami messaged again.
“He’s making for the bridge. It’s here.”
