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The guys were getting tired. They had families with small children. He could search until he bled into his lungs—they couldn’t. Still, he knew they would look at him like he was out of his mind if he asked them to go home.
He nearly was.
But had it been Tayler, Xara, Larke, Ari, or Mo, he wouldn’t go home, so he didn’t ask. Even Ant could rest assured they would do everything they could for Val.
His parents called daily, but Josiah and Theo stopped coming to the phone. Eventually, he switched to video chats so his parents could turn the camera in the boys’ direction. They didn’t want to talk, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to see them. Seeing them helped dry his dampened spirits. Seeing them stopped him from bursting open.
“Mår du bra?”
Joel looked down into a round face, blond hair, and dark brown eyes. The boy couldn’t have been more than seven, although Theo’s size often threw off his accuracy. Adrían and Giorgio were nearby, but they gave him space after he started walking toward the shore.
“I’m okay,” he said.
The boy’s eyes lit up. “Oh! You speak English!”
He quickly scanned the nearby area and verified someone was watching the boy. They waved, and he waved back.
“Mister, you look sad.”
He crouched. “I am sad. I miss my friend.”
The boy extended a toy boat. “Want to play with my boat?”
“That is an awesome boat, but I’m getting ready to leave soon.”
“You can show it to your friend when you find them. I will be able to find it. It has a GPS tracker.”
Joel looked from the boat to the boy. “Kid, thank you. You’re a genius. I’ll come back with my son someday and his boat. I’m sure he’d love to play with you.”
He jogged through the park until he found Giorgio and Adrían seated across from each other, a chessboard between them.
“What if he didn’t drive?” he asked.
They looked his way.
“What if he went by boat? The trail went cold at the shore. He could have switched and gotten onto another boat. There are waterways all up and through the search area.”
Giorgio studied a sailboat passing through on the other side of the lake. “To track boat is simple.”
“But we’re assuming he knows that,” Adrían said. “Lavigne’s a killer, not a genius. He knows brute strength, but I’m fairly certain he wouldn’t know kindergarten math.”
Giorgio snorted. “Killer.”
“We’ve been going about this all wrong,” Joel continued. “We’re assuming he knows what the fuck he’s doing. We’re treating him like the fuckers we’re used to dealing with. If Ayesha’s alive,” and he needed her to be, “everything after taking her could be him winging it.”
Giorgio and Adrían left the chess table.
He retrieved his phone and relayed the information to Julien. While they waited, they combed the rest of the area.
Julien called back in less than ten minutes. “We’re too far north,” he said. “I searched police reports for stolen boats. There weren’t many, and I found two that were stolen recently and close to the ‘commune.’ I tracked both boats further south than where we’ve been looking.”
“How?” Joel asked.
“I called the owners. Sometimes, even hacking is as simple as a phone call. The owners had the tracking numbers and were more than willing to help. One of the boats is the one we found. The one he first transported Eesh in. The other docks regularly near Borensberg.”
Joel’s heart knocked against his ribcage.“Docks?”
“As in, it leaves the area and comes back.”
