Alan cut his eyes at her. “Let me? Michelle, that’s my daughter out there!”
“No!” she shouted. “Lauren Jane is our daughter, yours and mine! And for the record, while you were gone for fifteen months, she’s been my daughter, solely my responsibility. I’ve been the one losing sleep and killing myself striving to figure her out, only to just now learn what the two of you had going on behind my back. For God’s sake, Alan, do you honestly think that I don’t feel the same as you right now? This isn’t a first for me. All I want is to find her myself, hold her and…stop her…keep her from doing something stupid and throwing her life away!” She paused, exhaled, and fought back tears. “But I know my limitations. I know what I’m capable of, what I can and cannot do, and I know this is far beyond me. And it’s beyond you, too!”
Alan looked upon her, floored and bemused. His lips parted, but he said nothing.
“I’m sorry,” Michelle continued. “I’m sorry if it hurts you to hear me say that, but by God, as much as you both might believe yourselves to be, you and Lauren are not superhuman! You…are a father and a husband. And she’s barely more than a child. And neither of you can be replaced.” A pause. “We just got you back. I don’t know how, but we did—and that is precisely why you aren’t going anywhere. Plant yourself in our house and root your feet to the floor, because I will not go through that again, Alan!”
Michelle strolled passionately away and squared off with Dave Graham. “Forgive me ahead of time for being out of line. I realize we’ve only just met and we don’t know a thing about each other, but I am officially tasking you with this. I don’t care what it takes, but go out there and find my daughter, and bring her home.” She exhaled. “Please.”
Dave met the searing glare being sent his way with one of his own. His lips pursed and he straightened. “Yes, ma’am.”
Michelle almost fainted at the response, her tone becoming a whimper. “I’m sorry…I’m sorry for being so…brash. I know you don’t take orders from me and—”
The veteran held up a hand. “We’ll handle it. Nothing more needs to be said. Only, I must politely disagree with your call to rule out Alan’s involvement. As sure as I’m standing here, it’s my belief that if anyone in the world has a chance of talking her off that ledge, it’s going to be her father. I’ll leave you with that to mull over.” He pivoted. “Tang?”
Woo Tang stood at attention, tapping his right boot on the ground in response.
“Janey is AWOL, and your guardian angel orders remain in place. Locate and escort her safely back to the reservation.”
“On it.”
Jade hustled to pursue. “I’m going with him.” She shared a look with Alan and Michelle. “And I won’t come back unless she’s with me.”
With teary eyes, Alan nodded his approval. He thanked Dave and Woo Tang, then said, “Jade…I don’t know how to thank you.”
“You don’t have to. I’m not doing this for you.”
Chapter 42
Woo Tang navigated the DHS SUV through the Wolf Gap barricade and down the meandering stretch of road on the east side of the mountain. In the passenger seat riding copilot, Jade worked to recommission the tracking system Christian had deactivated. After reconnecting the antenna coax and rewiring the power cabling, the touchscreen’s backlit display emitted a blank, featureless glow. Before long, a map layer appeared, followed by a triangular symbol in the center indicating the vehicle’s location and direction of travel.
Given that two vehicles had been at the camp where Lauren had found him and the girls, it was thus estimated at least two others would be sited at the previous camp, for a total of four. Their own blip counting as one, Jade went about panning the map to search for signs of the other three, knowing any one of them could provide clues as to Lauren’s whereabouts. “Damn, she’s good.”
Woo Tang glanced her way, at the touchscreen console, and back to the road ahead, but said nothing.
“According to this thing, there’s only one other truck out there within a fifty-mile radius,” Jade explained. “She must’ve disabled the others, and either hasn’t done so yet to this one, or she’s going crafty on us and employing it as a decoy.” She regarded her companion. “Did you teach her that?”
“Not that I recall,” replied Woo Tang. “Is our current path of travel suitable?”
“It looks that way. Keep an eye out for a road up ahead on the left.”
“And is our mark stationary? Or in motion?”
Jade tapped the other icon visible on the screen and a drop-down box of information displayed the vehicle’s latitude, longitude, heading and speed, the latter value being zero. “Static, for now, anyway. That could change, though, if she sees us coming for her.” From a hip pocket, she pulled out a black Sharpie marker, rolled up her sleeve and scribbled the coordinates on her forearm, catching another sideways glance from the former SEAL. She shrugged. “Just in case.”
Woo Tang only scarcely nodded his head.
Jade’s attention veered to the rows of trees coursing past. “How do you want to go about this? I’ll defer to you, given your history with her.”
“I propose we get close, but not too close, and wait for darkness of night to set in before we move on her,” he began. “I am confident Lauren Russell will be disinclined to make any attempts of her own until then.”
“How confident?”
“Very close to being certain.”
“I see,” said Jade. “And did you teach her that?”
Woo Tang almost grinned. “Undeniably. At twilight, we will disembark and continue on foot from opposing flanks
