“I’m not looking to get anyone in trouble here.” She needed to know that. “I won’t go to the authorities or your husband’s boss. I work alone and get the job done. Whatever happened to these two, I’ll find out and bring them home.”
He couldn’t bring himself to tell her that might include body bags.
“I would give my life to have him returned.” Her set jaw and determined expression said she meant those words.
“Was Javel happy?” he asked.
Her eyes lit up with fire when she realized what he was asking.
“My boy wouldn’t take off without sending word home,” she stated emphatically. “He has no reason to run away.”
“Has he done this before?” The question had to be asked.
“He’s a good boy. He only goes where we send him. If he could, he would come home. A few days after the last time he slept with us the rains came. They didn’t stop for three days. The storm took my son and never gave him back.” Those last words seemed to drain her energy.
The hurricane?
Daniel had forgotten to check the weather but it would make perfect sense. The kids took off on some adventure, maybe even got lost. Javel would know the area having grown up here. They got stuck and then the rains came. If the two survived those there might not have been a way to get home.
Dread settled over Daniel. Javel would know how to navigate most of those dangers. And yet Mother Nature could punish even the most adept survivalist. Daniel had firsthand knowledge of the perils of underestimating her powers.
“Did Javel have a boat?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“I did,” Isiah said. “Mine’s missing. He took it. I know he did. No one else would take my boat and Javel knew where I kept it. I told him he was free to use it any time.”
A picture emerged. Daniel knew exactly what he had to do.
“What was your son wearing when he left the house to go to work with his father?” Daniel asked.
“His favorite red striped shirt,” she said, drawing horizontal lines on her blouse.
“I’ll be back,” he promised.
He didn’t commit to more than that. He couldn’t in good faith. He wouldn’t give false hope.
But he would bring answers.
Chapter 16
Clara brushed her teeth. She rinsed her mouth, looked into the mirror and saw the outline of a man. She gasped. It took a second to realize that Daniel stood there. He’d slipped in without a sound. “Sorry. You scared the hell out of me.”
She willed her heart to stop racing. The look on his face said he had news.
He brought his hand to her hip and when she turned around to face him, he kissed her.
Surprisingly tender lips brushed against hers before he pressed his forehead to hers.
“What’s wrong? Where’d you go?” she asked.
His silence, like he was taking a moment to breathe in her scent before he shattered her world, brought a sense of foreboding.
“What did you find out?” She rooted her feet to the floor.
He took a step back and held her hand.
“Ashlyn met up with a local boy. A fifteen-year-old by the name of Javel. His mother said he was happy, a good kid.”
Clara leaned her hip against the counter for support. She got the gist of what he was saying. “Are they alive?”
“I don’t know.” He looked at her, through her, with the most piercing brown eyes.
“But they’re together.” He produced a pad that had been tucked behind his back in the waistband of his jeans.
“This is hers,” Clara said, her voice barely a whisper. This was the closest she’d been to Ashlyn in weeks. Her heart jackhammered her ribcage. She caught Daniel’s gaze. “She takes this with her everywhere she goes.”
Clara listened intently as Daniel briefed her on his meeting with Javel’s mother.
“I don’t understand why the boy’s parents wouldn’t come forward,” she said but then she’d seen the abject poverty on the island that lay just beyond the borders of the manicured resort. This place was a dichotomy. So much wealth visited but very little stayed except in the hands of a select few.
“I already contacted a few old acquaintances.” Daniel’s grip tightened around her fingers and the move comforted her. “People are on their way to scour every island within a twenty-mile radius. I hired a boat, which will be at the dock waiting for us by the time we get there.”
Adrenaline surged at the thought of finding Ashlyn.
“We couldn’t get a flight in a couple of weeks ago because of the hurricane. There’s only so much we could learn from watching the weather report. Did Javel’s mother say how bad the storms got?” she asked, letting go of his hand and setting down the sketchpad.
“Bad.”
That word sat heavy on her chest.
“I’ll just be a minute.” Clara was dressed and ready to go in less than five. Triple that and they were boarding the boat.
Hope was a full balloon in her chest.
With every hour spent scanning small uninhabitable islands around the Jamaican coastline the balloon deflated a little.
By nightfall, all the air had been let out. Maybe she was expecting too much, too soon but that burst of hope was all she’d had to cling to in days.
Daniel paid for the boat and made arrangements to go back out the next morning.
When they returned to the suite, the man Daniel described as Isiah paced near the door. His hopeful expression deflated much like the balloon when he got a look at them.
After introductions, Daniel said, “We’ll go back out tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that until we find out what happened. I have a dozen people out there searching. You’re not alone anymore, my friend.”
Daniel patted Isiah’s back and tears leaked from the willowy man’s eyes.
“He’s a good boy,” Isiah said.
“I know,” Daniel reassured.
With those words, Isiah took in a deep breath and wiped his eyes.
At some point, room service was called in and Clara picked at her fish
