Page 162 of Saving Serena

I willed my foot to kick the creep again, but it wouldn’t move as things dimmed and the darkness sucked me back in.

Duke

Why didthis have to be so difficult? I selected the next Hawaiian resort from the endless list. This one didn’t mention dolphins either. How was I supposed to find Serena’s dream vacation like this? A week in Hawaii and swimming with the dolphins had sounded simple enough.

“What’s up?” Winston’s voice startled me. He leaned over to check my screen. “Nice. You and Serena? You should definitely take her to the big island.”

My sister Alice had told everybody that Serena and I were together again, and this morning everybody had advice for me.

“She wants to swim with the dolphins, and I can’t find a place that offers that.”

“Keep looking,” he said. “You’ll find it. By the way, the boss said he finally got ahold of your buddies, Singleton and March.”

“Yeah?”

“March will be here Wednesday, but Singleton took another assignment.”

One more frogman was better than none. “Thanks.”

“Guys,”Lucas yelled from his office an hour later. “We have a situation.”

Winston and I hustled in, followed by the rest of the team.

“Lloyd,” Lucas said into his speakerphone setup. “Say that again. The whole team’s here now, and Constance is patched in.”

“I just got a ransom call,” Benson said frantically.

My heart stopped.

“He has Serena and her workmate Katelyn.”

My hand balled into a fist. I was going to kill whoever had taken her. “Did you talk to her?” I half yelled.

“No. They said not until I get the money together.”

“He could have drugged them,” Winston said.

I guessed that was meant to make me feel better. “Yeah.” Hope was better than the alternative.

My gut churned as Serena’s father recounted the call and then left the line to arrange for the money—two million dollars.

“What about that tracker necklace you were going to give her?” Terry asked.

I shook my head. “She refused.” I hadn’t insisted, and now that decision had cost me. No, cost us.

Ten minutes later, Constance called back with specifics. “They were due to make a site visit this morning to a company in Reseda. They never arrived.”

I needed hope. “Could they just be running late?”

“Not two hours late,” she replied.

“And, both cellphones went dark at the same time,” Jordy added.

“Constance, you said it was common for government vehicles to have trackers. Is that true of all the EPA cars, and were they driving one?”

“Yeah, but it’ll take time to authorize a trace from this end.”

“I can work around that,” Jordy said as he rushed to his office. None of us asked how he got access to these feeds.

---