Page 117 of Hot for the Jerk

Emme nodded.“Yeah.Okay.Just a sec.”

A second later, the hydraulic hiss of the door opening broke through the damp air.Myla jumped onto the bus, but I was already racing back to Jagger’s truck.

He caught up to me just as I climbed behind the steering wheel.

“They’re heading to the ferry,” I said.“We can catch them.”

“Move over,” he said, climbing in and shoving me over to the passenger seat.

I didn’t argue with him, since I really wasn’t in any state to drive anyway.We peeled out of there, burning rubber on the wet road.

The truck bumped and bounced along the pothole riddled old island road toward the ferry, and Jagger called one of his brothers.

“What’s going on now?”Wyatt’s voice filled the cab of the truck.

Jagger gave him the cliff notes version of what happened.Wyatt said two of them were on their way to retrieve the kids, while the other two would meet him at the ferry terminal.

I barely noticed the arms waving on the side of the road, or that it was Palmer Figgs, with a cut through his lip and a black eye.But Jagger noticed him and skidded to a stop.

Palmer climbed into the back.“I’m so sorry, Raina.I tried to stop them.”

“Wh-why’d you go with them?”I asked, just as Jagger hit the gas again.

“They made me come with them.Didn’t want me chasing them down in the bus.So they took me far enough away, then dumped me here.”

“It’s okay, Palmer,” Jagger said, gripping the wheel tight enough to make his knuckles turn white.“I’m glad you’re okay.”

“What did they look like?”I asked, already knowing the answer.This had Ozais written all over it.Ozais, and probably Soloman.

“Uh … one guy was really tall.Older.Scraggly brown and gray beard.Pale-blue eyes.”

“Soloman,” I breathed.

“The other … red hair like you.Big guy.Tall too.”He made a shivering noise.“Scary … that’s the only way I can describe him.Like … he’d have no problem gutting me like a fish and leaving me for dead on the road.”

“Ozais,” I whispered, earning a glance from Jagger.“That’s definitely Ozais.”

We reached the big hill that led down to the terminal.The typical line of cars extending up the road, waiting for the next sailing, was back—and oddly comforting.But my stomach bottomed out and fresh horror took hold of my throat when the image of the ferry just pulling away from the terminal came into view.

“No!”I screamed, as Jagger went racing down the hill.“No!”

“He might not be on it,” Palmer said with little hope in his voice.“Maybe … maybe they’re in the line?”

“We don’t even know what they’re driving,” I cried, just as Jagger came to a stop at the bottom of the hill.He leaped out of the truck, barely managing to put it in park, before racing up to the attendant’s counter.

“They’re in a bakery van.White, with a basket of breadsticks on either side,” Palmer said.“I didn’t see it in the line.”

“Go double-check,” I said, before chasing after Jagger.

“They were in a bakery van.Bread—breadstick basket on the side,” I repeated when I reached him.

“Yes, they were one of the last vehicles on,” Brenda, the attendant, said.

“Call the Coast Guard,” Jagger demanded.“And the cops.Tell them a little boy—Marco Aaronson—has been abducted and the kidnappers are on the ferry.”Then he was gone, sprinting down to the dock in the marina.

Gus and Caleb, who we met on Wayman Island and ran their water taxi service, along with Gerry—who had the kidney stones—were just helping a few passengers off the ramp when they saw us run up.

“We need … we need to get to the ferry,” Jagger said.“Now.Raina’s kid is on that.His uncles kidnapped him.”

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