Page 61 of Operation Rescue
“We’ve got something. Two somethings, in fact.” Rafe’s voice was sharp, as if he were on alert. “I’m on my way to you, ETA fifteen. Then we rendezvous with Walker and Cutter. Be ready.”
“Copy,” Blaine said, almost reflexively.
The phone went silent. He looked at Erin, who was staring at him. “Well, that was…abrupt,” she said.
“This is something,” he said, his own voice tense. He rolled out of bed, his dreamed scenario of a joint shower and a revisiting of the joyous union that had clearly never faltered despite it all shoved back for now.
In fact, he was relieved—in fact downright grateful—that there was no time for discussion, no time to obsess about what had happened last night. No time for her to say she regretted it now, the morning after.
And she thinks she’s a coward?
He, of course, knew better. Erin was many, many things but a coward she was not. A coward wouldn’t have stuck it out when he’d been in such bad shape. Which was why he’d never understood why she’d left, after the fact, after fighting through the worst.
He’d almost forgotten how efficient she could be, under pressure. But she showed it now, when she beat him getting washed up and dressed, and had coffee ready to boot. Just as Rafe pulled into her driveway they exchanged a look, one he guessed they both knew said this was temporary, this time of setting themselves aside for the sake of their son.
“You know the park off the Ortega Highway just east of the freeway?” were Rafe’s first words. When Blaine nodded, Rafe gestured at the driver’s seat and walked around to the other side. Erin didn’t protest, but Rafe spoke as if she had. “Dark tinted windows in the back,” he explained. “I’ll update you on the way.”
Blaine pulled out of the driveway, wondering how Erin must feel knowing that she was possibly a hindrance to their search that needed to be hidden, because they had to assume Ethan was still angry at her.
But she didn’t react, other than to quietly take a back seat. When he glanced at her before he turned back to face front after clearing the driveway, he saw her slender jaw was set, and knew that she’d do whatever it took to get Ethan back home safely.
“Walker picked up something late last night, cruising his target area. He thinks it’s solid, so we’re going to meet up with him at that park. But in the meantime Ty came up with something. From the message boards in one of Ethan’s games, that Ty also happens to play.”
“I thought those were private,” Erin said.
Rafe’s mouth quirked. “Frankly, I don’t think anything online is safely private when Ty goes after it. But he found a couple of exchanges, with different people but locals to here. All about a place they called Caspers.”
Blaine shot a look at Erin. She knew the place as well as he did. As kids they’d spent a lot of time in the big, regional park, hiking, and more than once camping out, to pretend they were on a vacation far from home.
“You know it,” Rafe said.
“Yes,” Blaine confirmed. “We’ve…spent some time there.”
“Big, from what I could find,” Rafe said.
“Eight thousand acres big,” Erin confirmed.
“Lots of places to hide?”
“Lots,” Blaine said, his mouth twisting sourly.
“But it’s November, so the trees will be mostly bare. They won’t provide as much cover as the rest of the year,” Erin pointed out.
Rafe nodded, looking thoughtful, as if an idea had come to him, but he didn’t say anything.
A few minutes later Blaine pulled the car into the small parking area at one end of the park. He hadn’t been to the long, narrow greenbelt-style community park just off the Ortega Highway in a long time, but he remembered how to get there. It was, he noted, on the inland side of the freeway from the convenience store in the robbery video. He appreciated the choice of a residential neighborhood, blocks away from the main drag, making it a bit less likely they’d be noticed.
The Foxworth phone signaled again. It was a different sound than the ring of a call, but memories of last night still flooded his brain, and he almost wished this hadn’t come up, so he could have made love to her yet again. They had, after all, two years to make up for. But it was not the time, and this was the Foxworth phone and so could not be ignored.
Blaine pushed the flood of memories from last night out of his mind—and again resisted looking back at Erin in the back seat—when he saw the vehicle Walker had been driving, a slightly older version of the Foxworth one they were in, parked near the farthest boundary of the greenbelt. He realized the phone notification must have been a signal.
“Up close?” he asked Rafe.
The man nodded. “It’ll be quick. Don’t even get out.”
Walker had Cutter out on the grass on a leash, and Blaine heard the dog let out a low bark of greeting as they pulled up. Rafe rolled down his window as the second Foxworth man walked over to the passenger side door. And again he didn’t waste time on niceties.
“You should have an envelope somewhere in the glove box.”
