The click clack sound o’ the keys in the background reminds me o’ Tavish and the way he always lets his finger fly over the keys, typing faster than I thought possible. Until now. Cato has the same speed and cadence to his typing. He also mutters. I chuckle softly.
Now I ken where the boy picked that habit up.
“All right, if they left by boat… What kind of boat?”
“Definitely not something they want to be on in the open water. It was a smaller boat looked like something a special ops team uses on one o’ those TV shows Tavish watches all the time.”
“So, a Zodiac.”
“If you say so.”
“I do. A Zodiac will get them out into open water, but they’re going to have to meet up with something bigger to get them anywhere else unless, like I suggested, they just went by water to get out of your line of sight. They could follow the coastline to meet a car.”
Mack walks up behind me and says, “If they’re trying to get away without being seen or without Tavish making a scene, then they’re going by boat.”
“Why do you say that?”
“And who the hell are you?”
My voice and Cato’s mingle together as we speak over each other, and Mack answers us both.
“My name is Mack. I have been a friend to that boy since he was born. I helped raise him until his mother died and his father moved them to America. And I say that because I heard Tavish screaming for Draven and begging for help, so I came running.”
“Okay, then help me with where they would meet a boat or ship.”
“I have security feeds here on the estate. Can you hack into them or whatever it is you and Tavish do?”
“Of course, but what are we looking for?”
“A car. Before Tavish was taken, there was a knock at the door. I couldn’t tell who it was, so I locked Tavish in the secret passageway and sneaked out the side o’ the house and around to the front door. The woman, when I confronted her, never said a word. She just stared at me, then she got in the car and drove away.”
“About how long ago?”
“I don’t know, maybe an hour.”
“Okay. Give me a few minutes. I’ll…”
Yet another thing Tavish must have picked up from Cato. They both forget to finish their thoughts and sentences when they get sucked into their screens. I sit waiting and watching my boy’s monitors. After a few minutes, screens start popping up and disappearing. I can hear Cato typing and muttering in the background again. If I closed my eyes, it would be easy to picture Tavish here. They’re so alike in how they work. But it’s not Tavish.
My soul feels lost without him. I dinnae understand how they found us. Samuel disnae ken me. He wouldnae ken, who owns this estate.
Did I make a mistake bringing him to Scotland?
“Okay, I found her. Who is she?”
“I believe it’s my sister Maeve. I thought Graeme Buchanan killed her when he killed my parents, but he faked her death. He used her to pay off some debt to Owen Black. Tavish has been helping me search for her. It’s how we met. He discovered me online and tracked my…umm…digital footprints, I think, is what he called it, and then set a trap so I would think he was part o’ the Order and come after him.”
“I remember that,” Cato murmurs.
“What do ye mean, ye remember that?”
“I worked for the Order when that happened.”
Rage engulfs me. Why, I dinnae ken. I kenned this. He trained Tavish to take his place, which meant he was part o’ the Order. But the casual way he murmured the information pissed me off. Standing up, I walk away from Tavish’s desk toward the sitting area. Once there, I shove my hands in my hair and pace, trying to tamp down all the shit that’s bubbling up in me. Worry for Tavish, despair and grief at losing two people I love, anger at falling for the hoax, confusion and disbelief that Maeve might work with Samuel, and rage that someone could be so nonchalant about the trafficking o’ people but even more so, the trafficking o’ children.
All the thoughts and feelings refuse to be shoved into a box and they explode out o’ me. A bellow, the likes o’ which my Viking and Berserker ancestors would be proud o’, roars through the room, and I swipe at the pictures on Simon’s desk as I pass it. A table and lamp are my next victims. I stalk across the room on my warpath with anguish, intent on flipping the large dining table my grandfather used as a conference table,when a loud, piercing whistle screams through the air, stopping me in my tracks.
Screaming in pain at the sound, I throw my hands over my ears, bending over and curling in on myself. I turn back toward Tavish’s desk, glimpsing Mack out o’ the corner o’ my eye, and he’s in no better shape.
