She places her hands around his ankles and wiggles them. “How about this?”
“Yes,” says Alex impatiently. “I’m fine!”
Amy looks over at Damon. “I think your dad’s okay. He’s just shaken up.”
Alex looks at Lucas and Tyne. “How long have you two …”
“We’re not sure,” says Lucas. “We think we were here for a week before the guy brought Damon down.”
“What about your research trip? Your department head told me—”
“We never left,” says Amy. “Never made the plane.”
“Do you mind telling me where you were going?” asks Alex.
Tyne glances at Lucas, clearly not sure if she should speak.
“Gambia,” says Lucas. “We’re investigating the slave trade to North Carolina in the mid-1700s. We think it was more extensive than previously reported.”
“Gambia was one of the main ports of embarkation,” says Tyne.
Lucas nods. “We’re looking for the names of ship captains, manifests, and the names of North Carolina traders and slaveholders.”
No wonder Reuben Chase wanted to keep this research underwraps. “I can understand why your department head was so secretive.”
“Roots can get really tangled when you go back that far,” says Lucas. “But we’re just looking for the truth.”
“Right,” says Tyne. “But Chase also wants to be sure that nothing we uncover will embarrass the state or the university. Or the donors.”
“So what happened to you?” asks Alex.
Lucas answers. “We went hiking in the reserve the day before we were scheduled to leave. We spotted a huge Confederate flag through the trees and decided to investigate. But someone must’ve come up behind us and knocked us out when we got close to the fence.”
“When we came to,” says Tyne, “we were down here.”
“You’re lucky you weren’t blown to bits,” says Alex. “Brophy’s got the whole place mined. He’s stuck in his own little paramilitary world and seems to think the Confederacy was on the right side of history.”
Damon leans in close, his hands on Alex’s shoulders. “Dad, does he know about Melissa?”
“What do you mean?”
Damon’s voice is pinched and anxious. “He must’ve checked my socials once he knew my name.” Alex sees a flash of fear cross Damon’s face. “When he came down here earlier, that guy told me my girlfriend and I would be reunited soon. And for good.”
CHAPTER 100
Sampson
IT TOOK ME ANOTHER half an hour to pry myself out of Gina Maine’s house.
It wasn’t easy.
When the supervising sergeant first arrived, he was just as suspicious as Officer Neal was. It took an encrypted call to Ned Mahoney at home to convince the sergeant that I knew what I was talking about and that we had a serious fugitive situation on our hands. Two fugitive situations, counting J. T. Polermo. Both men armed and dangerous.
By the time Neal put out the APB for Polermo’s truck, the Virginia State Police had already found it. It was abandoned near a water tower in Stratford, about halfway back to DC. No sign of Aiden Phillips. No weapons in the vehicle. Just some bloodstains on the driver’s seat.
Either Phillips is on foot or he’s found alternate transportation—probably by stealing a vehicle. We know that he’s highly trained and heavily armed.
He could also be bleeding to death.
