The Soldier and the Princess

Chapter ten

Silas

TheJeepbouncedover the rough road, rattling and clanging as Hawthorn drove us farther into the forest. In the more than two hours since we had left the airstrip, we hadn’t said much, but he seemed just fine with my silence.

I appreciated that.

I had, however, checked in with Hack regularly, even if he had nothing good to tell me.

Daphne’s phone had gone dark over two hours ago, and he hadn’t been able to get a decent location on her before it did. The best he could do was get us close, and that was gonna have to be good enough.

But, I’d been close before. Close was dangerous. Close allowed you to see your goal and not always reach it.

My mind tumbled into the past, back to the dusty sands of the middle east, where I had had only one job, one responsibility, and I had failed.

I refused to fail this time.

“You’re gonna get her back,” Hawthorn said, his voice breaking into my dark thoughts and dragging me back to the moment.

“I know,” I answered, forcing all the confidence I could manage into the words. “There’s no other option.”

“You got any idea who took her?”

“Not a single clue,” I said, shaking my head. “Her family’s loaded, so the possibilities are endless.”

“You thinking this is a ransom thing?” he questioned reasonably.

“I would have thought so, but so far there has been no word from anyone looking for money, so that idea is getting less and less likely.”

“Don’t be so sure,” he stated. “A buddy of mine, he got into private security when he left the service. Following rich kids to private school and house parties and shit. He said that when people grabbed those kids, they sometimes went days before they reached out to the family. Something about them counting on the panic to drive the parents into paying faster, asking less questions.”

I scowled, watching the trees go past and thinking about all the innocent people that were put in harm’s way because of who their parents were. What their parents had. Kids didn’t deserve to be used as pawns like that.

It was bullshit.

“How many of those kids were recovered?” I asked after a minute.

Hawthorn paused, his silence deafening before he finally answered, “All of them.”

Turning my head, I looked at his profile as he drove. “How many of them were recovered alive?”

I watched him swallow thickly. “Most of them.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Neither of us spoke again for a long time.

Hack had given me the coordinates to the last cell tower that Daphne had pinged off of, half-way up the mountain in the middle of a wilderness reserve. It was the best I could have hoped for under the circumstances, but I still hated how little information I had to go on. As we neared the location of the tower, Hawthorn slowed, crawling along the road until we reached a locked gate.

“What the fuck?” he murmured, shifting into park and climbing out. Grabbing one of the pistols he’d provided me with earlier, I followed quickly.

“Are these gates supposed to be locked?” I asked.

“I mean, they can be, for things like weather warnings and fire season. But I didn’t see anything about that when we drove in. It’s usually noted at the main park entrance.”

Eying the gates, I considered his words.

“So what you’re saying is this is suspicious as fuck?”

“Yup.”

Raising my hand, I aimed the gun at the padlock on the gate, prepared to blow the lock off and clear the way, but Hawthorn reached out and grabbed my wrist.

“Easy there, Rambo. I got some tools in the Jeep. Hang on a sec.”

I waited impatiently as he rounded the back, then opened a box and headed back toward me, bolt cutters in hand.

“You need those often?” I asked, giving him a look.

“I’m a man who likes to be prepared.”

I watched as he snipped the lock off, the chain clattering to the ground. I gathered the pieces and swung the gate open, waiting until Hawthorn had driven through before closing the gate and wrapping the chain around it again. The lock was cut, but I weaved it through the links as best as I could to make it look as though we had never been there.

Then we were back in the Jeep, driving much slower than I was comfortable with, but the road had deteriorated quickly, becoming nothing more than a dirt track filled with ruts and rocks. The sun was just sinking behind the trees; close as we still were to the solstice, there would be light for a couple more hours yet. But not enough.

Not nearly enough.

I would search all night if I had to, but the farther we drove along the access road, the more I came to realize just how huge this wilderness area really was. The sign at the turnoff from the highway said it was over thirteen thousand acres.

How in the hell was I gonna find one woman in all that?

As Hawthorn slowed down, I noticed we were nearing a parking area, the signs labeling it the Alder Lake Parking Area. Checking my phone, I could see we were likely as close as we were going to get to the coordinates for the last cell tower Daphne pinged off of.

Pulling the Jeep into the lot, Hawthorn parked well away from the road, trying to ensure the vehicle wasn’t readily seen by anyone driving past.

As soon as the Jeep was in park, I climbed out, leaning the seat forward to grab the pack he’d provided me with. I was slinging it around my shoulders when I noticed Hawthorn coming around the side, his own pack in place.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“There’s a lot of ground to cover out here, brother. It would go a lot faster if we covered it together.”

For a moment I couldn’t speak, my words frozen in my throat as I considered the fact that this total stranger was about to put his life on hold to help me out.

To help her.