Wingo stared at her, the lines in his forehead hardening for a moment and then going lax. “No, I don’t.”
“Our best chance to get Tyler and Kathy back is to find them.”
“How?” barked Wingo. “You have nothing to go on.”
Sean sat down next to him. “I know you’re under incredible stress. I’ve never been a dad so I can’t possibly know what you’re really feeling. But I’m asking you to trust us, Sam. We know what we’re doing. And we will do our best to get them both back. Alive.”
Michelle knelt on Wingo’s other side and said, “The only reason I got into this case was because of Tyler. I could feel something was off with him. I knew how much he missed you, Sam. How much he didn’t want you to be gone. I will do anything, risk my life even, to get him back to you.”
Wingo slowly nodded. “Okay. Okay, I do trust you. Please, just get them back safe.”
They left Wingo in the motel room and climbed into Michelle’s Land Cruiser.
“We promised the man a lot,” said Sean. “And now we need to deliver on that promise.”
“What about Kathy?”
“We said both of them. That means what it means.”
“But if she’s dead?”
“We can only try, Michelle. That’s all we can ever do.”
“Is Edgar our next stop? If he’s been able to track the IP address of Carlton’s source?”
“If he had he would’ve contacted us. It won’t do us any good looking over his shoulder. Geniuses work best alone.”
“What then?”
“We have a lead we haven’t followed up yet.”
“And what would that be?”
“Heron Air Service’s connection to Vista Trading Group.”
“Edgar couldn’t find any dirt.”
“He was just looking at the pixels. We have to get in the dirt to find dirt. The way investigators used to do it.”
“How? We were worried that someone there would recognize us.”
“We do it by stealth.”
“Again, what’s the plan?”
“Conditions on the ground will dictate the plan.”
“Translation—you haven’t thought of a plan yet and you’re buying time until you do.”
He scowled. “Feel free to jump in with one anytime you want.”
She sighed and looked out the window. “We can’t screw this up, Sean. There’s too much at stake.”
“There’s always a lot at stake.”
“I meant with the kids.”
“We’ve been down that road before too. And we didn’t let them die. We found them and brought them home safely.”