Hunt shook his head and looked at the family across the way holding each other and crying together. “No. It was a missing hiker who looked a lot like Angela.”
The Harmons sagged with relief. Mr. Harmon wrapped an arm around his wife and kissed her on the head. “Thank God.”
Hunt eyed the man.
Mr. Harmon caught himself. “I just meant . . .”
Hunt got it. “You’re relieved it wasn’t Angela. But she’s still missing and Cyn is still waiting and your son is nowhere to be found.”
Mr. Harmon and his wife exchanged a look that spoke volumes without words.
“Do you know where he is?” Hunt asked, getting a bad feeling about Cyn taking off the way she did.
Her words rang in his head.I’m sorry. I have to go.
Damnit, she’d promised him she wouldn’t go off half-cocked and run into trouble.
“Where is she going?” he asked the couple, who stood there looking unsure and uneasy.
Mr. Harmon sighed. “We don’t know if he’s there or not, but we think he could be on his grandfather’s property, though my dad says he hasn’t seen him at all.”
“Where?” Hunt typed the information into his phone and ran for his car. He tore out of the recreational parking lot, hit the main road and pushed the gas pedal to the floor.
He was just about to call Cyn when his phone rang and the caller ID lit up with her name. “Damnit, Cyn, are you okay?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
“You promised me you wouldn’t do something reckless like this.”
“I said I’d let you know if I did. I was out of my head. I need to find him and make him tell me where they are. I can’t do that again, Hunt.” Meaning look at another body.
“I get that, sweetheart, and I’m sorry you had to. But you need to pull over and wait for me to catch up to youbefore you go to that isolated property alone and confront Rad if he’s there.”
“Too late. I just found the outbuilding his parents told me about. It’s old. Weathered. Just a shack, really. I think I see his truck’s taillights just behind the building.”
“Cyn, please, back out of there and wait until I reach you.”
“Oh, shit. I’m sorry, Hunt.”
The last thing he heard was a gunshot.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Cyn caught the movement in the rearview mirror, looked in it, spotted Rad behind her car, gun raised, and grabbed the door handle and pushed the door open just as the shot rang out. She fell to the ground, scrambled up and ran around to the front of the car as another shot pinged off the front fender.
He was coming after her.
Her only hope was to run into the trees. She sprinted for them as fast as she could and heard his footfalls behind her, catching up. He fired again. She ducked and scrambled sideways, dodging trees and brush and rocks.
Another shot rang out and a fiery pain cut across her upper arm as bits of wood splintered off a nearby tree. Her foot caught on a root or stone and she went down hard, her hands sliding on the dirt.
Rad came up behind her, flipped her over, then stood above her, the gun pointed at her chest.
She glared up at him. “Where’s my sister?”
“You’re so close,” he taunted. “But you’ll never know.” He pulled the trigger.
She expected the impact. The pain. The end.