That brought her chin up. “I can walk.”
“It’s going to be wet. Slippery in places.”
“I’ll be careful.”
He placed a hand on her arm when she started to rise. “Chloe—I’m sorry this happened to you. You don’t deserve this.”
“Neither do you. So let’s get going.”
His mouth quirked. “Right behind you, General.”
His rare flashes of humor always caught her off guard. With a chuckle, she let him help her to her feet. Resisting an impulse to curse against the pain that shot up from her feet, she fell into step behind Donovan.
Ten steps at a time, she told herself. She would make this journey ten steps at a time.
Chapter Seven
Cold waves of anger poured off the black-haired man behind the desk, seemingly lowering the temperature in the room a good ten degrees. Bryan Falcon didn’t lose his temper very often—but when he did, the people around him usually ducked for cover.
Jason Colby didn’t duck, but he kept his voice as soothing as possible as he completed the report. “We had a possible sighting last night of the van the witness at the diner reported seeing at the same time Donovan and Chloe disappeared. It was reported speeding in north-central Arkansas by a state trooper who lost sight of it after it took a series of sharp turns on twisting side roads. That’s also the general area to which we traced the ransom call. There are dozens of hunting cabins and isolated rural buildings where they could be hiding. If they haven’t moved on, of course.”
Falcon studied his security officer through narrowed, midnight-blue eyes. “We’ll assume for now that they have not. It wouldn’t be easy to take Donovan in the first place, much less to keep moving him around, so we’ll concentrate the search in that area.”
“The St. Francis National Forest covers about a million acres, but I think we can narrow it down more than that. I’ve marked off several search grids, and the teams have already been set into motion.”
“I want them found, Jason.”
“Yes, sir.”
“In the meantime, I’ll keep stalling the callers. They’re supposed to contact me again tomorrow. I asked for twenty-four hours to get the ransom together without arousing media suspicion.”
Jason frowned. “They didn’t argue with you?”
“The guy made a show of blustering and threatening me, but yeah, they gave it to me.”
“Interesting.”
“Exactly what I thought. Why do you think the guy would sound almost relieved about a delay?”
“Problems on their end.”
“Maybe.”
Jason cleared his throat and phrased his next question very carefully. “Is it possible that they’re willing to stall—because something has happened to their hostages?”
The only change in his boss’s expression was the muscle that jumped in his clenched jaw. “Just keep looking for them.”
Because Jason had known Bryan long enough to recognize the genuine pain behind the stern control, he nodded and rose quickly to his feet. “We’ll find them, Bryan.”
Bryan stared at him without really seeing him. “Yes, we’ll find them.”
He would accept no other possibility.
The rain didn’t hold off for long. Donovan and Chloe had been walking maybe an hour when it started again. They ducked under a jutting bluff for cover, but it provided little protection, and both of them got pretty wet. Chloe tried to hide her shivering from Donovan, but she suspected he knew she was cold. He just didn’t mention it because there was nothing he could do about it except keep her moving, which he did as soon as the rain stopped a second time.
She was thirsty again, and so hungry that her stomach rumbled and her head ached. She wanted a cold glass of water; a nice, long shower; a hot meal and a soft bed—in that order. And a toothbrush, she added, running her tongue over her teeth. She’d done her best to rinse her mouth and finger-scrub her teeth at the stream they were following through the forest, but she wanted a toothbrush and her favorite mint-flavored toothpaste.
In a futile attempt to distract herself from her discomfort, she made an effort to concentrate on the beauty of nature—which meant trying to ignore the heavy gray sky crowding down on them. Had there been sunshine, the spring leaves would have been a soft, fresh green. The hills and steep valleys were dotted with dogwoods and redbuds in full bloom. She saw an occasional bird or squirrel, but most of the wildlife seemed to be holed up from the dismal weather.