Arrow's Rest by Joel Scott (best way to read books txt) 📕

watching him and listening to him pretty much the whole time, and I still don’t have the foggiest idea about what his core beliefs are. He always gives his audience exactly what they want to hear, and I know that’s the secret of any successful politician, but he just seems that extra bit slipperier than most. At times it seems he’s almost mocking his followers, but maybe that’s just me. But the man is goddamned hot, I’ll say that much for him. A veritable firecracker. The women were literally fawning over him. I kid you not.”

“Hotter even than me? Surely not! You jest!”

“Stop making me laugh, Jared. I’m spilling my coffee. What time do we have to leave?’

“Sometime around noon. Little bit of a northwesterly filling in, it should be a comfortable sail across. We’ve still got a couple of hours to lay around. Or whatever.”

“Whatever sounds pretty good,” Cat said.

They heard the news halfway back across Georgia Strait. Legalese was a few boat lengths off to port, chugging sedately along, when she suddenly gave two quick blasts on her horn and swung her bow towards them. As she approached, Merlynn appeared on deck and made the universal phone signal. Jared turned on the radiophone and Clarke came on. “Channel seventy-two,” he said. “Low power. Put Danny on.”

“Hey, Clarke, what’s up?”

“It’s Annie. She’s been taken. The station just contacted me.”

Danny and Jared stared at each other in shock. “What do you mean, taken?”

Clarke continued, “She was out shopping with Joseph when they were jumped in the co-op parking lot by three guys in a van. They tried to take Joseph as well, but he knifed one of them. Put him on the ground. They loaded the man up and took off with Annie. A lot of blood — I doubt the guy makes it. Jaimie reported it. He said Joseph called him right after it happened. And now he’s gone as well.”

“Joseph’s gone? Gone where?”

“Jaimie doesn’t know. He figures Joseph must have gone back home in the Subaru and collected Sinbad after the attack, because now the dog has gone missing as well.”

“This makes no sense at all,” Danny said. “What have Joseph and Annie got to do with anything?”

“It has to be connected to everything else,” Clarke replied. “It’s too much of a coincidence for this to be happening right now.”

“They must want something from us. Here’s Jared.”

“When did this all happen?”

“It’s been an hour and a half since the incident in the parking lot. Say an hour since Joseph took off with Sinbad. Where the hell can he be going? Joseph doesn’t have any leads, does he? Something you two forgot to tell me?”

British Properties, Danny mouthed.

Jared nodded. “No, of course not. If we had anything, we’d tell you. I imagine he’s just driving around looking for the van on the off chance. He probably figures it’s better to be doing something rather than just sitting around waiting.”

“I guess. Stay on this channel the rest of the way in, and if I hear anything I’ll let you know. I’m going to head this up myself the minute I get back. You can be damn sure I’ll do everything in my power to find her.”

But the VHF remained silent the rest of the way in. Clarke took off in a waiting squad car as soon as they touched the commercial dock and left Jared and Danny to run Legalese back to the yacht club.

Joseph parked the Subaru on the side of the road five hundred yards away from the house in the British Properties, stepped out, and slipped on a backpack. He opened the driver’s door and put a collar and leash on Sinbad, who growled softly in protest. Joseph walked halfway back towards the house before stopping for a rest. The occasional pedestrian and jogger went by, some of them smiling at the old man with the big ugly dog. He made his slow way along to the driveway with the cement columns that supported the ornate black iron gate and sat down against one of the columns, breathing heavily. A cyclist stopped and offered him water from his flask and Joseph took a small drink and nodded his thanks.

The wrought iron fence was ten feet high with spikes at the top, ornamental but designed to keep intruders out as well. Cameras were positioned on the walls on either side of the gate. The fence that fronted the property ran along the road for three hundred feet before taking a ninety-degree turn and disappearing up and out of sight past the rise of the hill and into the trees. Joseph moved along the road for another two blocks until he came to a vacant lot with a couple of parked cars at the back and a beaten track leading up into the brush. He told Sinbad to stay and walked back to the Subaru and got in and drove it back to where the dog waited and parked it alongside the other vehicles. He removed Sinbad’s collar and leash, stowed them in his packsack, and started up the slope. Another dog walker was coming down the path and moved off to the side when they approached.

“Big mother,” the man muttered as they passed. Joseph nodded and moved steadily upwards, no hesitation in his gait now. A quarter mile on, the path branched and he took the south fork that swung back along the ridge above the gated house. The trail was heavily treed now, mostly cedar and scrub pine with an occasional scabbed arbutus, and it was difficult to see for any distance down the hill. When Joseph judged he had gone far enough along, he left the path and began moving carefully down the slope with Sinbad ranging ahead of him. It was heavy-going through thick bush for the first two hundred yards and then it abruptly opened out into a clearing that led to a rocky bluff with scrubby arbutus scattered about.