Page 111 of I Will Find You
“Still, my man. Props to you.”
“Yeah,” the other goon says, speaking for the first time. “Props.”
“Thank you” doesn’t seem the appropriate response, so I say nothing. We board the same plane and take the same seats. I check the incoming texts, all from Rachel, of course, getting progressively more panicky.
I text back: I’m fine. Sorry. Waylaid.
The dots start dancing. Learn anything important?
To Rachel’s credit, she hadn’t wasted time asking for a full recap or even where I’d been. Still focused.
I text: Hilde Winslow won’t lead us to Matthew.
Dead end?
More or less, yeah.
I wait for the plane to take off and get high enough for the Wi-Fi to kick in. I look behind me. My escorts are both wearing headphones and watching their phones. I call Rachel.
“What’s all that noise?” Rachel asks. “I can barely hear you.”
“I’m on a plane.”
“Wait, what?”
There is no way to continue without giving her some details, so I give her the nonthreatening sketch recap of what happened since I left her in Revere.
“How about you?” I ask when I’m done. “Anything new on your end?”
Silence—and for a moment I think that the call has dropped.
“I may have a lead,” she says. “You remember my old friend Hayden Payne?”
It takes me a few moments to place the name. “The rich guy who had the big crush on you?” And then I see it: “Oh wait. His family is involved in those corporations, right?”
“Owns them. All part of the Payne group.”
I think about that. “Another can’t-be-a-coincidence.”
“What do you mean?”
But I don’t want to derail her. “What about Hayden?”
“They had a corporate event at Six Flags. That’s where that photo was taken. I asked him to get me all the photos taken that day.”
“Can we also get a list of attendees?”
“I guess I can ask, but he said it would be in the thousands.”
“It’s a place to start.”
“It might be, yeah. Also the company didn’t rent out the whole park. Matthew could have been with someone else.”
“Still worth a try.”
“I know.”
“What else?” I ask her.
