Page 43 of Kidnapping of a Myth

“Tracking the signal didn’t work last time,” Henry said with a frustrated glare. “It was a distraction, and Michael almost died. Can’t you do?—”

“Oh my god, it moved.” Wendy lunged forward and jabbed a finger at the screen. “The cage is moving.”

The surrounding officers leaned forward to get a better view, and Bel swallowed her fear as John jerked awake at the movement. His panicked eyes scanned his surroundings, and she had the nagging suspicion this was the first time his cage had moved in the past two days. The Tinker wanted an audience for John’s heightened terror. This performance was for Wendy.

“You’re right.” Barry scrambled for the maps strewn across the marble island. “I think he’s on the water. Pann tried todrown Michael, so it makes sense he would do the same to John. There’s a lake on this estate, correct?”

The kitchen launched into action, the flurry of moving bodies too chaotic for the late hour. Every agent and officer attacked the problem at hand, desperate to save the child’s life. Not a single body remained still except for Bel’s. She stood frozen beside Wendy, the woman’s phone still clutched in her fist, and an uncomfortable nagging burrowed deep into her gut. The FBI was all but ready to storm the lake, but Bel couldn’t ignore the pestering sensation. The clues didn’t fit Pann’s words. Something was wrong.

Bel grabbed Wendy’s finger and swiped it over the screen to unlock the email. It was almost an exact copy of Michael’s message save for one significant difference, and she read the lines again with a growing sense of dread.

“Fly to Neverland,” she whispered.

“What?” Griffin looked at her from his position beside Agent Barry. “What did you say?”

“I want them to fly,” Bel said out loud this time, repeating Pann’s words from their interview. “He’s not at the lake.” She moved closer to the laptop to study the cage’s movements. “See, look at how John’s rocking. It’s too uniform to be caused by waves. He’s swinging because he’s in the air… I think Pann is going to drop him.”

Jameson Barry lunged across the table for the map and shoved it before Wendy. “Where on this property is high enough to drop John?” he asked. “Detective Emerson was right about the other riddle. Is it possible she’s right about this?”

“Um…” Wendy leaned over the map. “There.” She jabbed her finger along the mountain range to the east. “Hiking trails lead to scenic outlooks on these cliffs at the edge of our property. They’re high enough.”

“What do you think?” Agent Barry asked, twisting to meet Bel’s gaze. “How convinced are you that the rocking is because he means to drop John?”

“The second star on the right,” Bel said, shifting Wendy out of the way so she could examine the map. “How did I miss it?” She trailed her fingers along the paper until she located the X that marked where Michael’s cellar sat. “His first email read‘I have your brothers. I took them to the second star on the right and straight toward morning.’He didn’t say he had Michael. He wrote‘them’as in both. The boys were in the same place this entire time. We just didn’t think to look up.”

“And this video means John’s countdown has begun,” Barry said.

Bel opened her mouth, but the violent snap of a metal wire cut her off, the sound emanating from the laptop’s speakers. The cage swung wildly, and John collapsed against the side as if in answer to Barry’s question. Yes, the countdown had begun, but unlike Michael’s trap where they could monitor the increasing flood, the officers and agents had no idea how many cables were holding the Darling boy above the earth. It might be twenty. It might be three, and one had just snapped.

Agent Barry launched into action, ordering his men with efficient commands as they raced against the unknown clock. Henry pulled Wendy out of the chaos, and both Griffin and Barry agreed that a group of agents and deputies should guard the newlyweds.

“Gold will stay,” Bel blurted before she realized she was speaking.

“No, I’m coming with you,” Olivia argued, but Bel ignored her and turned to the sheriff. She didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to. He read the plea in her eyes.

“Gold you’re staying,” Griffin ordered.

“Sheriff—”

“The Darlings need you,” he said in a tone that signaled he was not to be challenged, and Bel grabbed her partner’s hands as their boss moved for the front door.

“Olivia, please,” Bel begged. “Stay here. You’ll be safe.”

“And what about you?” Gold asked, seeing the fear in Bel’s gaze. The warning. “What about you?”

“I’ll see you soon.” Bel pulled her into a hug before racing after Griffin, catching sight of Eamon’s massive form hovering in the shadows. Their eyes locked, and then he silently slipped back into the darkness, not a single officer noticing his movement.

“Agent Barry!” Bel shouted as she caught up with him in the early morning blackness. The sun wouldn’t be up for hours, making this rescue impossible. The Tinker had seen to that. “These traps… Pann doesn’t want them to be survivable. He doesn’t email us the livestreams to help us. He sends them so we can watch the brothers die. The Tinker is a performer. He wants an audience. He wants us to know he’s won. We have no idea what kind of trap we’re walking into.”

“Are you suggesting we sit here and do nothing, Detective Emerson?” Barry asked as he opened his car door.

“No… of course not.” Bel scanned the darkness for Eamon’s hulking shadow, unsure how to warn the FBI that a monster might be the only one capable of saving the boy. “I just want you to know what we’re walking into. Pann wants John to die, and he’ll take out anyone who interferes. His traps have already injured multiple officers and killed two others.” She didn’t add that one had also ripped the flesh from Eamon’s back so brutally that she’d seen his heaving lungs. “We can’t just drive around the property, hoping to find him dangling above the earth.”

“We have two inbound helicopters.” Barry said as he settled into his car. “They plan to attach hooks to the cage and fly it to the ground… what if that’s what Pann meant by hook? Maybe John is swinging from one.”

The FBI foundthree more hidden IEDs as they raced through the trees, but thankfully, the only casualty was the skin on an agent’s arm. He would require stitches, but it wasn’t the outcome the Tinker wanted, and Bel prayed neither would John’s. The agents who’d remained at the mansion had reported that another cable had snapped, the cage swinging out of control as the metal detached, and as the combined forces of the FBI and the Bajka Police Department searched the cliffs, Bel dug her phone out of her pocket and dialed.

“I know you can hear the cables snapping,” she said as soon as he accepted the call. She couldn’t see his truck in the darkness, couldn’t see him among the throng of officers searching the area surrounding the bunker, but she felt his eyes on her as strongly as if his hands were trailing over her skin. “Where’s the sound coming from?”

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