Page 51 of The Fix
“If that man with Cyrus was being accurate. And truthful.”
“It’s all we have to go on.” Rex didn’t believe the kidnapper had known he was being watched or listened to. If the guy was being untruthful in any way, it was more likely that he was exaggerating the distance and hoping to scare Cyrus into compliance.
She nodded jerkily. He saw the pulse at her throat thrumming steadily. “It’s less than a mile to the ocean from here, so he’s obviously not in that direction.” But that left them three more, and there were cabins everywhere here. Woods everywhere. And the sound of the ocean traveled and curved around the cliffs. Not only that, the one cabin they were looking for might be private property and not listed publicly.
Rex picked up his phone and dialed Joaquin. His friend picked up on the second ring. “Any more luck?”
“Nah, man. I’ve been running this every which way I can. I’m sorry. That’s as close as I can get you without a view of the horizon directly from the location.”
“Hey, you got us here, and we just got confirmation that we’re close. Thank you, Joaquin.”
“I’ll text you if anything more comes up.”
“Thanks again. I mean it.”
Rex fisted his hand on his thigh. He was tempted to punch the windshield but blew out a slow breath as he stretched his fingers. The shattering of glass might feel good for a millisecond, but he’d likely break his hand and scare the hell out of Cami. Rex had never been one to give in to violence when he was frustrated, but damn, he’d never felt quite so helpless, and he’d never had a small, innocent victim counting on him, whether the boy knew it or not.
Still, he refused to give up now.
“Let’s go back to the house. Now that we have confirmation that we’re in the right place, I’m going to start mapping out all the areas where there are cabins.” There were a few maps among the visitor guidesand whatnot in the kitchen drawer, and he’d start with those so they’d have something physical to mark up.
Cami brought her buckle around herself, and Rex pulled away from the curb. As they were turning up the driveway to the house, Rex glanced at the video of Cyrus, his heart giving a jolt when he spotted something out the window. “Holy shit.” He stopped the car in front of the house and shut it off, leaning in to get a better view.Yes. Yes.It was just what he’d thought it was.
“What is that?” Cami asked as she unbuckled herself and leaned in, too, her brow wrinkled as she squinted at the screen.
“It’s a plane contrail. And I might be able to find the cabin’s location from this. Let’s go.” He grabbed the laptop, and they both got out of the car, walking quickly to the front door. Rex handed Cami the computer while he unlocked the house, and then they rushed inside, hope swelling in his chest based on two tiny lines of barely visible vapor.
Rex set the laptop on the kitchen counter and pulled a stool up in front of it while Cami did the same next to him. “Is that like exhaust from a plane?”
“Basically, yes,” he said as he made the video of Cyrus smaller and opened up a browser. The plane that made the contrails was most likely commercial, but not necessarily.
“How is that going to help us find him?” she asked. She sounded dubious, but also excited, her words streaming together.
“Every plane that’s in the air right now, except high-profile aircraft, can be tracked via flight radar.”
“Oh,” she breathed. “Oh my God. You can see that exact one and know its path.”
“Hopefully. Not all planes have transponders that can be detected by radar, but most do.” He opened the site, and the world map came up, small yellow planes covering it, indicating all the flights that were currently in the air.
“Holy shit,” Cami breathed.
The site was currently over Germany, and he let out a frustrated grunt as he figured out how to move the cursor on the screen and zoom in and out.
Cami put her hand on his wrist. “Slow and steady wins the race,” she said, her voice full of calm.
“You’re right,” he said. It only took him several seconds to get the hang of navigating the world map, and then he scrolled to the United States and then homed in on California.
Cami sucked in a breath, bringing her hands to her mouth. “There’s only one,” she said.
“I was hoping that was the case.” He clicked on the plane that was currently flying over Carmel Valley, north of them, and read the available information. It was a Southwest flight heading to San Jose from Santa Ana, and there was a purple line that told him its exact path. “Grab me the pad of paper by the refrigerator, would you?”
Cami jumped up and brought the pad to him, the one he’d been using to list the information he could locate on the cabins in the area in the hope that they’d get lucky with the comic book shop this morning. Half of him had thought he might have just been engaging in an exercise of futility last night, but it’d helped him stay awake, and he was glad as hell he’d done it now.
Not that the cabin was even necessarily on his list. But it might be.
“I just need a few minutes here,” he said, laying out the list of locations within thirty miles from where the shop was.
He was working with a few maybes. But he was also now working with some definites.
