Page 94 of Five

“He’s looking for a Wendy for his lost boys,” Cope injects. “That’s why he took a little girl.”

“And he’s messing with Neve because she’s the one who thwarted him,” Remi adds. I nod. It was the same conclusion I had drawn, making a horrifying kind of sense.

“We need to let Oz know,” Oliver says. His gaze is faintly accusatory as it lands on me. “This is a huge piece of the puzzle.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I know I should’ve said something earlier, but I kept hoping it wasn’t real. That I was reading too much into everything because of my past.”

“No.” Oliver shakes his head decisively. “It all fits too well, unfortunately. The only thing that’s missing is a rash of current abductions of male children. We need to get Oz looking for those. If he didn’t have his lost boys already, he wouldn’t need a Wendy.”

I shiver, and Jesse’s arms tighten around me. “Not going there,” he murmurs into my hair. “Not until we have to. Understand?”

I nod again.

“I think the first plan of attack is to meet with Oz and decide how we can be of the greatest assistance,” Remi says. “I’ll pack us up some lunch that we can eat on the go, and we’ll head out in thirty. Agreed?”

At our murmured assent, Remi strides into the kitchen.

“Let’s take Sharon,” Cope suggests. “It’s the biggest boat. We can all go in one.”

We agree, and Cope heads out to get it ready while Oliver, Jesse, and I continue to sort through what we know.

“So, yesterday’s fiasco…what the hell was he trying to achieve?” Oliver asks no one in particular. “It was the middle of the day…it’s not like he was really going to be able to snatch Neve in broad daylight.”

“Obvious. His hiding spot for the girl must have been compromised. He was trying to move before the search caught up to him,” Jesse says.

“If that’s the case, he’s bound to have stashed the girl somewhere close by,” I add. “We can look for real estate…abandoned buildings, places for sale, short-term leases…things like that.”

“I’ll get Oz to start looking now,” Oliver agrees, pulling his phone from his back pocket. He tries to call, but the line is busy, so he taps out a text asking for a property search.

By the time we climb aboard Sharon and make the trip over to the big island, I’m significantly more at ease than I was before I revealed my secret. There’s no reason, between the six of us, that we can’t tackle these addresses and find that little girl.

Oliver peers at me intently as we approach the island. “Where’s your head?”

I frown over at him. “I’m fine, Oliver.”

“Don’t feed me any bullshit, Neve. I know better.”

I can see the ghosts of our shared trauma in his eyes, his own so much bigger than mine. We can’t help but be drawn back to those awful days, to connect to a time, twenty years before, when the island had search parties like this. A time when the names of little ones were shouted by caring strangers, when doors were knocked upon, and people came out en masse to find the lost.

Everyone suffered during those days. Everyone hoped, and prayed, and mourned when the children never came home.

I lay my palm against his cheek.

“I’ll be fine. I’ll worry about all of that later,” I promise. “After we find her.”

Twenty-Five

Neve

Mood:it’sgettinghotin here…in more ways than one.

It’s mid-morning when we reach the big marina, disembark, and begin walking to the parking lot. The morning’s warmth promises a steamy afternoon, and I’m glad I dressed for it in a light cotton sundress and comfortable walking sandals.

“I’m thinking we need to just get to work instead of tracking Oz down,” Jesse says as we approach his Mustang. “You know he’s never going to go for this, not after yesterday.”

Oliver frowns, pausing at the door to his own vehicle with his hand on the door handle. “I’m not comfortable with that.”

Cope shrugs a shoulder. “We’ll still tell him later. Hell, we already sent the message to him telling him to look for specific properties for us, so it’s not like he doesn’t know it’s on the to-do list. We’re just getting a head start.”