Page 64 of Into the Storm

“Do you think he would contact you in that situation?”

“I’d like to think so, but if all comms are down for the exercise, perhaps he wasn’t able to.”

The whole situation made Undine uneasy. It didn’t feel right. She wrapped her arms around herself as if to ward off the chill. Luke stepped to her side and draped an arm around her shoulders, then pressed his lips to her temple.

He didn’t offer false words of comfort, and she appreciated that. Right now, there was little they could do and they knew even less.

To Jae, he said, “We’ll go through channels right now, but if we don’t hear from Audrey by four p.m., I want to go with you into the park to search for her.”

Jae gave a sharp nod. “I hate waiting that long, but I also don’t want to overreact, and this could be nothing. There’s also the issue that the gate lock was changed. My master key doesn’t work.”

Luke frowned. “Then how did Audrey get into the park?”

Jae shrugged. “My best guess is she entered before the lock was changed. Maybe both the park gate and the inholding gate weren’t changed until the last minute. But the problem there is—the Navy wasn’t authorized to change the park gate’s lock.”

“Have you asked the park superintendent about that?”

“I left a voicemail for Jim this morning. I didn’t tell him about Audrey, though—he stood by her after Xavier’s allegations, but if he thinks she went into the park to disrupt the training, she could be fired.”

Luke swore. “Glad I didn’t use her name in my conversation with Captain Barrett, but it’s bound to come out—sooner rather than later—that we’re looking for Audrey and not some other random park employee.”

Jae nodded. “I’ll talk to Jim face-to-face and give him the full context when I ask for the gate key. There’s no way the Navy could change the lock without giving the superintendent a key.”

“Is it possible, do you think, that Audrey got stuck on the wrong side of the gate after the lock was changed? Maybe she had to return to the lodge because she couldn’t get out?”

“I’ve considered it,” Jae said. “But in that situation, she would have called from the gate. Cell service works fine there, and she could have called Jim to ask to be let out.”

“Not if she was afraid of being fired,” Undine said.

“Yeah, but I’m pretty sure she would have called me. I have pull with Xavier and a good working relationship with Jim. And she had the excuse of the broken cameras. I want this to be simple, but the more I analyze it, the more worried I get.”

“Right now, it sounds like our best hope is she’s safe in the lodge with Xavier, and he’s protecting her with silence,” Undine said.

It was strange to hope Audrey was with Xavier, but Undine had to consider that maybe, just maybe, Xavier Rivera wasn’t a complete prick. It was possible he’d gone silent because he was protecting Audrey from getting fired.