More than a minute passed, and then a block of text popped up: found a possible contact the woman might run to. her stepfather. lives in la area. if she is going there from oregon she would be there anytime now. i have third party people in the city i can send to watch his house and grab her but i would rather you do it. easier that way. go there and watch for her as soon as you have dryden. here is the address.

The message ended with a street address in Thousand Oaks, on Stockton Canyon Drive. Dryden knew the area, roughly.

He stared at the text messages again. Tried to get his head around the situation—all of it, including what had happened here. He found himself thinking in bullet points, an old habit from a time when confusing, fast-moving conditions had been more common in his life.

Someone wanted him abducted.

Whoever that was, they were after a woman, too.

She had to be someone he had a connection to—but who the hell did he know in Oregon? With a stepfather in Thousand Oaks?

He stared into the trees, thinking hard.

Not a single name came to mind.

At the lower edge of his vision, he saw the message-in-progress symbol again.

A new text appeared: can you do it?

Dryden typed a reply: No problem. He clicked SEND.

He turned in place and looked up the sandy slope toward the house. Then he faced the other way, down toward the road below. Downhill would be faster: he could reach the pavement in seconds from here, and sprint up the switchback to his Explorer in probably less than a minute.

It would take no longer than twenty minutes to reach Stockton Canyon—and whatever answers might be there. Whether or not the woman was really going there, the stepfather would know something—the woman’s name, at minimum.

A few answers. Some basic sense of what the hell was going on. He wanted to know that much, at least, before he went to the police and put his life in their hands.

At least there was time to work with—not much, but a little. Whoever was after him—and after the woman—would sit back for now and wait to hear the next update from this phone.

The soft tone of a new text sounded. He looked down.

whats with the caps? you a grammar nazi all the sudden?

Dryden stared at the words. A tight little picture of suspicion, right there in a grey word bubble.

“Shit,” he whispered.

The progress symbol came back. Then the text: what is my dogs name?

“Shit.”

The screen remained static for fifteen seconds. Long enough for the other party to put it all together. To put enough of it together, anyway.

The symbol came back. Briefly. The text that followed was word-for-word what Dryden expected:

who the fuck is this?

CHAPTER FIVE