The thought trailed off, and her heartbeat quickened. Had Gilmont already tracked her here? Elise ran to the fire and doused the embers with dirt. She hadn’t been careless; their smoke hugged the earth beneath the canopy. But their location near the tree line worried her. She and Sammy needed to move deeper into the forest to avoid detection.

“Sammy, hide behind those downed trees,” Elise commanded in a sharp staccato.

“You said we were going to look for pollywogs,” he argued with a mutinous expression.

“Get behind those trees. Now.” Elise pointed, her tone brooking no argument.

While the lad scampered off in the general direction she had indicated, she swung behind the outcropping of rock, her eyes straining through the trees. A small ultralight gyrocopter, carrying two men, flew dangerously low, just above the water’s surface.

A scouting expedition? No one flew at that altitude unless they were searching for a lost hiker—or a woman they planned to kill. Elise sucked in a lungful of cold air and prayed the copter would continue upriver and allow her and Sammy time to secrete themselves in thicker foliage.

She had expected Gilmont by late afternoon. It was the main reason she had fed Sammy now instead of waiting until evening.

“Sammy,” Elise hissed from her position behind the boulder. “Stay hidden.”

The gyrocopter followed the waterway, drawing closer to their location. Elise grabbed their gear, covered her bright hair with her hood, then ran toward a thicket of blooming hawthorn.

Panting, she crouched among the leaves, her heart beating wildly against her ribs, while she prayed that Sammy had found a better place to hide.

Flying low above the River Braun, Gilmont rang Lauren at the CCTV command center. One hundred feet beneath him, a waterfall and foaming pools stood out from the forest.

“Have you located Agent Taylor yet?” Gilmont asked.

“Callie and Joe each came across some campers in the wild, but neither of them was Agent Taylor.”

“What about Richardson and Hicks?”

“Nothing. Just the typical hillwalkers. The wind has kept public numbers to a minimum this morning.” Lauren cleared her throat. “It’s probably nothing, but a sedan left the Hermitage lot yesterday afternoon and didn’t reappear on CCTV cameras for forty minutes. When it rejoined the A9, it was much farther north than I had anticipated.”

“Which means?” Gilmont rolled his eyes. Lauren often had difficulty getting to the point.

“The car must have taken a dirt track before they reentered the carriageway near Calvine. Since that vehicle exited the Hermitage fifteen minutes after Agent Taylor entered the lot, it occurred to me that the driver might have given her a lift.”

“Did you get the plate number?”

“Yes. I have a name and address.”

“Excellent. Send Hicks over there to get the particulars. Tell him no holds barred. I need answers.”