“And if you were in my place and your own child needed you, wouldn’t you be doing the same? Wouldn’t you be doing everything in your power to help them?”

After the events of last night, Kevin didn’t hesitate to say yes.

“Then please, help me. Help me find my son.”

Kevin sat very still, working through the situation in his head. He had to consider his next words carefully. He’d been sent here by Jack to relay news, not to indulge a father’s theories about what might’ve happened to his missing son. But even though this wasn’t his case, he couldn’t deny the merits of the argument, nor could he deny that this was a line of inquiry that needed to be pursued.

“Roger, you should know that I cannot make any promises . . . and I would suggest there’s a very low probability of us being able to find anything this many weeks on. But I’ll speak to the detective in charge, and my captain, and see what I can do. Maybe we can get a small team to take a look at the cliff, and maybe we can get the coast guard to take a look at your map, send a few boats to investigate.”

Roger fell back into his chair, overcome with emotion. “Thank you, Detective. You don’t know what this means.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I’m not the one who has the final say, and I can’t be sure what the answer will be.”

“Just so long as you’ll try.”

“I will.”

As they were shaking hands, a commotion erupted outside.

•••

“Who are you?” the taller of the two brothers sneered at the sight of Amy approaching.

“Doesn’t matter who I am,” she snapped back.

“This your wild beast, is it?”

“No, but I’d like to know what makes you two think you’ve got the right to treat an animal like this? It’s disgusting.”

“Disgusting?” They screwed up their faces and sniggered. “How ’bout you run along. We don’t want you gettin’ hurt.” The horse gave a loud snort and bucked high into the air, slamming its hooves into the wall of the barn.

“The poor thing is terrified!” Amy yelled. “Can’t you see that?”

“Beat it, princess. Leave us to do our work.”

Amy shook her head and boldly took another step forward, wedging herself between the brothers and the horse.

“Are you damn crazy ? Do you want to get yourself killed ?”