“Jude.” I bit down, like I could somehow unsay it. Like I could make the familiar, loopy grin in that photograph any less Jude’s. The picture was old—a year or two at least—but Jude still looked like himself. He’d been unmistakably Jude since he was a kid.

“Silver died.” I wasn’t sure why I was telling Free this now. “Silver is dead, and Ness drugged NATO, and Jude…”

I couldn’t keep talking, but I refused to give in to the haze of shock that threatened to fog my mind. I didn’t have the luxury of losing it right now. There was one thing that mattered and only one thing.

There was a white cloth, nailed to the wall, directly over the circle. I grabbed it and pulled it down, the sound of the ripping fabric jarring the rest of my senses back into play. I lifted the cloth to my nose. A faintly sweet, faintly chemical smell had me jerking it away from my face.

I didn’t recognize the scent. I didn’t have to in order to picture weatherworn hands pressing this cloth over Jude’s face. The fingers on my left hand held tight to the pair of photographs from the envelope, to the map, and I thought back to the moment when I’d found Bella, lying beneath that canopy. I thought about how the child had said that her angel needed her help.

I remembered wondering if Bella had been bait, if I’d fallen into a trap.

Not a trap, I thought, bending at the waist with the force of the realization, the chloroformed rag in my hand. A distraction.

Chapter 52

The FBI confiscated the map, the pictures, and the cloth. The rangers began coordinating transportation to the far end of the park, an expansive ancient forest as different from the mountains as night from day.

We were told, by people who knew what they were doing, that Jude would be returned to us unharmed. That meant nothing to NATO. Jude’s dog was groggy—and inconsolable.

I wasn’t much better.

Inside the main house, Bales immediately started packing. He had an emergency pack half-ready to go, and the crisp, dispassionate way he moved reminded me that he’d been military—either intelligence or special forces. Without a word to the rest of us, he took out his phone, sent a text, and reached into his bag.

Cady caught his arm halfway there. “You’re going after her.”

“The FBI thinks the place Ness marked on that map is an end point,” Bales said gruffly. “I happen to know the woman well enough to know that she wouldn’t give away the game.”

“You think the map is a starting point.” Mac’s eyes were sharp.