“I understand. That’s not the issue.” Ben stopped there as if he wanted to reassure Daria there were no open questions about that. “Evan is the one who told me that his people saw it in Owen’s file. Problem is he doesn’t have people. He’s on leave from WITSEC.”

Sylvia closed her eyes. “Unbelievable.”

Connor understood the feeling. He’d bought into that part about the note as well. They all had. It made sense. It tied up their suspicions in a neat way that made them easy to package and handle.

“He planted the note to frame me.” Daria’s voice gained strength as she spoke. By the end she sounded as furious as the rest of them for being duped.

“Possibly,” Ben said.

Jenna snorted. “I’d say definitely.”

They’d all arrived at the same place. Same conclusions and a shared belief Evan was the key to everything. That still didn’t save Maddie and that’s all Connor cared about. “We can run through all of this later. Where do we look now?”

Jenna walked up to the map and pointed out the known areas of access in and out for larger vessels. “We’ve blocked his access off the island but there are still small craft.”

“Where would someone launch one?” Daria asked, fully engaged now.

Jenna sighed. “From any house with a dock. That’s the problem. We live on water. It’s all around us. The only thing that may help us here is the weather. Cold and snow. That makes water travel pretty prohibitive.”

“Son of a bitch.” The boat part. Connor knew that was the answer but hearing it made it real.

Adrenaline pinged around inside him. The need to get out there, yell her name in every corner of the island, swamped him.

“I have everyone—Dom, Captain Rogers, and some others—out on boats watching for that.” Even Ben didn’t sound convinced by his words.

“You can’t blanket the entire island with a few volunteers on boats.” Jenna picked up her cell again. “I can put a plane in the air to give us a better visual.”

Still a long shot. They needed a shortcut. Connor joined her at the map. He scanned the edges, hoping something would jump out at him. Marinas and docks. Older greenhouses that hadn’t been refurbished. Forest land and open tracts.

So many options and none of them good. There were too many places to cover. Too many miles of open water.

He glanced at the least populated piece of the island. The section without any landmarks but one. The black letters jumped out at him. “The prison.”

“What?” Sylvia asked.

Of course. They were doing this backward, looking for loopholes in the obvious places. Evan needed seclusion. And no one knew the secluded parts of the island like Maddie did.