Chapter 3
LORI
Lori froze on the spot, her heart lurching into her throat like it was trying to escape her chest entirely. Her mind whirled, unable to process what Mitch had just said.
Ryan's kidnapping.
The words echoed in her head, bouncing around like they were trying to find a place to land that made sense.
But nothing made sense. Not Tessa being taken from the park yesterday.
Not Dr. Simons being grabbed from the parking lot of her practice.
And certainly not Ryan, strong, capable, trained Ryan, being snatched right out of his father's house.
"Maybe he went for a run?" The words tumbled from Lori's lips before she could stop them, before her brain could catch up to her mouth and tell it to say something less ridiculous.
Mitch looked at her, and she could see in his eyes that he wanted to believe that. Wanted to grasp onto any explanation that didn't involve his son being taken by the same people who had Tessa and Dr. Simons.
"I don't think he'd leave his phone behind," Mitch said slowly, still holding Ryan's phone in his hand like it was a piece of evidence he couldn't quite process. "And..."
He stopped mid-sentence, his head snapping back toward the house. Then he was moving, rushing back through the front door of Sunrise House with the urgency of a man who'd just remembered something critical.
Lori stood frozen in place, not wanting to move forward and risk contaminating whatever crime scene this had become. Her feet felt rooted to the path, her body refusing to cooperate with her brain's scattered commands.
That's when Misty loped over to her, the German Shepherd's body language completely different from the frantic energy she'd displayed moments ago when chasing after the grey sedan.
Now the dog pressed close to Lori's side and started to growl low in her throat.
It was a quiet sound, barely audible, but Lori could feel the vibration of it through the dog's body.
Lori's heart started to pound harder, her pulse hammering in her ears. Something had put Misty on alert. The dog's hackles weren't raised, but there was a tension in her muscles that made Lori's own body go rigid with fear.
She slowly turned, her eyes scanning Pelican Lane for whatever threat Misty had sensed, half expecting to see the grey sedan returning or a masked figure emerging from the trees.
Then she breathed a sigh of relief so deep it made her lightheaded.
A woman in bright clothes, wearing a cheerful yellow shirt and coral-colored shorts that practically glowed in the morning sunlight, was cycling up from the main road toward the beach.
She wore the biggest sunhat Lori had ever seen, a wide-brimmed straw creation that looked like it belonged at a garden party rather than on a bicycle ride.
"Hello, Chief Ware!" the woman called out, waving enthusiastically as she pedaled closer. "A lovely morning, isn't it?"
Lori recognized her immediately. Clara! The woman seemed to be everywhere she turned these days.
While Lori really wasn’t in the mood for the woman’s overly cheerful conversation, she also couldn’t be rude.
And Lori did feel sorry for Clara, who seemed so lonely here in Nantucket while writing her book.
"Hello, Clara," Lori greeted her, trying to inject some normalcy into her voice despite the chaos of the last few minutes. "Yes, it's going to be a very warm day."
She was about to finally correct Clara, telling her she wasn't Chief Ware, that she was just Carrie's friend staying at Seabird Cottage for the summer. The correction had been building on her tongue for weeks now, and this seemed like as good a time as any to clear up the confusion.
But before she could speak, Mitch barreled out of the house, moving so fast he nearly tripped on the top step.
"His running shoes are still in his—" Mitch stopped abruptly as he reached the second step, his eyes landing on Clara. His entire demeanor shifted, the panic smoothing into something more controlled. "Oh, hello Clara."
"Hi, Mitch!" Clara greeted him cheerfully, her smile bright and genuine as she braked her bicycle to a stop at the edge of the property. "Is Ryan home?"
"What?" Mitch and Lori said in perfect unison, both of them caught off guard by the question.
Lori noticed Misty move even closer to her side, the dog's body pressing against her leg with insistent pressure.
She reached down absently to pat Misty's head, her fingers finding the soft fur behind the dog's ears.
She put the behavior down to Misty being nervous, probably picking up on all the tension radiating from both her and Mitch as they tried to process what had happened to Ryan.
"Uh... no," Mitch said, and Lori could hear the effort it took him to keep his voice steady and casual. "He's gone on an errand for me."
"Oh..." Clara's face fell dramatically, her bright smile dimming like someone had turned down a light switch. "I was hoping to ask him if he would help me with my dinghy later today. I don't like to go out into the ocean alone, and I thought maybe..."
She trailed off, looking hopefully at Mitch as if he might change his answer if she gave him enough time.
"I'm sorry, Clara," Mitch said, walking down the porch steps to stand beside Lori on the path. His proximity was comforting, his solid presence helping to ground her spinning thoughts. "But Ryan doesn't like boats. And he won't be available today."
"Oh!" Clara's eyes widened, and Lori noticed a faint pink color creeping into her cheeks. "Of course. How silly of me." She sighed, and the sound carried clearly across the morning air. Then she muttered, just a little too loudly to be truly private, "Clara, you know he's engaged."
"Sorry, what was that?" Mitch asked, leaning forward slightly as if he hadn't quite caught the words.
But Lori had heard her clearly, and she felt a sudden surge of sympathy for the young woman. She knew what it was like to develop feelings for someone who wasn't available, to have that quiet hope that maybe, just maybe, circumstances might change.
"Ryan has a lot on at the moment," Lori explained gently, trying to soften the rejection without revealing anything about what was actually happening. "I don't sail either, or I'd offer to help."
"I don't sail either," Mitch added quickly, perhaps a bit too quickly. "I'm sorry, Clara. I know that if you go to the sea rescue team in town, someone there might be able to help you. I'm sure they'd be happy to accompany you."
"That's a good idea," Clara said, brightening slightly at the suggestion. But she still looked a little forlorn, her shoulders slumping beneath that enormous sunhat. "When Ryan is back, let him know I stopped by, would you?"
"Sure," Lori said before Mitch could respond, offering what she hoped was a reassuring smile.
They stood there watching as Clara turned her bicycle around and carried on pedaling toward the beach, her bright clothes and oversized hat making her look almost cartoonish against the natural backdrop of sand and seagrass.
"I think she has a crush on Ryan," Lori said once Clara was far enough away that there was no chance of being overheard.
"I got that," Mitch told her, his voice tight with an emotion Lori couldn't quite identify. "And it worries me because she seems to be..."
"A little intense?" Lori added with a tight smile, supplying the word he seemed reluctant to say.
Mitch nodded, then looked down at what he was holding in his hands. Lori followed his gaze and saw Ryan's running shoes—beat-up Nike sneakers that had clearly seen better days.
"So what do we do now?" Lori asked, feeling helpless, frustrated, and terrified all at once.
"We look for clues," Mitch told her, glancing at his wristwatch.
The gesture was so automatic, so familiar, that it made Lori's chest ache.
Normal things in abnormal circumstances always felt surreal.
"We need to get to the park before too many people start to swarm it, so we can get a better look at where Tessa was taken from. "
"So what do we do?" Lori asked, trying to organize the chaos in her mind into some kind of logical plan. "Start there and then come back here?" She glanced around at the scene before them. The open door, the drag marks in the grass, the space where Ryan should be but wasn't.
"I have a better idea," Mitch told her, pulling out his phone and scrolling through his contacts.
"Marcus's contact here on the island, Glory, she's also one of Ryan's friends and has been briefed on the situation.
I'm going to ask her to go to the park while we get the clues here.
" He looked up from his phone, his jaw set with determination.
"I don't want whoever took my son to come back and clean up before we've had a chance to process the scene. "
"What if they already did that at the park?" Lori pointed out, playing devil's advocate even though she hated the implications of her own question.
"It's a chance we had to take," Mitch said grimly.
"Besides, whoever did this—" he gestured vaguely toward the beach where they'd found Elias Dane "—and down at the beach is a little sloppy.
They're leaving evidence behind. That means they're either arrogant, rushed, or not as professional as we might think they are. "
"What can I do?" Lori asked, needing a task, needing to feel useful instead of just standing here, drowning in fear and helplessness.
"I'll start here in the garden," Mitch told her, already moving with purpose as he pulled something from his pocket. "If you can go look in the house for anything that's been disturbed or out of place. You know, anything that seems wrong or different from how it should be."
He pulled out two pairs of latex gloves from his pocket and held one pair out to Lori. "You'll need these. And take pictures with your phone if you find anything. Don't touch anything directly if you can help it."