Chapter 81
Eighty-One
‘Shit, Bryant, it’s there,’ Kim cried as he passed the Shell sign.
He passed the Burger King and Starbucks, heading for the main building. As they neared the line of electric chargers, she spotted the sticker in the rear window of Daniel’s Peugeot. And then she looked closer.
‘What the…?’
Bryant had barely stopped the car before she was out of it, inspecting the dent in the rear bumper and the glass on the ground. She moved around to the front and saw confirmation it was the right car.
Ava’s cuddly toy and a bag of Haribo were on the passenger seat.
Relief flooded through her that they’d caught him, but she’d have been happier if the two of them were still there.
‘Might be inside, guv, swapping details or something,’ Bryant offered.
‘Come on,’ Kim said, sprinting into the building.
Automatically, they separated.
Bryant headed to the toilet block while she searched the eateries and coffee shops. The place was almost deserted, so they wouldn’t be too hard to find.
She tried to keep her breathing even as she moved on to the small grocery store. One elderly man stepped out of her way as she sprinted down the soft drinks’ aisle.
She approached the woman on the till. ‘Have you seen a brown-haired man with a little blonde girl about seven years of age?’
The woman touched her left arm with her right hand. ‘Did she have a false…?’
‘Yes. Where are they?’
‘Dunno. They came in about half an hour ago, bought some sweets and headed out.’
‘And they’ve not been back?’ Kim asked as Bryant joined her.
The woman shook her head.
Kim said nothing as they headed back out through the automatic doors.
What they’d hoped was a badly timed shunt was clearly not the case.
‘We gotta split up, Bryant,’ Kim said, looking around.
‘I’ll go check around the hotel,’ he said, heading over to the Days Inn.
Kim stood and looked at the car for a second. Daniel was a grown man and Ava was no pushover. They couldn’t have gone too far.
She took out her phone as she headed behind the electric car chargers. She shone her torch all around, looking for anything that hinted which way they’d gone.
Following the path around the building, on her right was a fence that held back brittle trees on a slope that dropped down thirty feet towards the road.
The light from the main car park faded away as she entered the service area.
She walked carefully along a column of darkness, using the torch to light the way, stopping occasionally to listen for any sound.
Only the noise of an occasional car passing on the road to her right met her ears.
She paused as she reached the end of the path before turning into a delivery area. A light was triggered by her presence, but it only lit up the roller shutter door.
She was about to continue along the building when she heard something.
She wasn’t even sure it sounded human, but she cast the light around furiously. The phone torch caught something glistening on the ground.
Her heart almost stopped as her eyes followed the trail.
Slumped against the brick pillar, holding his hand over a bloody stomach, was Daniel Reynolds.