Dusk (Dangerous Web #1) - Aleatha Romig Page 0,26

world, but no one was getting close.

“I’m going to bed,” Laurel said as she entered the room, her long sweater wrapped around her body, covering her long pants, top, and nearly down to her sock-covered feet.

“We’ll get this secure tomorrow,” Mason reassured her.

“I really thought it was the lemonade.”

“Whatever they added to the ventilation system worked fast,” Patrick said.

“But Madeline...” Laurel began.

Patrick shrugged. “She was tired, as she suspected. According to the information Reid recovered, Maddie was already up in our room before the knockout gas agent was activated.”

Laurel shook her head. “I wish I hadn’t left the other two in the kitchen.”

Sparrow looked up from the maps he’d been studying. “Don’t do that, Laurel.”

“I just...” She let her words trail away.

He stood tall and stretched his shoulders and neck. “Go to bed. We need your help tomorrow in determining the agent that was used. The canister is bagged. If you’d been in the kitchen, you wouldn’t be here to help us now.”

Her blue eyes veered to her husband. From my angle I couldn’t read their unspoken message. If I were to guess, it would be survivor’s remorse. Laurel didn’t need to bear that. Lorna and Araneae would survive this. I couldn’t allow myself to think otherwise.

Mason wrapped his arm around his wife’s waist and laid a kiss on the top of her hair. “I don’t know when—”

Laurel shook her head. “Do whatever you need to do.” She turned toward the rest of us. “All of you, do what you do. I’m sorry my work is cluttering the table in the office. I’ll clean it up tomorrow and take it upstairs. As for now, Madeline is asleep, and I’m going upstairs. No one will disturb you.”

Sparrow and I nodded while Patrick added his good nights to Mason’s.

Once Laurel was gone, Sparrow spoke, his focus back on our discoveries. “We know the helicopter headed west.”

“Based on the size of the landing skids,” Mason began, “we’re looking at the possibility that the chopper could fly roughly three to four hundred miles on a full tank.”

“There’s no reason to think the tank was full. It flew here,” Patrick replied.

“But we don’t know from where,” Mason added. “It could have refueled as close as Bozeman before coming here. Reid is running a program to check the closest fueling stations.”

“Or on your property,” Patrick countered. “If the kidnappers weren’t working alone, one man with a pickup truck and cans of fuel could refuel a helicopter.” He took a deep breath. “This is all theoretically sound, but logistically, there are too many variables.”

It was our ongoing conversation. An idea would come and three would counter. We weren’t arguing as much as brainstorming, narrowing possibilities, and eliminating the improbable.

I looked up from the laptop where I was currently working. “No flight plans were filed anywhere with coordinates that come close to your property.” Before anyone could respond, I added, “I didn’t expect there to be, but I had to check.”

Mason went to the open window and looked out into the growing darkness. “According to the FAA, private planes or helicopters flying under eighteen thousand feet don’t require a flight plan.” He tilted his chin toward the cooling darkness. “Even the highest peaks are under that range.”

“Right,” I said, “yet a helicopter landed.” I gave it a second thought. “What are the chances anyone noticed?”

“High,” Mason said. “A low-flying helicopter would be an oddity. Yet, none of the ranch hands saw it. Sparrow and I questioned every one of them. They’d been repairing fences in pasture seven, northeast of here.”

“And no one heard or saw a fucking thing,” Sparrow said.

None of the ranch hands had, but Lindsey Dorgan and her eight-year-old son did. They’d been tending some newly acquired horses a few pastures over. Her son heard the helicopter first. Neither of them realized it had landed, but we had the confirmation we needed. Then the information I found on the security video made it official.

Sparrow tilted his chin toward the table. “I want to see a broader map. I want to know every dwelling within a three-hundred-mile radius of this house.”

I began to type upon the keyboard. As the search engine spun, my nerves grew taut. “I need faster fucking service.”

Everyone’s eyes turned my direction.

“It’s all right, Reid,” Patrick said. “We have a fuck more questions than answers.”

“We know they were taken,” I said, waiting for the program to load, “around one o’clock, nearly twelve hours ago. The colorless, odorless agent, commonly referred to as knockout gas,