"Maurice Fardy. Do you know where he is?" she asked sternly.

  "No idea," the man growled, still tugging at the hair that was caught.

  May glanced at Owen, who had walked over to help him. Together, they worked to free his head.

  "What's he done to get himself in trouble?" the man muttered, now sounding embarrassed.

  "We need to speak to him regarding recent serious crimes," May said, as evenly as possible.

  "Look, I don't know where he is," the man said. "And I don't see what business it is of yours. You guy all think that . . . that smoking weed is like, the end of the world. It's just an innocent pastime, man. You need to get with the modern world and make it legal. But as for Maurice, he keeps to himself. You know, he doesn't stay here much anymore? He's building a new community, something different, and it'll be far away from any police radar."

  Now that was interesting, and his words piqued May's interest even more. So, Maurice was planning a second community? This definitely linked to the fact that he was taking women. Perhaps having hostages or captives formed part of his plan.

  "Which one is his RV?" May said again.

  They had now managed to free his hair, and she caught the direction of his glance clearly. He looked over toward the far right of the campsite. His eyes gave away what his mouth wasn't telling.

  "So, he's there?" May asked.

  At that moment, she jumped as a clattering, screaming sound filled the air.

  It was coming from the far right of the campsite, and it took her only a moment to realize what it was.

  It was a big ATV starting up, its engine clattering in the night.

  In another instant, May made the connection. This quad must belong to Maurice. Word had gotten around the campsite, far faster than they'd been able to.

  Maurice had realized they were here, and now he was making his getaway.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  As the grinding roar of the ATV's engine filled the air, May and Owen rushed across the campsite in the direction of the sound. There were startled cries from the people sitting around the blazing fire as May raced past, her footsteps tramping hard in the damp soil.

  On the far side of the campsite, she saw a caravan that she guessed must be Maurice's. It was painted in camouflage, a jumble of greens, browns, and grays.

  And beyond it, she could now pick up the reek of diesel from a powerful ATV engine.

  May rushed past the caravan, in time to see the ATV—also painted in camo—spin a tight circle so that it was heading on a track into the woods.

  In the dim light, she couldn't see the rider's face clearly, but he had bushy red hair and was wearing a gray jacket and trendily ripped jeans.

  May sprinted as fast as she could toward that bike. She had a chance, just one chance to get close, because its tires were stuck and spinning in the mud.

  "Maurice Fardy! Stop! Police! We need to speak to you!"

  She made a desperate grab for the back of it, clinging to the back of it with one hand and to the driver's jacket with the other. But it wasn't enough to stop him.

  With a manic laugh, Maurice revved the engine and sent the ATV careening along the muddy track.

  May was hurtled along with it, the speed of the bike slewing her sideways, one foot still dragging behind in the dirt.

  She was in a precarious, dangerous position now. This man was making a run for it. Trapped in place, with a death grip on his jacket and on the back of the ATV, she knew she could hurt herself badly if she fell off, especially since he was going faster with every moment that passed.

  The only option was to cling on for her life as the muddy, rocky ground raced by, and hope that she was somehow able to survive this wild ride and manage to slow things down.

  "Stop!" May yelled again. The ATV veered and skidded as Maurice drove it down the track. She was starting to realize that this man was seriously out of his mind. He was as high as a kite. He didn't even seem to fully realize that May was trapped in a perilous position on the back of the vehicle.

  The roar of the engine drowned everything out except Maurice's screams of glee. He tore along the track, bouncing over rocks and tree roots.

  The ATV was lurching from side to side, and bouncing up and down, and as she tried to cling on with a death grip, May knew she was coming dangerously close to being thrown off the back.

  But then the ATV veered from the track and into the undergrowth, crashing through the thick shrubs, knocking them aside, slewing crazily as Maurice tried to get away.

  "Come along for the ride!" he shouted. "Come along for the ride. We're all going to enjoy it!"

  "Stop it!" she shouted, hanging on now by one hand, the other clutching his jacket. She needed to wrench his arm off the handlebar, she realized. If she could overcome the drag of her own weight pulling her backward, perhaps she'd be able to do that. It was her only hope. She had to get his hand off the throttle, because otherwise, he was so high, so out of his mind, that they might both end up seriously hurt.

  The ATV bounced over a large rock and became briefly airborne. May’s foot slipped and her stomach tensed as she thought this was it, she was going to fall. Then she found purchase again, and so did the ATV. With a slither of wheels, May realized that he'd found another track, this one leading even deeper into the woods. But this track was straight and long. If she didn't act now—right now—he was going to be able to accelerate to a dangerous speed on this stretch.

  May dragged herself forward with all the strength she had, and as the ATV's wheels dug in, she wrenched the man's arm hard to the right, digging her fingers in, doing her utmost to pry his grip away from the throttle.

  The first thing that happened was that the handlebars jerked around, and the bike veered sharply right. Now May saw, to her horror, they were on a collision course with a large, solid tree. Its trunk loomed ahead, looking spooky and silver in the glare of the headlights.

  Would the ATV be smashed to pieces? Would they both be thrown into the tree?

  Knowing there were only moments before this wild ride ended in disaster, May decided she just had to try harder. She hauled Maurice's arm back with every ounce of strength she had, ripping at it with all her force as the tree loomed ahead.

  She had no idea whether this would be enough, but it was all she had time for now, the only possible action she could still try. They might still end up crashing into the tree. Their speed was terrifying.

  Wrestling as hard as she could, throwing her full weight against it, she did it. With a breathless cry, May wrenched at the man's arm so hard that she pulled it off the handlebar.

  With a jerk and a buck, the ATV stalled, its speed bleeding out so that it touched the tree trunk with the smallest possible bump.

  May was shaking all over, but this was not the time to relax. As quickly as she could, she grabbed Maurice's other arm and began wrestling his hands behind him.

  "What the hell are you doing?" he shouted, struggling madly so that one of his arms pulled free, and she had to make another grab for it. At the same time, she realized, he was laughing wildly.

  "You're under arrest!" she said. "You're coming in with us to the police department to answer some questions."

  "You're crazy! I am innocent. You’re looking at an innocent man," he slurred.

  "Trying to escape from a police officer is not a sign of innocence."

  "This isn't over," he threatened her, pulling his arm away again so that she had to flail once again to grab it. His clothes reeked of wood smoke and the distinctive tang of weed. She wasn't sure he even knew where he was or what was happening.

  At that moment, May heard a welcome sound—Owen's footsteps, thudding along the path.

  "May! Where are you? Are you here? Are you okay?" her deputy called, his voice taut with concern.

  "I'm here," she called back, and Owen pounded over. In a moment, he'd grabbed the man's other arm and they had him effectively contained.

  "Where were you heading?" she asked Maurice.

  She wondered where he had been fleeing to. Could it have been to his alternative hideaway that the other man had mentioned? Was he on the way there?

  "Nowhere, man! Nowhere!" Maurice laughed madly, the shrill sound cutting the now-quiet night. He tossed his red hair back. "Just driving, man. Just driving away. Heading for the hills."

  In the dark, May wondered if it would be possible to try and search further along this trail. It might be a big waste of time and result in a false lead, but what if the women were somewhere ahead and he’d been fleeing to where they were kept? Wanting to make sure of the exact spot, she took out her phone and made a note in her maps of the location. She could plot it against the place where Chloe was caught on camera, and also do her best to get the correct facts from Maurice.

  "We need to take you into the police department," May said.

  Maurice let out another cackling laugh as between them, May and Owen manhandled him around and began marching him back toward the RV campsite.

  "I'm an innocent man. You guys are oppressing me," he said. Then he started singing a few bars of what May guessed was some kind of a resistance song. She hoped that by the time he'd reached the police department he would have sobered up some, but she was very worried that he wouldn't have.

  “You’re never going to take my people away from me,” he jeered.

  “What did you say?” May replied, her instincts prickling at the words. Was he admitting to holding someone?

  “We’re none of us hostages, you know. You’ll never take me or my tribe,” he said, leaving her feeling unable to work out whether he was just confused and rebellious, or whether he’d referred to actual captives.

  At a time when evidence was critical, this suspect was clearly not in a mental state to handle questioning at all. They would need luck, as well as skill, to get a coherent version from him at this critical time when lives hung in the balance.

  And the mention of that word hostage was worrying her deeply.

  "I think we need to send a search party out here. Now," she said to Owen. “They need to search Maurice’s RV. And then they need to take a look down this track and see where he was headed.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  May trusted nothing about Maurice Fardy. She was deeply suspicious that he'd tried to run when they'd arrived. The whole setup there was waving a flotilla of red flags for her. And she wanted to know where he'd been heading at such speed.

  Already there was a search party heading out. Sheriff Jack was on the way, with two officers from nearby police departments. If there was a chance that Maurice was keeping these women nearby, they needed to check. This wasn't something that could wait.

  It wasn't likely that they were going to get this information, or in fact, anything out of their suspect easily. Glancing at him in the rearview mirror as she drove to the Fairshore police department, she saw he was swaying slightly in Owen's grasp.

  "Where're you taking me?" he slurred.

  This was the third time he'd asked the question in the space of ten minutes.

  "You're going in for questioning," May replied, yet again.

  "You guys, you government agents, you're all the same. You're agents of doom. You're killers in disguise. You bring the night, but you don't bring justice."

  May wondered if he was quoting some kind of radical play. Or a poem. Or was it just a dramatic piece of improvisation?

  "You need to cooperate with us, or you’re going to be in even more trouble than you are already," she said, trying to pressure him to comply. But he didn't seem to hear her. He was singing some kind of a song now. It was a strident song, full of rage and hints of violence.

  Owen cast her a look in the rearview mirror that May knew sent the message: How do we get this guy to shut up?

  But after a few lines, he lost focus on the song and went back to criticizing the police.

  “You're not protecting the public, you're oppressing me. Torturing me," he growled, then pretended to yawn. Or maybe it was a real yawn, May worried. What would they do if he fell asleep on them? But as long as he was talking, that wasn’t going to happen.

  "The question is, what's the charge this time? Where are you taking me? What are you accusing me of?" he asked her. "I am law abiding! I am a good person. I have rights."

  "You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to have a lawyer present," May said.

  "Oh, because the police are always telling you your rights, you think it makes you guys special? That's the big trick. That's all a trick," Maurice told her. "I am a fine man. I stand up for what I believe in. I do, you know. I am an upstanding person."

  With relief, May realized they'd reached the police department's parking lot. She'd had just about enough of him in the drive and didn't think he'd be any better under questioning. But they had to try.

  She climbed out of the car and hurried around to take Maurice's other arm. They hustled him into the police department, heading straight for the interrogation room at the back.

  There, Maurice half sat and half sprawled on the chair. He was breathing heavily. His eyes looked severely bloodshot.

  May didn't know if this was just weed, or if there was a cocktail of substances currently circulating in this suspect's bloodstream. She suspected the cocktail. It wasn't going to make their job easy.

  "Do you know Chloe Terry and Giselle Sandler?" she asked.

  "Who?" he said blearily. "Are they in here? Hey, girls! Hey, are you there?"

  He looked around, his eyes focusing strangely on the walls as if he was in fact seeing people who weren't here at all.

  "No, I don't see them. But how are you, bro?" he said to the wall. “He’s here.”

  "Chloe and Giselle!" May snapped, trying to force him back to reality. "Did you know them?"

  "I know so many people. I can't say I know any single ones, though."

  May sighed. This was getting nowhere. She didn't think it was going to improve, and she also didn't think that Maurice was faking it. He was genuinely stoned out of his mind. Reality and he were not anywhere close to nodding distance right now.

  She walked out of the interview room, needing to get her head straight before deciding what the next step should be.

  Was there any circumstantial evidence as yet to link him to these crimes? She knew that they would not have completed the search but hoping they had gotten part of the way through it, May called Sheriff Jack.

  "We're in the suspect's RV at this moment, May," Jack replied. "We're searching methodically and itemizing everything as we go."

  "Is there anything linked to the case?" May asked, crossing her fingers inwardly that this would be good news.

  But it wasn't.

  "Nope. Haven't found a thing yet. There's a lot of weed paraphernalia. A few other drugs. Most definitely, this suspect was using drugs, and from the quantities, probably selling too. But I do have forensics with me and so far, there are no signs of the women. No locks of hair, no personal possessions that might be theirs, and no traces of any blood. Also, we haven’t found any weapon that could have been used to knock them out. We've identified his vehicle, and we've looked in there too. Again, no obvious signs of blood or trace evidence from either Chloe or Giselle."

  May sighed, feeling highly frustrated. This was not going the way she wanted it to go. She'd hoped for something. Some sign, some evidence. They had nothing now, and she was beginning to wonder if Maurice was in fact their suspect. His behavior had been so suspicious but that could be, she acknowledged, because he'd had a large stash of drugs on his home premises. Given that he was high as a kite at the time, fleeing the scene while the cops were watching might have seemed like a reasonable thing to do.

  The problem was that Chloe and Giselle must have been transported in a vehicle. They’d been grabbed from farming areas and ended up in the woods. So, the vehicle used would surely contain blood or other trace. The fact that his car didn’t was not a good sign.

  There were many other charges Maurice could go down for but right now, May was starting to second guess herself in terms of this case.

  "This is disappointing," she confided to her boss.

  "We're going to keep looking for another hour or so. We're going to search every inch of that RV and the car. There may still be something to uncover here, and if not, we'll head out to the pin drop and see what we can find there. We’ll search along the track, call, and shout. I'll call you as soon as we know anything," Jack reassured her.

  After reconsidering her options, May walked back into the interview room. Owen looked at her inquiringly. It was obvious he'd gotten no further because Maurice was hanging sideways in his chair again.

  "Okay, here's what we're going to do," she told Maurice.

  "What you gonna do?" he asked with a cackling laugh.

  "We're going to stop the interview for now, and we're going to keep you here overnight. We're going to come back to you in the morning."

  "I want my lawyer!" he said, reeling in his chair.

  "And you can have your lawyer. But not now. Because we're taking a break from the questioning for now. In the morning, you can arrange for your lawyer to be here. Say, at seven a.m."

  Tiredly, she walked around the desk and helped her suspect up. It was getting late now, probably close to eight p.m. May suddenly realized she was tired and starving after this fruitless afternoon and evening. The chase downs had taken their toll.

  As Owen hustled the staggering suspect out of the interview room and down the corridor, May headed back toward the lobby. She was thinking they should head down the road to Dan's Bar, grab a burger, and come back once they'd had some food.

  That was the idea that was in her head as she glanced out of the police department door. But then, May's heart nearly stopped.

  Racing toward the door from the darkness outside, wearing a ragged white dress, with her feet bloodstained and her hair wild, was none other than Chloe herself.

  Was she seeing things? Was this actually true, May blinked, briefly frozen in shock, before Chloe’s voice shattered the moment.

 

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