Norah heard the location. Her eyes closed for a moment, then opened with new focus. "That plant is connected to one of the receiving entities," she told the investigator. "It's on the drive. The personnel managing it have outside contacts and may attempt to move him if they hear Hale is detained." The officer relayed the information immediately, and a separate response was directed toward the lakeside facility.
Rhett wanted to drive there faster than the responders could move. Mara caught his arm before he reached his motorcycle and made him look at her. "You can help," she said. "But you cannot turn this into a race to see who reaches him first. The boy needs an extraction that doesn't make him the center of a fight."
"I know," Rhett said, though his hands were shaking. Mara nodded toward the investigators coordinating near the gate. "Then give them what you know. Ride only where they tell you to ride. And let the people with authority handle the people who took him."
For once, Rhett did not argue. He gave the investigators the clubhouse footage reference, the names from Hale's security records, and everything Norah could remember about the plant. Coyle and Hatch stayed to support the people from the warehouse while Mara arranged to accompany Norah to a safe location. Rhett rode toward County Road 7 behind an official vehicle, his ribs protesting every movement and his thoughts fixed on a boy in oversized clothes who had trusted him just long enough to be taken away.
The old water-treatment plant stood beside a dark lake where cold wind gathered between empty processing tanks. Its gates had not been properly maintained in years, and weeds grew through cracks in the entrance road. Portable work lights illuminated the main building, their glare turning the concrete walls into pale blocks against the surrounding darkness. Rhett saw two civilian vehicles parked near the entrance and a man smoking beneath an awning as the first official response vehicle slowed well short of the property.
The federal coordinator instructed everyone to hold position while agents confirmed the people inside and established a way to contact the captors. Rhett dismounted and stood beside his motorcycle, feeling the cut above his eye stiffen in the cold. Every instinct urged him forward. He remembered Mara's warning and stayed where he was, because the only thing worse than waiting was making Eli pay for his impatience.
His phone rang with Jace's name. "Rhett," Jace said, and the strain in his voice made Rhett brace himself. "Deak isn't at the clubhouse anymore. The men contacted us again and said Eli wouldn't be kept safe unless someone from the club came to talk. Deak went to the plant with the county response liaison, but the liaison never checked back in."
"He went alone?" Rhett asked. "He knew you told him not to," Jace said. "He said he was going to look the kidnappers in the eye and keep the boy calm until you got there.