Gone: An Emma Caldridge Novella: Part Two of Three by Jamie Freveletti Page A

wouldn’t be a matter for Darkview, I’m sorry.”
    “Could you take it on a freelance basis? Does Darkview hire…” Candar had searched for the proper word.
    “Mercenaries?” Emma suggested.
    “Yes. Exactly.”
    “Doesn’t the insurance company have their own resources for these cases?” Emma asked. “After all, it writes kidnap insurance.”
    Candar shook her head. “The company won’t write a policy for an employee. Too much risk that we’d get kidnapped because of it. They won’t fund a search.”
    “Isn’t that a little harsh?”
    “Not at all. It’s a safety mechanism. Besides,” she handed Emma an envelope, “Ryan left this.”
    The envelope contained a check made out to Emma Caldridge in the sum of ten thousand dollars. It was payment for Emma’s agreement to run a search. Mostly, she’d agreed because she liked Ryan, but also because she’d read about the group suspected in his disappearance, and the list of their wrongs chilled her. The Church of the Supreme Son was a polygamous cult, living on the fringes of society, that forced their girls as young as twelve into marriages with older men and denied their members any freedom of thought or action. Emma believed in live and let live, but slavery, tyrannical mind control, child abuse, and kidnapping crossed so many lines that she felt compelled to act.
    Now she drove through the Supreme Sons’ town and ran through ideas to persuade the members to cough up information. She had a hunch that after they’d taken Ryan, they would bring him here. Supreme Son devotees were notoriously frightened of life outside their enclave. Emma figured that whoever had grabbed Ryan would drag him back to Sunrise.
    She drove down the main street slowly, giving everyone time to see her and get the phones ringing, before heading past the town proper. After another three miles the sheriff’s car swung a three point turn and reversed back. Emma kept going, and a mile later turned onto a rutted dirt road and bounced toward a compact ranch, kicking up dust.
    She headed to a battered wooden ranch house surrounded by equally battered corral fencing. Several sleek, well fed horses raised their heads to watch her drive past. Seems like all the residents of Sunrise are watching me, human and animal, she thought.
    After pulling up to the ramshackle porch, she cut the engine, got out and stood next to the Jeep. A shadow of a figure appeared in the screen door. It squeaked open and a man stepped out.
    He was young, close to Emma’s age, no more than twenty-five, with a rugged face, a nose that must have been broken at least once, and the eyes of a man who had seen too much trouble and not enough joy. He wore Wrangler jeans, cowboy boots, and a short-sleeve gray tee shirt. He stood about five-foot-ten, his lean arms muscled and deeply tan and his brown eyes unsmiling.
    A cynic, Emma thought. “John Brink?” she said.
    He nodded.
    “I’m Emma Caldridge. I’ve come to rent a horse. I’d heard that you have some of the finest out here, and I need a good one.”
    Brink shifted. “For what reason?” His voice was low and pleasing and didn’t quite match the severity of his demeanor. It was as if it escaped whatever sadness the rest of him had absorbed.
    “Endurance,” she said. “I’ll be heading out on the mountain trails.”
    “Pleasure riding?”
    Emma shook her head. “Hunting.”
    He raised his eyebrows. “It’s not season.”
    “I’m not hunting animals; I’m hunting men. Well, one man in particular. Sebastian Ryan. He’s from Miami Beach and went missing a couple of days ago. I’m here to bring him home.”
    Brink ran his eyes up and down her, taking in her jeans, black combat boots, white cotton tee shirt under the armored vest, the black shoulder holster and gun, and then slanting to look at the camo Jeep.
    “You military?”
    “No. Freelance. Do you have a horse I can rent?”
    He strolled off the porch, each board creaking as he did, and headed