Page 98 of Finding Elodie
She could see the posts on the Internet now. Her story would be fucking click bait, and she’d have to run again. Find somewhere else to hide.
What was the point of trying to live when she’d just be hunted down again?
But then Scott’s face sprang into her mind. How he looked when he smiled down at her. How his beard felt against her skin as he kissed and caressed her. How proud he’d looked when the soufflé he’d made had come out perfectly.
A renewed energy swept over her.
Elodie would fight to live for Scott.
She loved him so damn much and would do anything to spare him the pain of not knowing what happened to her. She wouldn’t wish that on her worst enemy…well, all right, maybe she would on Steven or Paul.
Elodie knew she was a bit delirious, and she took a deep, calming breath. Then she fixed her gaze on Diamond Head in the distance…and began to swim toward it.
Maybe she’d run into another fishing boat on her way, and she wouldn’t have to swim the entire distance. Maybe a dolphin would come up beside her and let her grab ahold of its dorsal fin, then tow her in. Or one of Hawaii’s famous green turtles, a hona, would have pity on her and let her take a ride on its back.
She didn’t care how it happened, but she was going to get back to Scott no matter what it took.
Chapter Twenty
Mustang looked at his watch for what seemed like the tenth time. The Fish Tales was late. He shouldn’t be as worried as he was…but for some reason, he couldn’t help but feel as if something was very wrong. Their charters ran like clockwork. In the past, on the rare occasion Elodie was going to be late, she called him. She had the disposable phone he’d given her and always carried it with her. The signal was sometimes shitty out on the ocean, but she’d always managed to get through.
His sixth sense had never failed him before, and Mustang didn’t feel at all bad about pulling out his phone and disturbing Kahoni on his day off. The man had given him his number before he’d been deployed and told him to call anytime. Maybe Kai had contacted his boss and let him know they were having engine trouble or something. If anything was wrong with the boat, Kahoni would know.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Kahoni, this is Scott Webber, Melody’s boyfriend.”
“Aloha, Scott. What’s up?”
“I’m at the dock to pick up Melody, but the boat’s not back yet. I was wondering if you’d heard from Kai about any engine trouble or anything they might be having? Or maybe their guest wanted to stay out longer?” Mustang asked, looking for any reasonable answer as to why the boat hadn’t been back at the time it was supposed to be.
“Really? That’s strange. Hang on…I’m gonna patch Perry into the call.”
Mustang waited impatiently for the second boat owner to be added to their discussion.
“Perry?”
“I’m here,” the other man said.
“Scott, you still there?” Kahoni asked.
“Yes.”
“Okay, so Scott says the Fish Tales isn’t back yet. Have you heard from Kai?” Kahoni asked Perry.
“No. Not today. Give me a second and I’ll check the GPS tracker.”
Mustang sighed in relief as he paced in front of his truck. He hadn’t realized the owners had a GPS onboard, one that could be tracked, but he shouldn’t have been surprised.
He waited impatiently as Perry worked on pulling up the location of the boat on his computer.
“That’s weird,” he said.
Mustang stopped walking. “What’s weird?” he asked.
“It’s showing the Fish Tales is at Ko Olina Marina.”
Impatient, Mustang asked, “Where is that?”
