Page 100 of Finding Elodie
The paramedics immediately stopped pushing the stretcher toward the ambulance and motioned for the officers to let Mustang move closer.
“Where’s Elodie?” he asked, not remembering to use her fake name.
“Jumped,” Kai said weakly. “Steven shot me in the back. I pretended to be dead…heard him taunting her. Said he was gonna kill her. She jumped overboard. I passed out before I found out what happened though. I’m so sorry…”
Mustang put his hand on Kai’s shoulder. “I’m gonna find her,” he told the man. It was a miracle Kai had survived a point-blank gunshot to the back, and he prayed they’d get another miracle and find Elodie was still alive as well.
The paramedics decided he’d had enough time to talk to their patient and wheeled him away.
“Sir? We’re gonna need some information on your girlfriend,” one of the officers said, but Mustang was done with them. His blood ran cold thinking about Elodie jumping overboard to try to escape the man sent to kill her. Had he succeeded? The likelihood of her being able to get away from a man with a gun, in a boat like the Fish Tales, while she was swimming in the ocean was unlikely. But he wasn’t going to rest until he knew the truth.
Elodie hated the ocean. She’d joked about it often enough. How she was scared of sharks and killer whales, and the most she’d do was walk in the water on the beach. Hell, she wouldn’t even go in past her knees, no matter how much Mustang cajoled.
But he couldn’t think about that now. He had to concentrate on finding her. Then he’d deal with the man or men who’d dared try to take what was his. And there was no doubt in his mind, Elodie was fucking his.
The police officers were calling after him, trying to get him to stay and answer their questions, but Mustang had spotted Midas and the rest of the team arriving.
He didn’t waste any time in letting them know what he’d learned. “Kai was shot in the back, ambushed. But he’s alive. He told me Elodie jumped overboard to try to get away from the guy. That’s all I know.”
Jag looked up and nodded. “Surveillance cameras. I’ll work with the staff to access them and see who got off the boat.”
“I’ll call my friend who took us fishing and see if his boat’s available for us to use,” Aleck said.
“I’m calling Tex,” Slate said in a low, hard voice.
“What’s he gonna do?” Midas asked.
“He’s gonna find a way to end this Paul Columbus guy once and for all,” Slate said. “We all know he knows people who will be able to make sure that once we find Elodie, this shit doesn’t happen again. Should’ve done it before now and this wouldn’t have happened.”
Mustang agreed with his friend. He’d been lax with Elodie’s safety. It wasn’t that he hadn’t believed she was in danger, he’d just thought that after so much time had passed and when nothing seemed amiss, that maybe the mob had given up on her.
He should’ve known better. It wasn’t a mistake he’d make twice.
But then, he might not have a chance to make a mistake like that again. If Columbus’s goon had managed to kill her, he’d have lost the best thing that had ever happened to him.
Mustang’s phone rang, and he looked down and saw it was Perry calling. He didn’t want to talk to him right now. He needed to be doing something other than standing in a parking lot with his thumb up his ass. He needed to be looking for Elodie, but he also knew the other man was worried about his boat, Kai, and Elodie as well, and had a right to know what was happening.
“Did you find them?” Perry asked as soon as Mustang answered.
He summed up the situation as best he could, and ended with, “But from what I can see, the boat is fine.”
“Fuck the boat,” Perry spat. “I can’t believe that asshole shot Kai—and that Melody jumped overboard! What do you need from me?”
“What do you mean?”
“Kahoni and I aren’t idiots. We know you’re in the Navy, and Kai let it slip that you’re SEALs. I know you’re on this. What can we do to help?”
Mustang couldn’t help but be impressed with the man.
“Ask him about the GPS,” Pid said.
Mustang put the phone on speaker and held it out as the team gathered around. “Go ahead,” he told Pid.
“Does the Fish Tales have a GPS system onboard?” Pid asked.
“Of course. There’s one system that tracks the boat itself, that’s how I knew where it was, and another that’s used when we’re on the water to keep us oriented. We mark the points where we find fish and where other boats have said they’ve had success.”
“Does it run nonstop? Will there be a record of where the boat’s been?”
