Grigsby swallows, nodding toward me. “Emma says she was in the woods with Reed, looking for the boy. Says Kennedy pulled a gun on them and took Reed.”

“He took Reed and shot at me,” I blurt. “We’re wasting time here. We’ve got to find them.”

Reder stands. Panic washes over his face. I wonder for an isolated second if my hysteria is contagious. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen Reder unnerved. “Are you okay, Emma?” he says.

I nod, wrapping my arms around myself as if to the contrary. He puts a gentle hand on my shoulder. The alarm is gone from his expression, replaced by a look I know well. It’s the face Mom makes when she’s acting like a nurse—the face of an emergency responder. Calm, collected, courageous. “Did Kennedy say anything before he took Reed?”

I nod, then tell him word for word what went down. I’ll never forget that conversation for the rest of my life. When I’m finished, Reder looks at Grigsby. “Escort Emma to the basement of city hall. Put two guards on her. It sounds like Kennedy was targeting Reed, but he could be after Emma as well. He could have been holding Galen, too. Obviously he’s not hiding them in town anywhere or they would have been spotted.”

Grigsby nods. “He supposedly goes to the woods every day looking for his plants. That’d be the first place I’d check.”

“Take every warm body you can find and go back out there. Spread out, but no one goes alone. Make sure everyone who knows how to use a gun has one.” Reder shifts his gaze to me. He is all business now. “Emma, go with Grigsby. You’ll be safe with him. In the meantime, I think it’s time you called your mother, don’t you?”

32

GALEN COMES to, his pulse heavy and threatening to pummel through his temple. He can’t open his eyes gently enough. First one, then the other. The light of day lances through his line of vision, and it feels like a thousand grains of sand are stuck to his eyeballs.

Each pound of his heartbeat seems to shake the room around him. As if that weren’t enough, the new hole in his leg throbs with the pain of being recently moved. He groans.

“Hey, man,” a voice says in front of him.

Galen squints into the sunlight streaming in through the window on the opposite side of the room. Reed sits under it.

“Hey, Galen,” Reed says. “Are you okay?” Reed is in the same position as Galen. Sitting on the floor, chained with hands above his head, legs stretched out in front of him.

Galen nods. “You?” The word feels tangy in his mouth.

“I’m good. Well, as good as I can be, you know.” Reed swallows. “So, um, where have you been? We’ve been looking for you everywhere. Everyone has. And what happened to your face?”

Everything, Galen wants to say. “I’ve been Tyrden’s guest the past few days.” Galen waits for a false reaction from Reed. Delayed remorse, counterfeit shock. Any sign that he or his father could be in on his imprisonment.

But Reed’s eyes instantly go round as lily pads. “Tyrden did that to you? What did you do to piss him off?”

But Galen is distracted—the hands of grogginess haven’t quite released him yet. Reed is supposed to be with Emma, not tied up and held prisoner in a dingy old house in the woods. Where is Emma? is all he wants to know, but right now, his mouth won’t move to make the words. Because what if she’s not okay?

Galen scans their surroundings. A wood building made with logs—which explains the damp musty odor he smelled before he could open his eyes. A lonely wooden stool sits in one corner, and a full table and chairs sit off to the left of Galen. A pair of muddy rain boots stands guard at the only door in the cabin. And none of it matters. Because he’s ready to ask now. The only question that matters is the one Galen finally forces out: “Where is Emma?”

“I don’t know. She ran away, but … I don’t know if she … But the best I can figure is that she did escape, because if not, he would have brought her here, too.… But I swear he was a horrible shot, actually. I’m not worried.” His voice speaks volumes to the opposite.

The idea of Kennedy shooting at Emma makes Galen’s stomach feel like a self-contained waterfall, roiling and raging. “Why is he doing this? Where is he now?” The thought What else could possibly happen crosses his mind, too.

“I don’t know. He’s not the only one, though. I mean, I haven’t seen anyone else here, but he keeps talking to someone on the radio.”

“Radio?”

“He has a satellite radio, so I figure we’re well out of town if his phone doesn’t have a signal. He must have been planning this forever.” Reed’s voice is tainted with a begrudging sort of admiration. “I thought he was just a crazy scientist,” he grumbles. “We all did.”

“Planning what? You said he was interested in plants.”

“I said what he said. Which was obviously a lie, don’t you think? He did say, ‘mermaid,’ to whoever he was talking to on the other end of that radio. We’re screwed.”

Nice. A botanist turned mermaid enthusiast? To Galen, that’d be the best-case scenario. But Mr. Kennedy has an air of knowledge about him. A familiarity. The way he set the trap in the river, for instance. Galen had wondered what river fish he’d been trying to catch with such an odd net arrangement. The net was large; obviously the prey was, too.

Galen has the sinking feeling that it caught exactly what it was supposed to.