Jack Mars - Hunting Zero

At every opportunity so far, Maya had left something behind on purpose. According to the clerk, the girls had spent most of a night here.

Reid hurried into the bathroom. It stank strongly of bleach as he checked the shower stall, the sink, the vanity with the cracked mirror. He opened the single small cabinet beneath the sink and found two spare rolls of toilet paper, a spray can of air freshener, and, curiously, a blue ballpoint pen.

Reid turned on the hot water in both the sink and the shower and closed the door to the tiny bathroom, letting it fill with steam. He inspected the mirror in the hopes that Maya had perhaps written an invisible message that would only show with condensation—but there was no message. Still nothing.

I’m missing something. She left a clue. I know she did.

Sirens wailed in the distance, floating to him through the open motel room door. The police were en route. He grunted in frustration and kicked at the toilet bowl with his boot, hard enough to chip the porcelain.

He looked down and blinked.

I should have seen that. Should have known.

Atop the toilet tank was a single hair, brown, long, with a white root still attached. He dropped to his hands and knees and found a few more scattered on the floor. They were Maya’s hair, tugged loose from her head on purpose—to give him a clue.

He lifted the lid from the back of the toilet.

Reid reached in and tugged loose the furled scrap of fabric that was looped into the flush lever’s chain. He unrolled it in his fingers, which began to tremble as soon as he recognized the familiar pattern of pineapples.

Sara.

The scrap was triangular; a pocket, he realized, torn loose from her favorite pajamas.

He held the scrap to his face. It could have been his imagination, but it still smelled like her, like his baby girl.

He turned the fabric over to the other side, the all-white side, where three words were written in blue ink.

“No,” he whispered hoarsely.

Port Jersey. Dubrovnik.

Reid sprinted from the bathroom as fast as he could.

Rais was trying to take his girls out of the country… if he hadn’t already.

No, no, no… As Reid leapt across the orange carpet of room 9, it felt as if his legs couldn’t move fast enough, as if every muscle was straining to react at an impossible speed. He had to get to the port.

He understood now. The cars, the change of directions, even the murder of the woman in the rest stop bathroom—all of it would confuse the authorities, make Rais look desperate and meandering, as if he didn’t know what he was doing.

He knew damn well what he was doing. He was taking Reid’s girls to Europe—and from there, god only knew where. With a twelve-hour lead, they could be anywhere in the world. Away from the jurisdiction of the police and feds. Away from him…

He scooped up his bag without pausing and kept running, parallel to the row of motel rooms toward the office at the end. He barely heard the sirens, wasn’t even cognizant of their blaring wail until he was suddenly awash in headlights.

Three police cruisers screeched into the narrow lot of the Starlight Motel. Reid blinked in their glare as officers poured from them, unseen behind the bright headlights, shouting so many warnings at him at once that not any one of them was intelligible.

He didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop, not now. Reid sprinted onward, around the corner of the motel and behind it. As George had said, there was a dirt bike waiting, faded with age and looking worse for the wear.

Reid leapt onto it, slinging his back securely over one shoulder. He squeezed the clutch and kick-started the engine. It sputtered once and then came to life in a high-pitched whine, strong and robust beneath him. Despite its appearance it seemed that the clerk had taken decent care of the parts that mattered.

The pursuing officers came around the corner, their rapid footfalls drowned out by the roar of the bike’s engine. They held their hands out in front of them in warning. Two went for their guns.

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