“Not that we know of yet,” Mason mumbled. “I’m thinking this wasn’t about Henley, or someone from Lucas’s business trying to strike back at him. This is about me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That note. He’s focused on me. No note was left for Lilian or Lucas. What I don’t understand is why he even took Henley if his goal was to get to me.”

“We don’t know that was his goal. You’re jumping ahead.”

Ava drove toward Lake Oswego and McKenzie’s home. Over the phone, they learned that Clackamas County had immediately gone to the girl’s home and found the front door unlocked. Jake’s girlfriend McKenzie was found inside, gagged and tied to a chair. She said that an older man had broken in earlier that day, hit her across the face, tied her up, and used her phone to text Jake.

He’d blindfolded and tied up Jake, then taken him, leaving Jake’s cell phone behind.

The teen girl was helping police the best she could.

“How’d he know she was Jake’s girlfriend?” Mason asked Ava as they pulled off the freeway toward McKenzie’s home. Ten more minutes. He wanted to talk to the girl himself.

“Good question. Probably the same way he knew Jake went to Duke and that he was out for pizza the night when he was approached.”

“You think that was him?” Mason asked.

“McKenzie’s description sounds close enough. I’d say someone has been stalking Jake for a while. How much does he put out about himself on social media?”

“I don’t know,” Mason admitted. “I’ve told him to be careful.”

“But have you looked?” Ava asked. “Is his Facebook page private? Do his other accounts list Duke in his bio for the world to see? Instagram, Twitter, ask.fm, Snapchat. All that crap. Kids post stuff all the time that they shouldn’t and assume no one will ever see it but their friends.”

“Shit.” Mason rubbed his forehead. He had never asked Jake to show him what he posted about his life. “I can’t keep up with that stuff.”

“You don’t try,” corrected Ava. “You’re like 99 percent of parents—you choose to not educate yourself about it. I hear it every day.”

Mason wanted to deny it, but she was right. He knew there were sites out there where kids communicated. He’d never asked Jake to show him. And he’d never tried to look for his son’s info other than a halfhearted peek at Facebook.

She pulled in front of McKenzie’s house, mere blocks from the Fairbanks home. Cars from Clackamas County and the FBI filled the street. Mason wondered how long it would take the media to put two and two together about the activity so close to the hub of Henley’s disappearance. He spotted a few neighbors watching from their windows and figured not long.

Inside, they found McKenzie sitting with a female deputy and ASAC Ben Duncan. Other officers and agents littered the scene. Mason had never met the girl. Heck, he hadn’t even known she existed in his son’s life until a few days ago. She turned swollen but beautiful blue eyes his way, and he understood why his son had fallen so hard. A welt was reddening on her cheekbone.

“Are you Jake’s dad?” McKenzie asked before he’d said a word.

Mason nodded.

“The hat,” she said. “He always said you were a cowboy.”

Mason twisted the brim of the hat in his hands. “Who was it?” he asked, his gaze taking in Duncan and the female deputy.

McKenzie shook her head. “I don’t think Jake knew him. He seemed completely surprised to see him and didn’t say anything that indicated he knew him.”

“I told you that you can wait to talk until your parents are here.” The female deputy touched McKenzie’s arm.

McKenzie shook her head, pulling her arm from the woman’s touch. “I’m eighteen. I can talk to the police if I want. And they need to know now what I saw to help get Jake back. Not when my parents get home.”

“You’re doing just fine, McKenzie,” Ben Duncan said. “You’ve been a big help already. Let’s talk about what he looked like again.”

“I told you what he looks like,” McKenzie said, holding up her hands. “There isn’t any more.”

“Say it again for Mason to hear,” Duncan suggested. “Maybe something will ring a bell with him.”

McKenzie straightened and met Mason’s gaze. “He looked like anyone’s grandfather. Silver hair, tall, maybe six foot two, good build. It looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days. His shoulders were wide, not hunched at all.”

“Age?” Mason asked.

The girl lifted one shoulder. “Sixties? I don’t know. He was still strong. He hauled Jake out of here with no problem.”

“He carried him?” Duncan frowned.

“No, he pulled on Jake’s arms. They were tied behind him, but he was so fast, he had Jake nearly tripping over his feet.”

“What did you talk about while you waited for Jake?” Mason asked.

McKenzie’s eyes looked down and to her right as she remembered. “He wanted to know about us. How long we’d been dating, where we went on dates. I told him we mostly just texted and Skyped since we lived in different states. We hadn’t really gone on a date since he left for school.”

“He knew Jake went to school at Duke?” Mason’s stomach was in a vise. His son was missing, yet part of him felt like he was analyzing the case of a stranger. His heart was being ripped in half, but his brain was on autopilot; his rational cop side was kicking in to protect his emotions and discover the fastest way to find his son.