"Listen, Dylan, you can't just leave after all we have been through," Amy answered politely, hot tears rolling down her face, and a few seconds later, Steph walked out with Ms. Hill.
"Thank you so much once again," Steph told Ms. Hill as she bid her goodbye, and Dylan took his cue to leave.
"Can we go?" Steph asked politely, and Amy nodded as she wiped her tears using the back of her hands.
Xxx
The beep of two messages on his phone alarmed Max, and he stopped his presentation midway to check who the message was from.
'Dad, please help me. I'm so scared. I might die from hunger. I haven't eaten for days,'
Max rubbed his eyes and looked at the message again, reading it one word at a time, but the content was the same.
"Gentlemen, I'm so sorry about this, but we'll have to do this presentation another time," Max said as he half-ran from the conference room, leaving the other members shocked.
As he rushed towards his car, Max fumbled with his phone, trying to call Noah.
"Hello," Max heard a female voice, and without mincing his words, he said, "can you please give the phone to Noah?"
"He doesn't want disturbance now. Can you call him later?" The lady asked, and Max thumped his feet and folded his fists, and he said between bared teeth, "I don't have the time to play games. Connect me to Noah Jackson Now!"
His sharp and angry voice sent shivers down the lady's spine, and she fumbled a few words before connecting the phone to Noah, who was so irritated at his orders being disobeyed.
"This better be worth it!" Noah cursed as he received the phone.
"He just sent another message. Can you track it for me, please?" Max asked, and Noah was silent for a while before sighing heavily and saying yes. He was wise to know the repercussions of not helping Max.
"Where are you now? I will call my guy, and we can meet where he directs us," Noah said, and Max exhaled a sigh of relief.
'Maybe Steph's association with them wasn't a bad idea after all,' he thought.
The five minutes it took Noah to get in touch with the private investigator seemed like forever to Max. He was pacing up and down the parking lot, and when Noah called him, informing him of the location, he hurriedly got inside his car.
He stepped on the accelerator and started the car, swerving so fast that it nearly knocked the other cars in the parking lot.
On the highway, he didn't even observe the traffic lights, and luckily for him, no officer stopped him on the way.
He diverted left from the main road and realized that the part of the city he had gotten into was lonely.
The GPS on his car stopped blinking when he reached the farthest end of the road, and he stopped the car in frustration, wondering where the hell he had gotten to.
There was no sign of any building, yet it was obvious Travis was being held hostage in a building.
"Hey," he heard someone shout and looked through his rearview mirror to see a black car a few meters behind him.
"Hi, I'm Ben Chavez," the man said when he got near Max's vehicle. "I'm assuming you're Maxwell Lee. I work for Noah Jackson, and I should help you look for your son. Come with me."
Max looked at him with a lot of suspicion.
"Ok, I know Noah promised to come with me, but he canceled at the last minute. Come with me," Ben said confidently, but Max still had his suspicions.
"You have to trust me on this," Ben said, and Max wordlessly drove his car and parked it on the side of the road.
'I'm coming for you, Travis,' he thought silently.
"Why aren't we driving? Is it still a long distance away?" Max asked.
Ben looked at him as if he had lost his mind.
"You're not going to a party. You can't announce your arrival because it will notify them that you're here. It's that simple," Ben said.
Max dumbly nodded as they walked past Ben's car.
They silently walked beside each other without uttering a word to the other, and when they took a turn on the left, they could, from a distance, see a dilapidated structure in some deserted compound.
'This might be where Travis is,' Max thought, his hope to meet his son building by the moment.
"Is that it?" He asked hopefully, his eyes flashing bright and wide with joy.
"Mmmh," Ben answered, and Max felt his heart stop beating. Wasn't Ben at least supposed to be happy at being so close to completing his job?
Why wasn't he elated then? Max wondered.
He stopped walking and turned to look at Ben intently, cleared his throat, and asked, "Do you have kids?"
"One," Ben answered curtly.