'What about this one?' the port authority soldier asked.
'Put him in irons and under guard,' Roman said tiredly. Under his breath, he said, 'Those are words I'd hoped would never have to be uttered. The fool had better pray for leniency, else he faces a date with the noose.'
The trail ran cold at the stable. The men, two brothers, had vanished, and Kara with them. All that day and all the day following, Port Haven was scoured from top to bottom, from the smallest closet to the tiniest dockside dory. But no sign did they find of Kara and her captors, and by the close of the second day Roman was forced to widen his search, to begin the gruelling task of scouring the entire island. In the meantime, Port Haven was shut down to outgoing and incoming traffic; all approaches to the island were carefully watched, night and day. And a message was passed along by word of mouth, from Roman himself to Kara's abductors: "I will continue the search until Kara is found, alive or dead. If she is found alive, then her abductors can expect some degree of leniency, but if she is found dead, then her killers and all of their associates will face death by the most unspeakable means imaginable."
Camilla took this news with apparent calm, but swallowed a few times before saying to the stablehand, 'I suppose you'd better untie her from the chair and give her something to eat and drink-'
The stablehand stared at her as though she were babbling in tongues. 'What are you talking about? She's too far gone! She's unconscious! She ain't et nothing or drank nothing for days!'
'If she can't be revived, then we're all as good as dead!' Camilla shouted back.
'Then you do it!' the stablehand rejoined. 'This was all your idea, your doing, and you got yourself and me and my brother into it!'
Camilla glared at Kara's lifeless form slumped in the chair.
'At least help me get her untied and onto the bed. I can't carry her all by myself.'
The stablehand carried Kara's semi-nude form to the bed and unceremoniously deposited it there. 'That's all I'm doing! If she dies, it'll be on your head alone!'
'That's where you're wrong!' Camilla told him with icy certainty. 'If she dies, we all hang! Has your brother had any luck yet?'
The stablehand sighed angrily and stood with his thumbs hooked in his suspenders. 'We ain't found the brother yet, but it's certain he's still around somewhere. There's no way on or off the island-'