Chasing the Falconers

Aiden has never driven before, but with Miguel still in a state of shock, he takes the wheel of the Tahoe. They buy gas with Freddy’s money and purchase a map. Nine hours later, during a torrential rainstorm, they arrive in Colchester, Vermont, and stop at a motel. Meg pays for the room with cash, convincing the clerk to give her a key even though she is far too young to rent a room on her own.

Miguel is back to his old self in the morning, but they wake up just in time to see the police surrounding the Tahoe. They narrowly escape through the bathroom window—another instance of Meg’s quick thinking—and run through the rain to the nearby woods, the police in pursuit. The children fall down a steep slope and land on a road near Lake Champlain. Aiden and Meg follow Miguel into the cabin of a sailboat moored at a nearby dock. Inside, Aiden announces that he saw their lake house.

Agent Harris locates the Falconers in Colchester by searching the FBI database. The weather forces him to take a military helicopter to upstate New York; from there, he rents a car and drives around Lake Champlain to Colchester, not knowing if the Falconers will even still be there.