Alex believed she was trying to keep an eye on them. “There’s no need. We can handle it. You two stay warm. You must be frozen.”
He waited until Michelle sat back down before he and Rachel headed a little deeper into the woods and out of earshot.
“I don’t know about the man, but she looks familiar. I only got a glimpse of the woman who showed up at my house this morning, but I think Michelle might be her. I recognize the voice.” Rachel stepped closer, keeping her tone low. “She’s armed, too. I’m sure he will be, as well. We need to get out of here as fast as possible. We don’t know if they’ve called in backup yet.”
Alex couldn’t let go of the feeling that he knew Peter from somewhere. Was it just a coincidence that there were two bad guys who appeared familiar to him?
“You’re right. There’s no doubt that they know we’re onto them. We’ll have to find a way to neutralize the threat they pose.” He glanced back at the couple by the fire.
“I have an idea. We said we were going for wood, so let’s get some.” She quickly gathered a few nearby sticks, as did Alex. “We should get back before they become too suspicious. Follow my lead and keep your weapon close.”
Alex nodded and she drew in a breath and led the way back to the camp. As they neared, Alex could see the couple whispering to each other. They glanced back and saw them and broke apart guiltily.
“There you are. We were wondering if you two had decided to take off,” Michelle said, and Alex attempted a smile.
“Now why would we do that?” While Alex didn’t see a weapon, he suspected that they had them close by, which wouldn’t leave him and Rachel much time to disarm them. He sure hoped her plan worked.
He watched as Rachel dropped her logs close to the fire. Alex placed a couple of sticks on the blaze itself, waiting for Rachel’s cue. She held the final log in her hand and moved around the fire, pretending to stir it. She was now closest to Peter.
Without warning, she swung the log hard and hit Peter across the face. He keeled over backward, out cold.
Right away, Michelle searched beneath her sleeping bag, no doubt for a gun.
“I wouldn’t if I were you.” Rachel drew down on Michelle, her voice reminding him of when they’d worked missions together.
With Rachel standing guard, Alex went over to the woman and grabbed the weapon she’d hidden, then checked under Peter’s sleeping bag. There was a second gun.
“We were just worried for our safety. You guys were acting strangely,” Michelle said, trying to convince them.
Alex ignored what she said and snatched up both backpacks. “We need to tie them up,” he told Rachel. “I’ll see if I can find some rope and secure him first.”
Rachel kept the gun trained on Michelle’s head. “Don’t try anything foolish,” she warned. “Or I promise you’ll regret it.”
Peter had just begun to regain consciousness when Alex retrieved some rope from one of the bags and forced Peter’s hands behind his back, then secured them.
The minute Peter realized what was happening he fought against his restraints and raged. “How’d you let this happen?” He glared at Michelle and the woman actually shrunk away from the animosity on the man’s face.
“That’s enough,” Alex ordered, and then moved to the woman. Once he’d tied up Michelle, he did a thorough search of both backpacks. What he found in one of them scared the daylights out of him. A phone. He brought up the number. It was the same phone that Liam had called him from. They had Liam’s phone. What had they done with his friend?
FOUR
Across the burning fire, the look on Alex’s face was alarming. He held Peter’s backpack in his hand. Something was wrong. What had he found inside?
Please, don’t let it be bad...
She held her breath. Their gazes locked and he silently tried to communicate something. He dropped the backpack and came over to where she stood, every step bringing more turbulence to her pulse.
“What is it?” She managed a whisper. The thought of losing her brother was terrifying.
Alex still held something in his hand. He silently motioned for them to step a little ways from the camp.
When they were out of earshot, he showed her a cell phone. She didn’t recognize it. She shook her head. She didn’t understand.
“I checked the number.” His tone was tense, so unlike Alex. Rachel braced for bad news. “This is the same phone Liam called me from before.”
She stared at him as the implication of those words finally dawned. “Why would they have Liam’s burner phone if they didn’t know where he was?” When Alex had no answer, without thinking, Rachel charged back to Michelle and yanked her to her feet. “Where is he? What have you done with him?”
Taken aback, Michelle stared at her with fear in her eyes, struggling to get away. “I don’t know who you’re talking about. Let me go.”
“You’d better keep your mouth shut.” Peter glared over at his partner. Michelle visibly flinched. She was clearly terrified of Peter.
Alex went over to the man. “You’re in no position to try to intimidate her. If you want to help yourself, you’d better start cooperating.”
Peter wasn’t swayed. “I have nothing to say.” He shot Michelle a venomous look. “And neither does she.”
“She can speak for herself.” Alex took Michelle by the arm and pulled her away from Peter’s hearing.
“Don’t try anything foolish while we’re gone,” Rachel warned, and then followed Alex.
“He can’t hurt you anymore,” Alex told her. “We’ll protect you, but you have to tell us what’s going on here. Who are you working for? Where’s Agent Carlson?” Michelle’s brittle laugh cut through what he’d said.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Michelle said in a hushed tone. She was visibly shaken and immediately seemed to regret her outburst. “My husband and I told you who we are. We came to you because we were lost and needed help, but you two have all but taken us hostage and we’ve done nothing wrong.”
Alex held up the phone. “And this? I found it in Peter’s backpack. It belongs to a friend of mine who’s gone missing up here. A federal agent. How did you end up with his phone?”
Michelle glanced back at Peter and then looked Alex in the eye. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You two are the first people we’ve run into. Maybe there are others here. People with bad intentions aimed toward your friend...and you.”
Rachel sucked in a breath. “What do you mean by that?” She was convinced Michelle was trying to tell them they weren’t alone up here. Or was she simply trying to dodge the question?
Michelle turned back toward Peter. “I have nothing else to say to you. And I would suggest you get out of here before you find yourself facing far worse trouble than you’ve seen so far.”
Shocked, Rachel riveted her gaze to Alex. There was no doubt in her mind the woman was trying her best to warn them without giving away too much.
Alex took Michelle back to where Peter was silently fuming. Then he motioned to Rachel and they stepped out of earshot once more.
“We need to get out of here now, Alex. I don’t know what her intentions were for saying what she did, but I believe she was warning us there are others up here, searching for Liam and probably for us, as well.”
Alex nodded then glanced over her shoulder to where the two sat. Michelle still looked afraid. Peter appeared to be browbeating her. “I think you’re right. Their driver’s licenses seem to back up their claim of who they are, but they could have been forged. And I’m positive I know this guy Peter from somewhere.”
This bit of news was unsettling. He’d said the same about the man who had attacked them earlier. Did Alex recognize the men because they were part of the same organization as he was? It was an uneasy thought.
“Do you have any idea how?” It wa
s too big of a coincidence that Alex would know two of the men that were hunting them down. They really needed to figure out why they were being chased so aggressively. Perhaps in the process it would lead to answers into Liam’s location.
He shook his head, obviously frustrated by the elusive recollection. “I wish I knew. It’s on the edge of my memory, but I just can’t bring it out. Anyway, you’re right. If what Michelle alluded to is correct, they could have men on the way here right now.”
Which meant their window of escape was rapidly closing.
“What do we do about those two? We can’t leave them up here in the elements.”
“We stoke the fire and get out of here as quickly as possible before the people they’ve called catch up with us. Make no mistake—they didn’t just happen upon us.”
He was right. They’d probably been stalking them for a while.
“You need to let us go now.” Peter talked in an overly loud voice once they’d returned to camp. Was he trying to alert his comrades to their location? “You can’t leave us here. We’ll freeze to death.”
Alex ignored the man’s raging and piled enough wood on the fire to last until morning.
“That should get you through the night. I’ll be calling the authorities to let them know where they can pick you two up as soon as possible. I would suggest you tell them the truth.”
“You can’t leave us here,” Michelle pleaded with Rachel. She could almost swear there was real fear in Michelle’s eyes. Was it just an act? She’d had her chance to talk and had refused.
“You’ll be fine until the authorities arrive,” Rachel assured her. “The fire will keep any predators away.”
Alex gathered up their phones and camping supplies. Rachel slipped on her backpack and they headed out in the opposite direction from where they believed Liam’s meet had happened, trying to throw the two off as to where they were really heading.
Once they’d gone some distance from the campsite, Alex slowed down. “How are you holding up?” he asked.
Rachel glanced up at the sky filled with stars. “Okay, I guess. But I hate trying to make our way up to the top of Midnight Mountain at night.” She thought about Michelle’s warning. “I don’t doubt for a second that Michelle was warning us there are more people up here searching for Liam and us. They probably called them to let them know they’d found us before they came into the camp.”
Alex nodded. “I can’t figure out her motives. She seemed genuinely scared, but when given the opportunity, she chose to back Peter. It could all be an act. Right now, we can’t afford to trust her.”
Rachel placed her hand on his arm and he turned to look down at her. “We can’t really call in the authorities, Alex. We don’t know who’s really behind Liam’s disappearance. You saw the note Liam left. It’s too dangerous.”
Alex looked around the area uneasily. “I know. There’s no doubt in my mind that there are others out there. I think Peter was trying to warn them of our exact location by talking loudly.”
She’d thought the same thing. “We should be far enough away by now to circle back in the right direction.”
They started off in the different path that would take them up to the top of the mountain. “It’s getting colder by the minute.” Alex turned the collar of his jacket up.
He was right. It felt as if the temperature had dropped at least ten degrees. Rachel rubbed her gloved hands together. “We need to keep walking just to stay warm.”
The rugged mountain terrain made it impossible to keep up a good pace. Not to mention that they were traveling in the dark, unable to use flashlights to illuminate their way. They’d be sitting ducks if they were to happen upon the enemy.
Rachel’s thoughts churned out questions by the dozens. The fact that Peter had Liam’s phone wasn’t a good thing. “How do you think they ended up with Liam’s phone? There’s no way they just happened upon it.”
Alex stopped and faced her. In the darkness, she couldn’t make out his expression. “No. They had him at one time. The fact that they’re still searching for him gives me hope that Liam managed to get away. My gut is telling me he’s still up here somewhere, though. The only question is, where? There’s a lot of territory to cover and we have no clue as to where he might be hiding.”
Rachel tried to hold on to some small amount of faith that Liam was still alive. She couldn’t imagine her life without him. She searched her memory, going over every conversation she and Liam had had recently for anything that would give them a clue as to where he might be. She recalled something that Liam had told her once about one of his buddies from high school buying one of the logging camps up on the mountain. Was it possible that Liam had made it down to that area and was hiding there?
Please, Lord...
Alex was a few steps in front of her. Before she could tell him about what she’d remembered, he stopped dead in his tracks, putting his arm out in front of her to keep her from going any farther.
He turned back to her and whispered, “Voices.” Then he placed a finger over his lips. She heard it, too. The voices were coming from some distance ahead of them.
Alex pointed to a group of trees close by and they eased that way as quietly as possible.
Rachel tripped over a log, her foot rolled sideways, and she froze. But it was too late. The noise it made echoed throughout the still night.
“I hear something.” A man’s voice reached them. In the moonlight Rachel caught a glimpse of four people moving through the woods just a little ways from where they’d been walking.
She held her breath, praying that they hadn’t been spotted. She and Alex were trained agents, but it was dark out and they were outnumbered.
Rachel tucked behind the closest tree, a pine that was barely large enough to conceal her from view. Alex had reached the group of trees he’d pointed to. Her gaze glued to his. Her heart pounded in her ears, drowning out all sound.
A flashlight’s beam shot past the area where they were and Rachel sucked in her breath.
Please don’t let them see us.
“There’s nothing out there but a bunch of animals.” A different voice than before snapped the words out. The flashlight hovered close to where Rachel was hiding. She tried to keep as still as possible. If she moved an inch, she’d be in the light. “They’re waiting for us.”
The man with the flashlight didn’t make a move to obey. “I heard something.” He kept the beam focused on the tree close to her for a second longer.
“And I’m telling you there’s nothing there. He’s waiting on us. You know how angry he gets when someone doesn’t follow orders.”
After what felt like an eternity, the man finally gave in. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.” The light searched the area one more time and then she could hear them heading away. The same direction she and Alex had come.
Thank You, Lord, she whispered and struggled for a calm her heart wouldn’t allow.
Once the men were safely out of the area, Rachel pointed up ahead. They needed to put as much space as they could between themselves and the men. When they reached Peter and Michelle, they’d know something was wrong. They’d put two and two together and realize the man had been right when he thought he heard something.
After she and Alex had covered more than a quarter of a mile, Rachel stopped for breath. “That was close. They’re heading right toward where we left Peter and Michelle, as if they know exactly where to find them.”
“I’m sure they do.” Alex confirmed her belief. “I’ll guarantee they called them in before they came out of the woods and confronted us. It won’t take them long to reach those two and when they do, they’ll come after us. We need to get out of sight as quickly as possible.”
Once her heart finally stopped racing, Rachel remembered what she was going to tell Alex before they’d spotted the men.
“With everythin
g that just happened, there wasn’t time to tell you before. I remembered something Liam said to me not too long ago. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier.” She told him about Liam’s friend buying one of the old mills.
“Do you remember which one? That could be where Liam is hiding out,” he said in relief.
There were numerous logging camps up the mountain. Most were being reclaimed by the woods in which they were carved.
“There are several. We’ll have to search them all.” Not exactly the ideal situation, but they couldn’t risk overlooking any of them on the off chance that Liam might be hiding there.
* * *
“Do you think you can find them in the dark?” Alex couldn’t hide his doubt. He could barely see more than a couple of feet in front of him. Finding a bunch of deserted logging camps seemed like an impossible task in his mind.
“I think so, but I’m going to need the flashlight. We can’t risk walking off the side of the mountain.” She didn’t sound nearly as positive as he had hoped.
“Lead the way,” he told her, and she clicked on the flashlight and headed out.
While they walked, Alex couldn’t shake the impression that he knew Peter from somewhere. He just couldn’t pull the answer out of his head. That he seemed to recognize two bad men in one day told him he was onto something.
Rachel stopped to gain her bearings and he stood next to her. She brushed hair from her face. Even exhausted to the bone, she was beautiful. And every time he looked at her, he was dogged with regret. He’d messed things up between them. He’d been foolish enough to think that life revolved around the job. He’d been so wrong.
Thanks be to God, for working on Alex to help him see what was truly important. Still, it was a bitter pill to swallow that it had come at the expense of his relationship with Rachel.
“This way.” She pointed a little farther up. “I remember Liam telling me once that his buddy hiked up here a lot before buying the place. He said it was one of the few camps on this side of the mountain.”
Target on the Mountain Page 24
