by Sharon Dunn
“Just give us the woman, and we’ll let you go.”
“You’ll have to kill me first.” Gavin managed a right cross to one of the man’s jaws. He lifted his leg for a roundhouse kick to the other man’s stomach. The man dodged the kick, and Gavin’s foot landed on the man’s hand. The object he had been hit with went flying into the trees. It took Gavin a second to comprehend that the object was a rifle. Probably the same rifle they’d used to cause the car accident.
Injuries from the car accident and the blows to the head weakened him. As one of the men raised a fist to him, Gavin grabbed the man’s wrist, spun him in a half circle and flipped him on the ground. When Gavin looked up, the other man was running away into the trees.
The man on the ground scrambled to his feet and ran into the trees as well. Gavin chased them far enough into the forest to know they would not come back before he could pull Julia out.
But the head injuries had disoriented him and cost him precious minutes in getting back to her. When he returned to the car, she was gone. As he rested his hands on the upturned car, his heart sank. Had there been others watching the road besides the two he had run off?
Frantic, Gavin raced around the car, attempting to read the tale of the footprints in the snow. A light snow swirled out of the sky, and he noticed the night chill. He was able to discern where he had struggled in the snow with the two men. He couldn’t see anything that indicated her body had been dragged. It was nearly impossible to make out anything else in the dim light. He wasted precious minutes looking for his gun and the rifle. No luck.
The search for his cell phone, which he had left on the console, proved fruitless. What had become of Julia? Had she gotten out on her own and gone up to the road to get help? Or had she returned to the lodge?
Maybe Elizabeth had looked back and seen the car crash—if she hadn’t been shot at, too.
He had a decision to make, and every second counted.
Julia treaded lightly toward the library door and slowly pushed it open. Lydia sat in a chair crying, with her face in her hands.
Shock registered in her expression when she looked up and saw Julia. She burst out of the chair. “What are you doing here?”
“I might ask you the same thing. Why did you come back here? Where is Elizabeth?” Already, she had a creeping sense that Lydia hadn’t been entirely sincere. Still, the girl had a vulnerable quality that Julia felt herself responding to. She couldn’t see Lydia as evil, not like the men who wanted her dead.
Lydia’s gaze dropped to the floor as her voice filled with shame. “When Elizabeth stopped the car to pull up on the main road, I jumped out and ran back here.”
“Why?”
“I wasn’t supposed to go into town. That wasn’t part of the plan. They’re supposed to come and get me here.”
“You didn’t hitchhike here, did you?” She had so wanted to believe Lydia’s story.
Tears streamed down Lydia’s face. “They said if I did this, if I flushed you out—” Lydia said the phrase as though it was unfamiliar to her, something she had picked up from the men who put her up to this “—I wouldn’t have to marry Jerry Smith.”
“Why didn’t they just come and get me at the hot springs?”
“They didn’t know where you were being kept. And they wanted to make sure Gavin wasn’t part of the equation. That’s how they said it to me. They said they just wanted to talk you out of testifying.”
Now she saw how Lydia’s naiveté had been her undoing. The attack at the hotel showed that the followers weren’t interested in a negotiation. They wanted her dead.
Their plan made sense. If the car accident didn’t kill both of them right away, it would probably incapacitate both her and Gavin long enough for the cult members to move in. They’d seen firsthand at the hotel that Gavin was tenacious and smart in his protection of her. She shuddered. What if they had succeeded in the first part of their plan? And Gavin lay dead or dying in the forest? It had been too dark to search the area around the car.
Pushing down encroaching anxiety about Gavin, she tried to come up with a plan. “I don’t suppose Elizabeth had a chance to call the police.”
Lydia shook her head. “She jumped out of the car and shouted for me after I ran into the trees. I don’t know what happened to her after that.”
They had no car, no way of escaping. Julia had a feeling that it would only be a matter of time before the followers came back here looking for her. They might still be coming back for Lydia, even though their plan had been foiled. “How did you get in here, anyway?”
Lydia held up a key ring. “I grabbed these out of Elizabeth’s car before I ran. I came in here because that was the first key I got to work.”
Julia reached for the keys. “We need to call the police. There’s a landline in the lodge. And then we are going to hide until the police get here, and you are not leaving my sight.”
At first Lydia nodded, looking contrite as she handed Julia the keys. But then her expression changed as her gaze shifted and settled on a point beyond Julia’s shoulder. Lydia’s mouth formed a perfect “o.” Her face drained of color and fear entered her eyes.
Julia whirled around in time to see a follower raising a hammer up to hit her head. She angled away, and the hammer grazed her shoulder.
Lydia screamed.
Julia lunged at the man, barreling toward his torso. The man fell to the hard, tile floor, groaning. The hammer skittered into the darkness.
While Julia scrambled to her feet, Lydia continued to scream and protest. Julia raced toward the door. Just as her fingers reached out for the knob, a claw-like hand grabbed her shirt collar and pulled her back. Unable to break free, she was dragged across the floor. She tried to twist away and then to reach out, hitting and scratching. Her efforts made little difference. The accident had made her weak. He banged her head against something hard, which left her disoriented as the room spun around her. Her limbs felt as though they were filled with helium.
She felt herself being lifted up and plunged into water. She drifted down. He was going to drown her. Her survival instinct renewed her will to fight. Every time she struggled to raise her head to the water’s surface, he pushed it back down. Water splashed. She kicked her legs, flailed her arms. She was not going to die. Not here, not now.
Finally, she stopped fighting, feigning unconsciousness. The pressure on her head let up. She could only hold her breath for a couple minutes.
Summoning all of her strength, she burst out of the water and scrambled to get out of the side opposite from where the man was standing.
Arms wrapped around her waist. She wrenched away from the man’s grasp and fell forward into the water. Her head went under face forward, and she sucked in water. She bobbed to the surface, then felt her head being pushed down again.
Right before the water engulfed her, she heard Lydia say, “You promised not to hurt her.”
Oh, Lydia, did you really believe them?
The man’s hold on her was loose enough that she angled her body and slipped free of his hands, but not before he grabbed her hair. She rose above the water’s surface, gasping for air.
The man wrapped his arm around her neck, so her chin rested in the crook of his elbow, immobilizing her. The blended smell of dirt and pine that all the men of the cult seemed to carry around filled her nostrils. The odor flooded her mind with ugly memories and weakened her resolve. As the man squeezed his forearm against her breathing tubes, the will to fight left her. She saw spots before her eyes. Her arms went limp.
“Who do you think you are that you can take down Elijah True?” He pulled his arm back, straining her neck and making it hard to breathe.
She wheezed in a sliver of air. The man was right. Who was she to stand up to Elijah True? Blackness encroached on the rim of her vision. She was tired, so tired of fighting.
Lydia’s voice came from far away. “You promised.”
“Shut up and submit to my authority.” The man spat
out the words.
She felt herself becoming dizzy and lightheaded as Lydia’s voice grew stronger. “But you promised.”
The man held on but loosened his grip slightly. Julia twisted free. An image of Lydia pulling on the man’s arm and screaming a protest flashed across her vision. The man turned, grabbed Lydia’s face and squeezed it with his hand. “I told you to listen to me. You stupid girl.” He pushed on her face, sending her backward.
Julia watched in horror as Lydia fell to the floor. Half moon marks on her face, some of them bleeding, revealed where the man had dug his fingernails in.
Seeing Lydia sent a new surge of rage through her. She knew who she was. She was the person who was going to stop Elijah from poisoning men’s minds into thinking it was okay to treat a young girl that way.
Seizing the opportunity, Julia quickly splashed to the other side of the hot tub. The man’s hands scraped her back. He ran around to her side of the tub as she lifted her leg to get out. He pulled on her arm and sent her tumbling to the hard, tile floor. Pain exploded through her whole body.
The man lunged toward her and wrapped his arms around her neck. Even in the dim light, she could see yellow in his eyes. His bitter breath stained her face as she struggled to get away.
“Get off her,” a voice roared somewhere in the darkness. Gavin. He pulled the man by his collar and slammed him against the floor, yanking his hands behind him. “Something to tie him up with,” he demanded.
It took a moment for Julia to process what Gavin was saying. She struggled to her feet and looked around. The belt from a spa bathrobe would do. She handed it to Gavin, who tied the man’s hands behind him. The man on the floor groaned, but didn’t struggle.
Gavin spoke through gritted teeth. “I want answers. How did you find us?”
The man was silent for a moment, but then answered with a weak voice. “A woman at the clinic alerted us. We’ve been patrolling the area ever since, in a wider and wider circle from the clinic. Then I overheard the clerk at the Silver Cliff grocery store mention that the hot springs lady was buying a lot of groceries for one person.”
Gavin rose to his feet and looked at Julia. His eyes communicated compassion. She collapsed into his arms, resting against him, trembling and afraid. He made soothing sounds and stroked her wet hair. Her mind calmed, even though her heart was still racing.
He rubbed her back. “Get some dry clothes. We have to go.”
She pressed her face against his chest. Julia relished the safety of his arms, but knew it couldn’t last. She pulled away and looked into his eyes. “But we don’t have a car. Unless Elizabeth came back. Did you see her?”
Gavin shook his head. “I don’t know what happened to Elizabeth. They have at least two other cars patrolling that road that I could see. We can’t get out that way.”
“How are we going to escape?”
“We’ll take the horses and head through the back end of the property. The horses put us at an advantage. If they follow us, they’ll be on foot.” He picked the keys up off the floor where they had fallen. “I’ll call the police from the landline, but we cannot afford to wait around for them.” He pointed to the follower tied up on the floor. “There were two guys who tried to pull you out of that car to kill you. I don’t know where the other one went.”
Julia shuddered. The followers were closing in fast.
He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the door. “Let’s get out of here as fast as we can.”
She stopped, her gaze darting around the room. “What happened to Lydia?” Despite Lydia’s betrayal, Julia felt only sympathy for her. She lived a life where her only option to protect herself from an abusive, loveless marriage was to turn on Julia.
“She wasn’t here when I came in.” He leaned toward her. “Julia, we can’t wait. We’ll tell the police about her.”
He glanced down at the subdued man on the floor. “Maybe this one will talk, and we can figure out how Elijah is getting his messages out.”
The man stared at the floor, his voice filled with venom. “Do you think one weak woman is going to defeat Elijah?”
His words caused ice to form in her veins. Gavin grabbed her hand and squeezed it. His touch renewed her strength. She steeled herself against the threat. No matter what, she wasn’t going to let Elijah into her head again.
They raced into the lodge and Gavin called the police while Julia found dry clothes and searched for a map that would show what was on the other side of Elizabeth’s acreage and anything else that might be useful. The map was easy enough to find. She also located a flashlight..
Gavin hung up the phone. “Good news. Elizabeth made it to the police station. The police are on their way.”
While Julia unfolded the map she had found, Gavin phoned his friend Brandon. It sounded as though he was making arrangements for a cell phone and a car.
“There’s a little town called Madison just on the other side of Elizabeth’s property,” Julia offered as she heard Gavin struggling to come up with a meeting place. She handed him the open map and pointed to the town. Gavin finished the conversation and hung up the phone. He studied the map for a moment. “You do know how to ride?”
Julia nodded. “I had a horse named Sparkles from the time I was six until the kidnapping.”
He grabbed her hand and raced toward the barn through the snow. The scent of hay and manure greeted them as they stepped inside. Julia shone the flashlight she had found. Five horses stood in stalls. A black horse with a white stripe down its nose caught her eye. “I’ll take this one.”
Gavin located the tack. They worked silently, putting on the bridles and saddle blankets. Their breath was visible in the cold barn. Gavin helped her toss the heavy saddle on her horse’s back. She had just cinched up the saddle strap when a venom-filled voice behind her caused her to freeze in her tracks.
“Well, hello there, Julia.”
FIFTEEN
Gavin whirled around. On instinct, he reached for his gun, then remembered that he’d lost it in the fight after the car crash. Even in the dim light, Gavin recognized the man standing in the doorway as one of the cult members who had tried to pull Julia out of the car.
The man grinned and held up a knife that looked as if it had come from Elizabeth’s kitchen.
He heard Julia gasp behind him.
“Get on your horse.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” The man with the knife stalked toward her. Gavin intercepted him, grabbed the man’s wrist and squeezed the pressure points that caused the knife to fall to the ground. As Gavin struggled with the man, he saw Julia in his peripheral vision, trying to mount the horse as it walked sideways and jerked its head up and down to show agitation.
Gavin dropped the man to the dirt floor of the barn so he landed on his stomach. He moved a few paces to grab some baling wire. The man tried to get to his feet, but not before Gavin placed a foot on his back. “The police will be here soon enough for you.” He tied the man’s hand and feet.
“Not before the others get here!” the man shouted.
Yet another reason why they couldn’t wait for the police. The man’s threat chilled Gavin to the bone. Julia had already led her horse out of the barn and was trotting toward the open gate of the corral. Gavin got on his own horse and caught up with her.
Once they were free of the corral, they spurred the horses into a gallop. They came to a moonlit meadow that Gavin recognized from the map. Julia leaned forward in the saddle and got up more speed with her horse. They rode hard for at least an hour until the trail narrowed and the forest grew thicker.
Gavin pulled up on the reins. “We can’t go fast through this. Even if the followers get there before the police do, they won’t be able to catch up with us on foot.” Gavin’s mind whirled with thoughts of what he had to do in the next six to eight hours. Once they got to Madison and got another car from Brandon, where was he going to take Julia? Where would she be safe?
The horses plodded f
orward through the darkness as Gavin contemplated their next move. Julia’s horse had taken the lead. From the way her head tilted sideways, Gavin could tell she was sleeping. She had been through so much. And yet, she held up and remained strong.
He couldn’t do anything until he had a cell phone. Faced with the failure of not being able to get Julia to safety reminded him again of his friend, Joshua. He wondered what Joshua was doing with his life now that he couldn’t race. He regretted leaving Florida so quickly, but still wasn’t sure he would ever be ready to face his friend. Just thinking about it caused guilt to wash through him.
Julia slipped in her saddle but caught herself. His horse moved forward at a trot, so he could come up beside Julia. “Are you getting tired?”
“Yes, I’ve just got to remember not to fall into too deep a sleep.” She straightened in the saddle, but he could hear the weariness in her voice. Julia was exhausted.
“Why don’t you ride with me? I can lead your horse.”
“I don’t want to slow us down,” she said.
“We’ll be fine as long as we just keep moving.” He brought his horse to a halt, then reached out and grabbed her reins. “I’d feel better knowing you were rested.”
“You mean for whatever we might have to deal with up ahead.” Her breath was visible in the dark, cold air.
“Yes.” Gavin scooted forward in the saddle. He had to be honest with her. Once they made an appearance in public, there was risk involved.
“You’re probably right.” She slipped off her horse and placed her foot in Gavin’s stirrup while he grabbed her inside arm above the elbow. She settled behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist.
“Comfortable?”
“Yes.” She pressed her cheek against his shoulder blade. “Hope I can sleep.”
