by Karen Harper
Lyle carried her a good ways, crossed the stream, ignoring its stepping stones and just plunging in. He sloshed cold water as he went, even up into her face and on her back. He was furious, kicking his way across. For a moment she thought he might be taking her clear back to Quinn’s property. Surely he wasn’t going to take her all the way to Falls Lake and drown her, make it look like an accident or suicide. But Meg and Suze would know better.
She managed to cough the wadded plastic toward the front of her mouth, push it out with her tongue, though it would do her no good to scream now. But if someone noticed she was gone, maybe finding that chewed yellow plastic would tell them which way they’d gone—if they didn’t just think it was forest litter from any passerby.
He sat her down on a rock across the stream from where she and Quinn had stopped. Was that only this morning? Did she and Quinn have only the past together?
He did not loosen her wrists. “Don’t bother screaming, because no one is going to hear you this deep in the woods.”
She gasped for breath. “Why don’t you just go on with your life—leave me alone. Find someone else?”
“Oh, I will, but you’ve publicly shamed me, and you don’t do that to someone you claimed—and vowed—to love and marry. You are a very sick woman.”
“Look, Lyle, there’s been a murder near here and the Alaska state troopers are still patrolling this area.”
“I hear the authorities have done their thing and left the scene. And have a suspect in mind.”
Her head snapped up. Had he been talking to someone local or had he read a newspaper? But still, how did he find her?
At least it was getting easier to breathe. Although he had put the gun in the large black leather bag he wore over one shoulder, she made the decision she was going to have to calm and coerce him, not fight him. She would have to lie, not tell him how much she detested him, but she had to know more about something he’d just said.
In as calm a voice as she could manage, she asked, “So you’ve heard about the murder here and the authorities’ investigation and the aftermath? From whom? It was so clever of you to locate me, but how did you do it?”
“A little bird—actually, a big one,” he said, and dared to laugh as if he enjoyed tormenting her, which he no doubt did. Why hadn’t she seen through his controlled facade? Could you ever really know someone you were intimate with and thought you were close to?
“Now let’s talk,” he went on, perching on a rock higher than the one he’d put her on. “Let’s just see if you’re willing to cooperate with me, apologize and see the light—or it’s lights out, pretty baby. Lights out.”
Lights out, but not, she vowed, life out!
32
Lyle leaned back on his rocky seat for a moment, to take his black bag off his shoulder—maybe to keep his gun dry since the stream splashed over some rocks. She needed to risk everything now.
Though she was tied hands and feet, she exploded at him, banging her shoulder into his chest. Had to get that gun in the water, hit his head on a rock—anything! Desperation made her strong and wild.
He hit his head on the pebbled edge of the stream, but he writhed to right himself, got to his feet. She rolled away, but he came at her like a wrestler, looking for a hold, for a pin.
She kicked and struggled, but he dragged her into the cold, frothing water and shoved her in, facedown. She held her breath at first, but that was futile. She was going to suck water into her lungs...stop breathing. He’d untie her then, leave her here, and who knew if a bear would find her, or another killer...like poor Val...
Pictures of those she’d loved flashed through her mind in a vivid blur. Her poor parents would suffer so. Meg, Suze, Chip. Dear Quinn. Her beloved little dog. Quinn or Chip would take Spenser...
Fear nearly drowned her, though the water had not. If only this was a nightmare, but Lyle was real and here.
He stumbled up on the bank, sopping wet, and, breathing hard, hauled her after him. She had to try to play along, not fight him like this. Apparent obedience, acquiescence, even admiration was the only way to deal with this man.
She took a deep breath and steeled herself not to scream at him. Her voice came low and shaky. “I just couldn’t stand to be tied up like this. Panicked. Please, take the tape off. I won’t run. I’ve run enough and am grateful you found me. Our early days together were wonderful. I’d like to try again.”
His expression wavered between distrust and hope. Did she have a chance with this ploy? It made her sick to her very soul, but she had to keep him from using that gun.
“How clever of you to find me,” she went on, still spitting water and even blowing it out her nose. She sucked in another deep, ragged breath. A pain at the back of her head burned. “I just had to get away for a while—to think things out.”
“And have you?” he asked, sitting back on the big rock again and pushing her down to a kneeling position below him.
“Yes, lately I’ve missed home. The way things were. And you were a huge part of that. It’s been hard because I was so angry with you at first for—for being so physical, dominating, but I have begun to realize I missed you, too.”
She assumed he did not know about Quinn, hadn’t seen them together. Could this tactic possibly work? She needed to be untied. She needed that gun. She needed to stop this terrible man she had so stupidly fallen for.
“Okay,” he said with a tight grin she was shocked to see. He was obviously going to gloat. “Connections are how I found you. But I’ll tell you just two words, then no more. License plate.”
That slammed her in the midriff. He’d somehow traced her license plate? Was it recorded when she crossed the Canadian border? By local law enforcement? But that would be the troopers and wouldn’t Kurtz or Hanson have warned her? No, of course it wouldn’t have come through them. But someone must have seen her truck, someone must have located her license plate and her, then contacted the authorities—or found him. But only her cousins and Quinn knew about Lyle, and surely none of them had betrayed her.
She wanted to scream at him, but she said, “As usual, you’re way ahead of me. I regret I panicked and ran. I just couldn’t stay to face you after I’d let you down and ruined what we had.”
She tried to look crestfallen. It didn’t take an acting job to cry. Her tears mingled with the water still on her face. She was scared and angry. She had to get away from this man or get help somehow. But her rescuer was several thousand miles away.
“I didn’t even use a private detective because I didn’t want to be traced, and I knew you could be,” Lyle said, going into a familiar let-me-explain, boasting mode now. “Since you tried to leave me, your life has become one big mistake, Alex. You had everything with me and you threw it away.”
She shook uncontrollably from being wet and chilled as well as from nerves.
“But I must admit,” he said, his voice mocking, “for a stupid woman, you did a fairly good job of covering your tracks online and with your friends. If my contact who traced your license plate had not worked out, my plan B was to call the company that supplied your pretty little packaging materials to give them some song and dance so they tell me your new location, mailing address or whatever, but I didn’t need to leave a trail that way. Bet you thought you didn’t leave one, either, huh?” he said, his voice taunting. Yes, the dominant, pompous, clever Lyle was here, but could she use that against him?
“By the way,” he went on, obviously enjoying himself, “everyone at the office thinks I’m distraught you couldn’t handle the pressure of work and wedding. So, like you, I needed a little time away. I’m supposedly in the Caribbean for a week where I actually have a reservation. But here I am thousands of miles away from there, and you are going to pay for all the insults and trouble you’ve caused.”
Her mind reeled again from the realization he must mean to kill her. If he could
get away with it and get away from here, people might think Val’s murderer had struck again, even if in a different way.
She had to outsmart Lyle but she felt weak and nauseous. With Quinn so far away, would it even pay to try to leave him traceable clues if they left this area, or would this maniac shoot her right here? She could only think of one way to play for time, and she hated herself for that. She had to try again.
“Actually,” she said, “when someone murdered that woman who was also visiting the area, I knew I’d had enough of this place. Everyone hates a murderer. But it really made me miss home even more. Lyle, I’ve been so scared, so confused and lonely for my old life,” she lied. But she was not faking anything when she burst into hysterical tears.
She dared not look up as she sobbed into her still-tied hands. If she could just get him on the trail, get that gun, use it to make him flee or walk him out to the road, then to the lodge. At least Quinn had taught her some wilderness survival skills but not against a deranged man with a gun who must intend to kill her.
“Whatever you think of my falling apart back home,” she choked out, looking up at him, “I should not have run. I just wanted to get away and think things out—then I started missing you, but I knew you’d be furious with me and not want me back, and I couldn’t face that—”
He interrupted. “So who are these women who run the Falls Lake Lodge?”
A new fear sliced through her. She must not let him take her back to the lodge. He’d been asking around town for sure. As much as she needed Meg and Suze to know what had happened, that she was at best a prisoner and, at worst, soon dead, they must not be hurt.
“Cousins I hadn’t seen in years and was kind of estranged from. I told them next to nothing about you—us. Just that I was running from a situation that had panicked me. I wanted to mend bridges with them, just as I—please forgive me, Lyle—wanted to do with you but I was just so overwhelmed when you blew up at me like that.”
He snorted. He didn’t believe her. He fished the gun out of his side pack. Again, she thought he was going to kill her—right now.
“We can’t stay here,” he said, rising. “This water source could draw wild animals or campers and hikers, and we need to be alone. Then we’ll talk and maybe more so you can prove to me you mean what you said.”
Grateful to live longer, to have a chance to escape or stop this man, she thrust her feet out, straight-legged before her. “I can’t go one step with you if you don’t cut these bonds—the ties on my wrist, too. The woods are a dangerous place to be tied and awkward. Please, Lyle. We could go back, try again, start again. Being far away like this, I know what—who—I’ve been missing now.”
He shrugged as if she or that request was nothing to him, but he pulled a big jackknife from his pack and cut her ankle ties, then her wrist ones. As she massaged her wrists, she prayed it wasn’t too late now.
* * *
Quinn was really nervous, not about being on a national TV show tomorrow, but about maybe picking out an engagement ring tomorrow. Besides that, he was upset Alex still wasn’t answering her phone, but he kept telling himself she was busy at the lodge, that she may have screwed up the timing of when he’d said he’d call.
Maybe he should wait until he asked Alex what style of ring she liked. Too many glittered here in the window, perched on dark green waves of velvet that looked like little hills.
The window glass reflected his anxious face superimposed on the rings with diamonds cut in different shapes, mostly round or rectangular cut, some with two-pointed ends. Would she prefer yellow gold or white gold for the ring itself? He did not like the really fussy ones, encrusted with tiny chips of gems crowding the bigger ones. Alex needed a classic-looking, timeless one, not supermodern. And wouldn’t she want one that would kind of fit with the wedding ring? Maybe those should be bought at the same time. Hell, why did he think this would be so straightforward and simple?
Would she expect him to keep his word and come back with a ring? Or was it better to take her into Anchorage to choose one? But he thought if he had one in his hand, ready for her finger, they could get it fitted. But then, as controlled and abused as she’d been by the idiot she had fled from, maybe she’d really want a say on her rings, not just have to accept what he chose.
With pedestrians and traffic rushing by in the background, he heaved a huge sigh and stared again at his reflection in the glass. Alex had said she thought of her lost twin when she looked in mirrors, that she felt she saw her there, staring back. He had felt that same way in forests when he was growing up, that his dad was there watching, waiting...sometimes even wanting to say something, to warn him of danger.
He took out his phone to call Alex again.
* * *
“You go first, and don’t try running ahead or anything funny,” Lyle told her, pointing with his gun at the familiar path toward the compound.
“All right. You tell me which way to go,” she said, hoping her obedient attitude might calm him. Actually, Quinn had once told his students that compasses were only of minimal help in deep, thick woods with rivers and mountains, because travelers were at the mercy of those natural barriers and random, twisting paths. Here she was at Lyle’s mercy, but she had to find some way to turn that gun on him. She prayed harder for that, asking for stamina and a chance to live.
Her legs were still shaking uncontrollably, but she had managed to live through the first trial: Lyle could have shot her and left her in the stream or buried in brush. He’d snapped to nearly drown her, but she had some time left—she hoped.
She intentionally stumbled every now and then, digging the toe of her shoe as best she could into the dirt path, trying to leave directional arrows. Why, she didn’t know, because Quinn was in New York, and she’d be gone one way or the other when he got back, unless Suze or Meg realized she was missing and called for help. Called the troopers, even called Quinn.
Her back blessedly to Lyle—although she felt she was a huge target if he chose to shoot her—she tore a tissue from her pocket into tiny shreds rolled them tight and dropped them piece by piece on the ground.
It seemed hours had gone by, the shadows lengthening. She was thirsty and hungry, still cold from the stream, weak and so scared.
“Lyle, can we stop for a second? Do you have water?”
“I hear there’s a whole freshwater lake of it back here somewhere.”
So he didn’t really know this area, and she did. She’d had the best teacher, and she loved Quinn Mantell, would always love him, no matter how much time she had left. “I know where the lake is,” she told him, but she turned more toward Quinn’s compound in case Josh—anyone—was there.
“Stop!” he ordered when she led him toward the compound. How she wished the troopers were still around. Would Suze and Meg call them when they realized she was gone? Surely her cousins wouldn’t think she’d taken a walk on her own. Oh, please, God, let someone know I’m not just out on my own, that I need help, that I need to find a way to turn that gun on Lyle before he uses it on me.
* * *
Quinn was relieved that at least Suzanne answered her phone. She had caller ID, because she blurted out, “Quinn? Where are you?”
“In the Big Apple, wondering how little Falls Lake is doing. Listen, I’ve been trying to call Alex, and she’s not answering. Maybe her phone is messed up. Can you put her on yours?”
“We can’t find her.”
“What? What does that mean?”
“Meg and Chip are out looking for her around the backyard, the shop, the shed, even going a ways into the forest. She was in the store—left it unlocked—evidently went to the shed, but she’s not there and didn’t even take her purse or phone with her.”
“Is Josh around?”
“He doesn’t have to be here for over an hour. Haven’t seen him, either.”
Quinn felt a belly blow. He
actually doubled over, braced himself against the park bench he’d returned to.
“Suzanne, listen. Don’t call the troopers in yet in case it’s nothing—in case they would go in like storm troopers. Don’t put Spenser on a leash to go into the woods, looking for her, not yet. And get Meg and Chip back in the lodge. Don’t let anyone mess up any footprints on that single forest path that leads away from your back property near the shop. I never should have left, not now. I’m coming back as fast as I can get there. Call me with anything—anything.”
“But you have that big interview tomorrow. Everyone’s psyched to watch.”
“I’ll find a way. Then, if she’s not back, I’ll find her. I’m calling Sam to tell him we need him back at Falls Lake. They were coming back tomorrow. With Val being killed in the woods—hell, I’m sure Alex is all right but I need to be there now.”
“Sam? But he’s still in Anch—” he heard her say as he punched off. How he wished these city trees and bushes and this lake could be the ones at home.
33
Quinn knew Geoff had gone back to work. He called him immediately, insisted he be brought out of what his secretary called “an important meeting with a new sponsor.”
“Please. Now!” he repeated. “This could well be a matter of life and death!”
“Are you all right? Ill or an accid—”
“Now!”
An endless wait, then Geoff’s voice: “Quinn, are you okay? Whatever it is, keep calm. You’re not still upset about my bringing up Alex at lunch, are you, bec—”
“Geoff, you need to cancel my appearance on the TV show tomorrow. I’m serious. This could be life and death, and please don’t ask for a blow-by-blow right now. Time is key, and I have to get back. I need to use your private plane. I’ll pay you for the pilot, time, gas. Please just tell me where to get it, because flying commercial would take too long.”
